Confederate forces at the Battle of Rivers' Bridge were confident they could stop another direct Union assault, but they feared attacks against the flanks of their thin line because they lacked enough men to resist strikes at its ends. Lieutenant Colonel Edwin H. Bacon of the 32nd Georgia Infantry told Major General Lafayette McLaws on February 3, 1865, that he could hold his position until next Christmas if the flanks could be protected. In front of the Confederate fortifications, abatis of sharpened and intertwined tree branches formed a crude obstacle that stopped attackers and exposed them to murderous close-range gunfire.