Exterior Rifle Pit

One tactic used to keep Union attackers from gaining entrance to Fort Desperate was the construction of an exterior rifle pit. Colonel Benjamin W. Johnson of the 15th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, commander of Fort Desperate, said he had a small flanking pit constructed outside, or rather under, his works and to the left of them, from which he continued a deadly fire until the enemy left the ditch. He said the pit was subterranean and could not be seen from the outside, and could not be taken by the enemy unless they first took his entire ditches or rifle pits. Confederate riflemen could fire from this pit on any Union soldier attempting to scale Fort Desperate's parapet wall.

Louisiana · United States