By Joseph S. Stern, Jr.

April 18, 1957

U.S. Grant

Grant's strategy was simple enough; hammer away at Lee's army until it was destroyed. Lee's job was to keep Grant away from Richmond, the heartland of the Confederacy, and to inflict such losses on Grant that he would abandon the offensive and the North would despair of victory, and turn Lincoln out at the Fall elections. Lee was holding on; already there had been many "peace" rallies in the North because the Union armies couldn't bottle him up.

In the 1864 campaigns Grant enjoyed most of the advantages. He had numerical superiority of 2 to 1. and no difficulty in getting reinforcements. His armies were well fed, well-clothed, well equipped, never lacking in arms. As he took the offensive, he had the initiative.

Robert E. Lee

West Point Military Atlas - Overland Campaign

On June 14 Grant crossed the James River; the Wilderness Campaign was over. On the face of it, Lee was the victor. He had prevented Grant from breaking his lines, had saved Richmond, and inflicted heavy losses on Grnat. Yet Grant had largely achieved his own primary objective; he had so punished Lee that the Army of Northern Virginia never fully recovered.

What was Grant to do? If he could not dostroy Lee's amry in battle, he might wear it down by siogo; if he could not take Richmond from the North or East, he might take it from the South. Under the protection of his gunboats, he crossed the James in a skillful maneuver and began to striko at Richmond from the South.

Petersburg, about twenty-fivo miles South of Richmond, was the key to the Confederate Capitol. Through it ran a wholo network of railroads connecting with tho South and East. If Grant could cut across these he would isolate Richmond; even more, he could cut Lee's army off from its supplios.

Grant settled down to besiege Petersburg wth a numerical superiority of 2 to 1. He extended his lines even farthor to the West, thus forcing Lee to extend his lines in turn. Evontually Lee was holding thirty-five miles of defensive works; with his lines stretched thin, they wore bound to snap somewhere sooner or later. The siege turned out to be the most prolonged of the war. All through June the two armies stood in their entrenchments, sniping at each other and wilting in the broiling sun. So formidable were the Confederate defensives that a break-through seemed impossible.

The trenches ran South from the Appomatox River, following the tops of low ridges. For all anyone could see, tho armies might stay there forever. There had beon no rain for weeks, the dust was inches deep. Ono campaigner had this to say, "One's mouth was so full of dust that you didn't want your teeth to touch each other." 110 degree heat was doing more harm than the Rebels.

Each regiment in the line dug a broad trench, and on the side facing the enemy there was a solid wall of logs, with dirt banked up boyond it. Several yards in front of this there was a ditch, with the earth from it being added t the pile in front of the logs, until tho embankment was six or eight foot high and a dozen feet thick. In front of tho trenches, fifty or a hundred yards nearer the enemy, there was an abatis, much of tho ground being timbered. Trees were felled with their tops pointing toward the foe; the butts viere embedded in shallow trenches, tho branches sharpened and bound together, so that it was almost impossible to get through them.

At intervals leading to tho rear there were covered ways which were deep trenches zigzagged to take advantage of the ground and built so that the men could walk to the firing line from the rear without being exposed. On every hill or knoll there was a fort, a square enclosure of earth and logs with gunposts. They were so arranged that there was no place in front that their fire could not reach. Further to the rear there were "bomb-proof" square holes in the earth, roofed with logs and dirt. Men could hide thre when the enemy fired shells.

Tho Confederate line was exactly like tho Union line. There was not the slightest chance that any part of either line could be taken by storm so long as a handful of defenders remained on duty and stayed awake. The dust and sickening air and hot sun wore over everything.

Toward the further end of the line the rival trenches were one-half mile apart, so there was much less shooting. There was a littlo stream between the lines. When left alone, without officers, the men of both sides observed an informal truce and came down to the stream together to fill their canteens.

But this was the exception. The two armies werc playing for keeps. On most of the lines the trenches were not far apart. Sharpshooters with long range rifles found vantage points a little behind the lines and kept their weapons trained on the firing slits in the opposing trenches, so that a man who looked out to see was likely to get a bullet in his face.

