Forts and Batteries, North and South

Forts and Batteries, North and South. . At daybreak skirmishing parties of the enemy opened fire...from the adjacent hills....Minie balls are falling within our works. I have no artillery. The snow is falling thickly and the morning is dark. Our men are in the trenches....One man is wounded. Colonel James Edward Rains, garrison commander, March 22, 1862, Many Civil War cannon batteries and forts like the one you see here perch on high places ringing Cumberland Gap. With cannon sited behind rough log walls and earthworks, these small forts, whether manned by troops dressed in blue or gray, could dominate the steep, twisting roads that approached the strategic Gap., Both Union and Confederate regiments spent months at a time here, watching and waiting for the enemy's next move. Here a war of nerves pivoted move on available supplies and flanking movements than on bombardments or bloody assaults., (captions) , Fort Rains or Fort McCook? Confederate soldiers originally built and named this outpost for their commander Colonel James Edward Rains. A Tennessean, Rains died in combat at Stones River in December 1862. Union troops renamed it to honor Ohio General Robert Latimer McCook, who had died near Winchester, Tennessee in August 1862., Bad roads and rough country made these outposts very difficult to resupply. If an attacker cut the supply lines, the scattered forts at Cumberland Gap could not hold out for long., Wartime drawings show this 45-foot by 49-foot gun platform. , Earthen banks were topped by gabions, dirt-filled wicker baskets.