Earl J. Hess - Into the Crater: The Mine Attack at Petersburg

INTO THE CRATER

INTO THE CRATER

THE MINE ATTACK AT PETERSBURG

EARL J. HESS

2010 University of South Carolina

Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2010

Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press, 2023

www.uscpress.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:

Hess, Earl J.

Into the Crater : the mine attack at Petersburg / Earl J. Hess.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-57003-922-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Petersburg Crater, Battle of, Va., 1864. I. Title.

E476.93.H473 2010

973.737dc22

2010005639

Front cover photograph: Earliest known photograph of the crater, G985CWP27.27, U.S. Army Military History Institute

ISBN 978-1-64336-436-0 (ebook)

For Pratibha and Julie

There is a peculiar uniqueness, however, about the Battle of the Crater, that had no parallel in our civil war.

G. N. SAUSSY, 1st Georgia and Jeff Davis Legion

But I should like first to go again and see the place.

I have always wished to. To many living men the Mine at Petersburg is the most vivid memory of their lives.

LT. JAMES W. STEELE, Company B, 43rd United States Colored Troops

Forty seven years ago today I was in front of Petersburg Va, and witnessed the explosion of that mine that Burnsides planted.

It was a never to be forgotten sight of death and devestation.

WILLIAM HANNIBAL THOMAS, 5th United States Colored Troops

Then Ambrose, the faithful, bethought him twould be fine

Just to surprise the rebels with a small powder mine

And blow up their batteries higher than a kite

And charge upon their rifle pits & put them all to flight

This mine it was exploded just along about daylight

Up went the rebels, cannons, Oh! It was a horrid sight

The niggers they pitched boldly in, but quickly they pitched out

And instead of Johnny Reb our troops were put to rout.

Sung by 3rd Battalion, 19th U.S. Infantry

Maps and Diagrams

On the clear, still morning of July 30, 1864, the personal fate of many men hung insecurely on whether eight thousand pounds of gunpowder would explode as planned. Two soldiers worked more than an hour to locate and repair a fault in the fuse. For sixteen thousand Federals waiting to follow up the explosion with a sudden attack, the minutes seemed never to end; but for fifteen hundred Confederate soldiers holding a shallow angle in their line called Pegrams Salient, it was just another morning in the lengthening campaign around Petersburg, Virginia. They had no idea of the drama taking place twenty-five feet under the bare earth. Finally, at 4:44 A.M., the earth began to rumble and split open, and fire engulfed the salient in flame, debris, and death.

That moment was a potential watershed in the campaign at Petersburg, and one of the most dramatic moments of the Civil War. The Federals might have shattered Gen. Robert E. Lees defensive line guarding the city that morning if things had worked as planned following the mine explosion. How much such an event would have shortened the life of the Confederacy is difficult to predict, but the Northerners had reason to hope for the ultimate triumph as the dust and bodies began to descend after the mine explosion created an awesome fountain of debris that rose as much as two hundred feet into the air.

The Crater Battle, or as contemporaries often called it, the Mine Attack, was the centerpiece of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grants Third Offensive at Petersburg. In preparation since June 25, the mine attack was the most complex operation of the entire campaign. The construction of a 510-foot-long underground gallery, packed at the end with four tons of black powder to be touched off by an improvised fuse, was the most difficult aspect of the preparation. In addition Grant maneuvered troops so as to draw most of Lees army to the north side of the James River, rendering the lines south of the Appomattox vulnerable by July 30. As Grant later put it, So fair an opportunity will probably never occur again for carrying fortifications.

Yet the Union effort collapsed soon after the dust settled over what was left of Pegrams Salient, resulting in a confused, and confusing, battle. The Federals got stuck in the five-hundred-yard breach of the Confederate line. Resistance by survivors of the blast held the Federals within the captured works for four hours as Lees last reserves made their way to the scene of action. Still it took three separate counterattacks and much hand-to-hand fighting before the Southerners restored their line.

Most of the fighting in the Crater Battle took place on a severely constricted battleground, cut up by the jagged hole left by the mine explosion and a jumbled maze of Confederate bombproofs and traverses. Racial hatred reared its head when the Confederates realized that a division of black Union troops participated in the attack. Enraged Southerners killed many blacks in cold blood after they surrendered. In the end, July 30 seemed a day of miraculous deliverance for the Confederates, a day of depressing failure for the North, and a day of immense suffering for hundreds of soldiers who were blown up, shot, or captured on that sun-baked battlefield.

Because of its unique features, the Crater Battle has become widely known among Civil War enthusiasts, but it has not yet been thoroughly studied by historians. The best previously published book is Michael A. Cavanaugh and William Marvels The Battle of the Crater: The Horrid Pit, June 25August 6, 1864 (1989). Based on sound research and combining analysis and narrative, Cavanaugh and Marvel provide the best short description of the battle, limited only by the constricted parameters of the H. E. Howard series of books on Virginia battles. John Cannans The Crater: Burnsides Assault on th Confederate Trenches, July 30, 1864 (2002) contains another telling of the story with a discussion of what one can see on the battlefield today. It was published as part of the Battleground America Guides. Alan Axelrods The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil Wars Cruelest Mission (2007) provides a short narration of the event that is based on a handful of published sources, mostly of a secondary nature. The latest book about the Crater Battle, John F. Schmutzs The Battle of the Crater: A Complete History (2008), is based on much wider research than Axelrods book. Schmutz discusses the many facets of the subject more fully than any other author, but his interpretation of many points is open to question.

No previous author has yet conducted definitive research with all the sources that are available on the Crater Battle, or mined those sources for a deeper understanding of the tactical experiences and personal stories of units and men involved in it, or questioned key assumptions about the engagement. The battle deserves such an approach, for it was a unique operation, filled with an unusual degree of human drama. Several old ideas regarding the Union failure need to be reevaluated. Were the Federals so paralyzed by the awesome sight of the crater that they simply stayed in the hole instead of moving out to continue the attack as planned? Was Brig. Gen. James H. Ledlies penchant for staying in the rear, instead of leading his division forward, the real cause of the failure? Should we trust Lt. Col. Henry Pleasantss version of affairs, wherein he portrayed the West Pointtrained engineers of the army as trying to hamper his mine-digging effort? Does Brig. Gen. William Mahones division truly deserve all the credit for saving Petersburg on July 30 through their counter-attacks against the Union soldiers who held the breach? To what extent did racially motivated killings take place during Mahones counterattacks? The answers certainly would enrich our understanding of the battle on July 30.