Ambrose E. Burnside

On the Rebel side, the trench was also deep and strong. They too had an abatis out front. 500 yards behind, the ground rose to a long ridge and just over this ridge was the Jerusalem Plank Road leading into Petersburg.

The Federal trenches at this point were manned by veterans 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry - part of the IX Army corps. They came mostly from the antracite region of Schuykill County, Pa. The 48th was commanded by Lt. Col. Harry Pleasants. Coming from mining country and having many miners, the 48th knew a great deal about digging.

West Point Military Atlas - Petersburg Siege

From this chance remark developed a rapid exchange of information upwards. Pleasants passed the suggestion along to his division commander General Potter, who inspected the ground around the trench, thought well of the idea and took it to Corps Commander Gen. Burnside. Burnside, frustrated from the long stalemate was receptive to trying anything new, and took it to Amy Commander, General George Meade.

In any war, in any army, there are always internal jealousies between branches of the service. Other men's ideas were not always accepted graciously. In this case Meade's engineers tried to throw cold water on the miner's idea. The mine shaft would have to be 500 feet, and no shaft of that length could possibly be ventilated, the men who dug it would suffocate if they wore not crushed by falling earth - so said the engineers. Besides, the Rebels would find out about it and prepare for it.

Meado was influenced by his engineers but was still intrigued enough with the idea to take it to Grant. Grant, anxious to break the Confederate front, and get on with the war, was receptive and gave approval to go further with Pleasant's suggestions.

And so, on June 27, the bizarre scheme was launched, Pleasants was given the ball. Ho divided his men into mine details and led them to a spot on the protected side of the ravine, where the Rebels could not observe their activity and put them to work. Lacking picks, they began using their bayonets.

Later picks and shovels were supplied and in a short time the shaft had progressed to the point where timbers were needed to shore up the ceiling and walls. From the start, Meade's engineers were supposed to lend support, but jealous of Grant's endorsement of Pleasants, refused the Pennsylvanian aid almost whenever he asked for it. Pleasants asked for timber; the engineers sent none. Pleasants had to send a detail from his own regiment into the ravine behind the lines to tear down an old railroad bridge and secure timber there. Later ho discovered an abandoned saw mill five miles to the rear and put it in operation.

He needed hand-barrows to carry the dirt out of the tunnel and dispose of it somewhere the Rebels could not see it. He sought those from the engineers; they refused him. So Pleasants collected cracker boxes and reinforced them with iron hoops taken from pork barrels, and nailed handles on them.

The tunnel was five feet high and four feet wide at the bottom. As the work progressed, when he was 200 feet into the hillside Pleasants felt it was time to make some calculations about the exact spot where the powder magazine ought to go. He asked the engineers for instruments and as with other requests, they refused him. So, Burnside, who was backing the project, secured a measuring instrument, a theodolite, from friends in Washington.

Pleasants had to take the theodolite right into the front 1ine and make his observations above the trench line. Rebel snipers were apt to shoot him while he was thus occupied. To get around this, he had a few soldiers put their caps on ramrods and raise them above the parapet. While rebel sharpshooters fired at those, Pleasants draped some burlap over his head and instrument and calculated unobserved.

As the work progressed farther and farther into the hillside, ventilation did become a problem as the engineers predicted it would. Pleasants very cleverly solved the problem, however, by digging a vertical shaft near the tunnel, but behind the front trench. The upper end of this shaft or chimney came out unobtusively in a clump of bushes; the lower end into the tunnel itself. Next, he built a square tube of boards all the way from the mouth to the inner end where the vertical shaft was. By building a fire at this point, smoke went up the chimney and the draft pulled the bad air out of the tunnel - at the same time fresh air was drawn in through the wooden tube.

