July 30, 1864—Having tried readily repulsed head-on and flanking maneuvers against Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant hoped for greater success with one of the most daring operations of the Civil War: a mine that would be exploded under Confederate entrenchments east of Petersburg, Va., panicking the defenders so much that the position could be easily taken.
It seemed like the kind of audacious scheme that could end the drawn-out war—sort of like British General James Wolfe’s scaling of the seemingly impregnable Plains of Abraham that resulted in the French loss of North America in the Battle of Quebec in 1759.
But in war, as in so much else, execution is everything. Unfortunately, the Battle of the Crater, as it came to be called, produced a fearsome loss of life for the Army of the Potomac, in a campaign that was already piling up so many casualties that Northern anti-war sentiment was running at a fever pitch more than three years after Fort Sumter.
All might be fair in love and war, but you couldn’t tell that to the man responsible for pitching the idea of the mine to Grant: IX Corps Commander Ambrose Burnside, whose principal contribution to history turned out to be the flamboyant mutton chops that wayward linguists, in a truly backhanded tribute to its progenitor, called “sideburns.”
Before the war, Burnside was supposedly jilted at the altar by a Southern belle named Lotte Moon. Afterwards, he began to sport the tonsorial style that made him famous—in my humble opinion, to hide the deep shade of crimson the Virginia teenager had left him with.
Burnside was no luckier in war, believe it or not. In contrast to some of the vainglorious louts who preceded Grant in leading the Union effort in the eastern theater of operations, Burnside begged off—twice--when Lincoln asked him to lead the Army of the Potomac, saying he wasn’t worthy of command. At the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, where he ordered one fruitless charge after another upon Marye’s Heights, he demonstrated how right he was to be modest.
Now, in the coming engagement, as the Federals attempted to end what was looking more and more like a remorseless siege, Burnside showed once against the decency and vision that made others momentarily think him fit for command, along with the lack of nerve that left his troops slaughtered.
What I like about General Grant is that, when stymied, he always sought another way, even if unconventional, to advance his goal, most memorably in his Vicksburg campaign the year before. That situation occurred again here, when Burnside came bearing an idea from the 48th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Several soldiers in the regiment, hailing from the Schuykill Valley coal-mining region, looked out at the Confederate position ahead of them and said they could blow it “out of existence if we could run a mineshaft under it.”
In his legendary three-volume history of the Civil War, Shelby Foote noted that the commander of the Army of the Potomac, General George Gordon Meade, assented to Burnside’s scheme at least partly because it would keep his men busy, and there seemed no better ideas at hand besides another assault upon the rebels that might end in a bloodbath.
Maybe so, but that’s not why Grant agreed. His Personal Memoirs outline his rationale for going along with the idea:
* He didn’t want Lee to transfer troops west, where they were desperately needed against William Tecumseh Sherman, who was advancing at twice the speed into enemy territory as the Army of the Potomac.
It seemed like the kind of audacious scheme that could end the drawn-out war—sort of like British General James Wolfe’s scaling of the seemingly impregnable Plains of Abraham that resulted in the French loss of North America in the Battle of Quebec in 1759.
But in war, as in so much else, execution is everything. Unfortunately, the Battle of the Crater, as it came to be called, produced a fearsome loss of life for the Army of the Potomac, in a campaign that was already piling up so many casualties that Northern anti-war sentiment was running at a fever pitch more than three years after Fort Sumter.
All might be fair in love and war, but you couldn’t tell that to the man responsible for pitching the idea of the mine to Grant: IX Corps Commander Ambrose Burnside, whose principal contribution to history turned out to be the flamboyant mutton chops that wayward linguists, in a truly backhanded tribute to its progenitor, called “sideburns.”
Before the war, Burnside was supposedly jilted at the altar by a Southern belle named Lotte Moon. Afterwards, he began to sport the tonsorial style that made him famous—in my humble opinion, to hide the deep shade of crimson the Virginia teenager had left him with.
Burnside was no luckier in war, believe it or not. In contrast to some of the vainglorious louts who preceded Grant in leading the Union effort in the eastern theater of operations, Burnside begged off—twice--when Lincoln asked him to lead the Army of the Potomac, saying he wasn’t worthy of command. At the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, where he ordered one fruitless charge after another upon Marye’s Heights, he demonstrated how right he was to be modest.
Now, in the coming engagement, as the Federals attempted to end what was looking more and more like a remorseless siege, Burnside showed once against the decency and vision that made others momentarily think him fit for command, along with the lack of nerve that left his troops slaughtered.
What I like about General Grant is that, when stymied, he always sought another way, even if unconventional, to advance his goal, most memorably in his Vicksburg campaign the year before. That situation occurred again here, when Burnside came bearing an idea from the 48th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Several soldiers in the regiment, hailing from the Schuykill Valley coal-mining region, looked out at the Confederate position ahead of them and said they could blow it “out of existence if we could run a mineshaft under it.”
