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Photographer: Brian Scott
Taken: September 5, 2008
Caption: Original The First Parallel Marker
Additional Description: In a ravine nearly 400 yards from the Star Fort, the Polish-born engineer, Kosciuszko, trained the Americans in the art of siege warfare. Groups of soldiers whose main duties included building defense works began digging the first section of approach trenches which zig-zagged across the terrain for almost 100 yards.

Digging trenches in the baked red clay required exhausting work. Kosciuszko commented that the "Ground was very hard and approaching very much like Soft Stone..." Intense heat, clouds of mosquitoes, and booming cannon fire from the fort plagued the American sappers.

They completed the first parallel on June 1. This trench, four feet wide and three feet deep, ran 60 yards to intersect Island Ford Road. Troops standing in the first parallel providing covering fire for the sappers who continued the approach tranches toward the fort.

To strengthen their siege works, the Americans used gabions (large earth-filled baskets) and fascines (bundles of tree limbs).
Submitted: September 7, 2008, by Brian Scott of Anderson, South Carolina.
Database Locator Identification Number: p34640
File Size: 2.457 Megabytes

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