On July 17 the inner end of the tunnel was squarely beneath the Rebel fort, 20 foot underground, and 510 from the entrance. A 75 ft. shaft ran across this inner end forming a large T, the crossbar directly under the Confederates. The miners could hear them tramping overhead. his mine was ready for its charge, When Pleasants reported that the Confederates by that time had discovered the Yanks were digging same, and began sinking counter shafts of their own in an effort to find it.

Deserters to the Union cause reported wild rumors, were making the rounds of the Rebel lines. Some even believed the Yanks were undermining the whole of Petersburg. There was much uneasiness. Southern newspapers reported Union mine activity in ominous tones. Rebel luck was bad in locating the mine. Their engineers misjudged the direction the tunnel ran; their countermining shafts failed to find it. They put men in underground listening posts but since Pleasants had stopped working, they heard nothing.

Four tons of powder were to be used as a charge, and these were placed in the 1ateral gallery of the T in 8 open topped wooden boxes. These boxes were connected by wooden troughs half filled with powder. The engineers promised Pleasants a supply of wire and a battery to touch off the charge, but playing their part of villains in the melodrama perfectly, they never made delivery. Pleasants had to use ordinary fuses spliced together. The fuses spliced tho main shaft was filled with earth for 36 ft. from the place where it crossed the T. Pleasants never doubted that the mine would blow a hole in the Confederate line, but few except Burnside ahd any confidence that it would. But now all was ready and waiting.

The ridge behind the Confederate trenches was not very high. It lay as a challenge to the Federal troops, because if they once reached the crest the war might well be over. They would then be in the rear of the entire Confederate line and would control Petersburg. The crest was less than half a mile from the Union lime, with nothing between but the Confederate trench, which was about to be blown out of existence. The Pennsylvania miners had brought the end of the war to immediate view. Never before had there been a chance like this.

Grant readied his overall "master plan". North of the James River, right in front of Richmond, there were miles of Rebel trenches thinly manned. It was the most vulnerable part of Lee's whole line. A Union attack there was certain to pull Confederate reinforcements to that area in a hurry. When Grant thought of ways to help Burnside's assault he naturally turned to the near empty forts near Richmond.

On July 27 Grant sent a considerable force to threaten Richmond works. It looked to Lee like the long awaited attack on Richmond was going to commence. Lee began calling up veteran divisions out of the Petersburg lines so that by July 29 he had half his army guarding Richmond, leaving only 18,000 in front of Petersburg. Grant's feint front had worked beautifully.

Burnside's big attack was scheduled for 3:30 A.M. July 30. Under cover of darkness some of Grant's troops came back to the Petersburg lines from Richmond during the night of the 29th. General Warren was ready to support Burnside on the left, General Ord on the right. A powerful mass of artillery had been quietly moved into position during the night: 80 field pieces, 46 large mortars, 18 4 1/2 inch siege guns - all placed so they could sweep the Confederate position.

Burnside was to attack the moment the mine was sprung. He was to go straight for the crest of the ridge. Speed was the all important element. To move troops fast Burnside's parapets and abatis were to be leveled by the engineers during the night so that troops could advance rapidly. Also, engineer parties were to be at the head of the attacking columns to remove Confederate obstructions.

Burnside had four divisions of about 3,000 men each. Three of these had been on the line all along and were tired, so he selected the fourth under General Ferrero to spearhead the attack. The plan was perfectly logical but Ferrero's troops were entirely colored - they had never been battle tested - they were the first colored troops the Union used.

The great question was: would negroes make good fighters? As ex-slaves they were used to servile obedience and for the most part were illiterate. The administration had been driven to the use of colored troops - as an experiment - partially by the abolitionists and partly because of lack of white man-power. p> At the last minute Meade made one change in the plan. He insisted that colored troops must not be used to spearhead the attack; this must be done by whites. Burnside objected, insisting that Ferrero's was the only fresh division., but Meade refused to yield, claiming the colored troops were new, never under fire, never tried and this operation required the best troops. If it proved a failure., it would be said that we are shoving those. people ahead to be killed because we do not care anything about them. This couln't be said if we put white troops in front. Grant upheld Meade's reasoning.

