The Sounds of Silence
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By Gordon Berg
12/14/2016 • America's Civil War Magazine
Acoustic shadows bedeviled commanders on both sides during the war.
“I received with astonishment the intelligence of the severe fighting that commenced at 2 o’clock. Not a musket shot had been heard nor did the sound of artillery indicate anything like a battle.” So said Union Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell when he appeared before a military commission investigating his conduct during the October 8, 1862, Battle of Perryville. Buell had to admit sheepishly that for hours during the battle he had been deaf to the fighting, the victim of an atmospheric anomaly known as an “acoustic shadow.” He was not alone. During the war, several engagements would be influenced by the inability of critical military personnel to hear the sounds of battle involving their troops.
In his defense, Buell contended that his inability to hear the sound of battle “was probably caused by the configuration of the ground which broke the sound, and by the heavy wind, which it appears blew from the right to the left during the day.” This explanation, unbeknownst to him, was scientifically correct. According to Charles Ross, a physics professor at Longwood College in Virginia and the recognized expert on Civil War acoustic shadows, the zone of silence that hung over the Perryville area “was temperature-induced refraction, combined with the effects of terrain.” The weather had been hot for weeks, and heated air near the ground pushed the sounds of battle upward. That, combined with the rugged terrain surrounding the battlefield, buffered the sound waves that might have otherwise alerted Buell to the battle taking place less than three miles from his Dorsey Farm headquarters. Also, the wind direction kept the smoke and sounds of the fighting from wafting over the grove where he was enjoying a leisurely afternoon lunch.
http://www.historynet.com/the-sounds-of-silence.htm
