Redoubt 2

Redoubt 2 was part of the Confederate defensive line across the Peninsula at Williamsburg. Like the other fortifications in the line, it had platforms for cannons, a magazine within the parapet walls, a surrounding ditch, and abatis beyond the ditch made from interwoven branches of trees felled to clear fields of fire toward the Federals and to hinder infantry assaults. Redoubt 2 did not come under direct attack during the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, 1862. Confederate Capt. Alfred L. Rives, acting state engineer, spent the better part of a year constructing the line. When he arrived in Williamsburg on May 12, 1861, work ordered several weeks earlier had not begun, and although Col. Benjamin S. Ewell had surveyed a line, he had not yet selected defensive positions. On orders from Gen. Robert E. Lee, Rives took over the project, and by mid-July he reported that Fort Magruder was nearly finished except for the last closing line, with the front completed and platforms for guns and magazines in order. Aside from the defenses at Tutter's Neck, or Redoubt 1, most of the redoubts intended to flank Fort Magruder at quarter-mile intervals were still under construction or had not been started, and the defensive line was not wholly completed during the following year. Alfred Landon Rives, born in Paris, France, in 1830 while his father William Cabell Rives was the U.S. ambassador to France, studied engineering at Virginia Military Institute, the University of Virginia, and the French government engineering school. Before the Civil War, he worked on the Virginia Midland Railway, the U.S. Capitol, and the Cabin John Bridge across the Potomac River. During the war he became acting chief of the Confederate Engineer Bureau, and afterward he served as an engineer for several railroads in the U.S., Panama, and Mexico.

Williamsburg, Virginia · United States