Despite several accounts to the contrary, there were no earthworks on the Union line on the morning of the 14th with the exception of a small work on the extreme left dug by the 9th Illinois Cavalry that was never used. There are persistent stories that the Federals spent the night of the 13/14th entrenching and were well dug in by morning. The Official Records note how Smith redeployed his line several hundred yards to the west around dawn. Had the soldiers been digging all night they would have been moved out of their works.

Corssland's Kentuckians never faced any works during thier tragic charge. Neither Murray's brigade nor Wolf's to thier left built any that morning. On the right of Murray, Wood's brigade of Mower's division, the 12th Iowa Infantry dropped the rails of a fence to make a barrier about 18 inches high. Moore's division took advantage of the low ridge and the high weeds that shielded them from view.

In the afternoon, when the fighting had subsided, the Union was very busy constructing works along most of the line. They not only dug in but used timbers from the abandoned homes in old Harrisburg and a few cotton bales as well. These works were found by the Confederates the afternoon of the 15th and it was widely believed they had been in place from the start.

I have looked at over a hundred Union accounts (diaries, letters, memoirs, etc.) and not a single one mentions building any works until the afternoon of the 14th.

Tom