In his legendary three-volume history of the Civil War, Shelby Foote noted that the commander of the Army of the Potomac, General George Gordon Meade, assented to Burnside’s scheme at least partly because it would keep his men busy, and there seemed no better ideas at hand besides another assault upon the rebels that might end in a bloodbath.
Maybe so, but that’s not why Grant agreed. His Personal Memoirs outline his rationale for going along with the idea:
* He didn’t want Lee to transfer troops west, where they were desperately needed against William Tecumseh Sherman, who was advancing at twice the speed into enemy territory as the Army of the Potomac.
* He knew that Rebel “intelligence” had already sensed the building of the mine—and had completely exaggerated its scope, believing it would not only encompass the Confederate entrenchments but the entire city of Petersburg itself. An ill-defined threat, Grant believed, would work as much to the advantage of the operation as no knowledge of the mine at all.
* He saw the mine explosion as part of a larger campaign in which a diversion would be created—Lee would be drawn away from the south side of the James River, leaving only 18,000 men to defend the Petersburg rail hub that Richmond, the Confederate capital, relied on as its transportation lifeline.
Burnside, delighted that someone was taking his ideas seriously again after the Battle of Fredericksburg, had his men working on the tunnel for a month before the date set for the assault. He’d even picked out the division that would lead the way: an African-American unit that he had admirably prepared for what he hoped would be their desired hour of glory, one that would make Northern politicians and generals think of newly freed slaves as heroes rather than ditch-diggers.
From this point on, Burnside made one mistake after another. It all started when Meade countermanded his assignment of the well-drilled African-American regiments to lead the assault at the Crater.
Meade sensed—correctly—that reporters were denying him credit for his army’s advances and lumping its reverses at his feet. (The media were punishing him for discipline he’d meted out to a Philadelphia reporter for an unfavorable article.) No way did Meade want to be blamed for ordering untried African-American troops on a risky mission that could unleash a bloodbath. Use the white divisions instead, he told Burnside.
Burnside was doubly dismayed—he’d been told this only the day before the battle, and the fresh black regiments he’d trained would now take a backseat to white divisions.
Now began four major mistakes made by Burnside that doomed a plan that had promised so much:
* He was so dispirited by the change of plans that, rather than pick the leader of the charge himself, he left it to his division commanders to pick lots for the honor. The “winner” was Gen. James Ledlie, the least experienced of the three.
Burnside was doubly dismayed—he’d been told this only the day before the battle, and the fresh black regiments he’d trained would now take a backseat to white divisions.
Now began four major mistakes made by Burnside that doomed a plan that had promised so much:
* He was so dispirited by the change of plans that, rather than pick the leader of the charge himself, he left it to his division commanders to pick lots for the honor. The “winner” was Gen. James Ledlie, the least experienced of the three.
* Burnside had not acted to clear away the debris and entanglements that inevitably got in the way of his troops after the fuse was finally lit—after a delay of an hour and a half. The troops were left to make their way through the opening in painfully slow single file.
* Burnside had allowed to be chosen, in Ledlie, someone not only inefficient but nowhere to be found when his raw troops needed him to guide them through the confusion of the explosion. The reason why? Ledlie was swigging on a bottle of rum far away from the lines, as he was wont to do when the stress got to him—or, as Grant bitingly put it, he had “found some safe retreat to get into before they started.”
* Burnside failed to implement quickly orders that could have spared thousands of Union casualties. As Union troops flooded into the Crater, they stalled and became sitting ducks for Confederate reinforcements. Around 9:30 am, nearly five hours after the “immense mushroom” rose from where the explosion occurred, Meade gave the order to cease a follow-up attack and withdraw. Burnside, however, did not transmit this for nearly three hours, leading to a horrific loss of life. (Much of this was perpetrated by Rebels incensed not only by the prospect of losing a battle to former slaves, but also by being blown to Kingdom Come while sleeping. )
What transpired next between the hapless Burnside and Meade—whom someone memorably described as “a damned old goggle-eyed snapping turtle”—was something to behold. Meade began to dress Mr. Mutton Chops down, demonstrating, in a staffer’s description that I love, insults that “went far toward confirming one’s belief in the wealth and flexibility of the English language as a medium of personal dispute.”
(It kind of reminds me of George Washington at the Battle of Monmouth, where, rounding upon insubordinate general Charles Lee, he is said to have turned the air blue with his language for miles around.)
After that exchange of views, Meade wanted Burnside cashiered immediately, court-martialed for incompetence and God only knows what else. Grant—who described the battle as “the saddest affair I have witnessed in this war”—inclined toward the subtler approach: sending Burnside home on leave. That’s what happened in the end.
Burnside finally found an arena he enjoyed: politics, serving as governor and then U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. But in the years after his death in 1881, historians tended to remember that 4,000 Union troops, against only 1,000 Confederates, became casualties because of his botched operation at the Crater.
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