The mine was to go off in less than twelve hours and Burnside had to change his plan in a hurry. Meade's orders took the wind out of his sails and upset him so that he couldn't think straight from that moment on. To pick one division of the remaining three to lead the attack, the simple expedient of drawing straws was used. The fate of an army and possibly a nation hinged on the choice of the straw. The Army of the Potomac was led to disaster many times, and usually because a change was. made to a. well-intentioined plan at the last moment.

James Ledlie

Burnside was considered to be an ill-fated general in later history books, but in tracing his career one can find that hie covered up his mediocrity by gambling. He was willing to risk everything on the turn of a card. During the Mexican War he had almost been cashiered. He knew Ledlie was weak, but was willing to let the luck of the draw stand.

Three-thirty A.M. came. The high command was nervious; the artillery was ready, Ledlie's men were standing up in the trenches, tense; the reserves were restless. The fuse was lit. About 200 Confederates were sleeping in the work above -- "Sleeping traquilly, a sleep from which they would wake in eternity."

3:40 and no explosion. 4 P.M. and nothing had happened. Grant became impatient and was ready to order the charge anyway. Meade's engineers secretyly gloated on the apparent failure of the mine to go off. Pleasants was beside himself, asked for his mine boss Sgt. Harry Reese to go into the tunnel and see what was the matter.

In as ticklish an assignment as the war could produce, Reese crawled 400 ft. through the dark tunnel, expecting at any minute to be blown to bits. He got to the fuse and after fumbling around found the spark had gone out where one fuse had been spliced to another. He went back for a new fuse, but another soldier Lt. Jacob Douty was already coming in with one. Together they made the splice lit the spark and came out of the tunnel as fast as they could.

And then it happened. In the words of an eye witness "Suddenly the earth trembled under our feet, an enormous mass sprang into the air. A mass without form or shape, full of red flames and carried on a bed of lightening flashes mounted toward heaven with a detonation of thunder. It spread out like a sheaf, like an immense mushroom whose skin seemed to be of fire and its head of smoke. Then everything appeared to break up and fall back in a rain of earth, mixed with rocks, with beams, timbers and mangled human bodies leaving floating in the air a cloud of white smoke, slowly rising, and a cloud of gray dust which fell slowly. The fort had disappeared. In its place had opened a gaping gulf more than 200 feet long by 50 ft. wide and 25 ft. to 30 ft. deep. Immediately, all our batteries opened at once on the enemy's entrenchments. The projectiles whistled, roared, burst."

There were more guns being fired than the Union Army had fired during the great artillery duel at Gettysburg. But they were firing too soon. The Confederates were stunned, and of course temporarily wiped out where the mine had exploded, but the Union was not moving fast to take advantage of the situation.

The order for the charge was sounded. Ledlie's men started forward, but in the desperate hours of waiting the orders had never been given to level the Union's own parapet, so that a line of battle could swing up out of the trench and go forward in a fighting formation. The leading men were standing in the bottom of an eight foot ditch, loaded down with muskets, cartridge boxes and personal gear, and were so burdened that they could not scale their own wall.

In a frenzy the lead men tore down sandbags, made a clumsy sort of stairway with them, and finally a thin trickle of them stumbled forward, but wholly disoraanized from lack of leadership. Groping up the slope they came to the place where the Confederate redoubt had been and found themselves looking into a great smoking crater.

Again, an eye eyewitness report "Over 180 feet of the Rebel line had been blown up. In its place was a huge chasm. All around this crater balanced on its rim and hurdled over the ground on every side were big hunks of solid clay, broken timbers, dismounted guns. Down at the bottom was more of the same, including many human bodies. Some Southerners still living, had been buried to their waists, others were head downward, their legs protruding into the air. As we came upon the scene we were tupefied. Some men slid and scrambled down into the crater and began to uproot the buried enemy."

Pleasant's plan could not possibly have worked better. The Rebel defenders had a gap 300 yards wide in their line. All the IX Corps had to do was march through rapidly and take the ridge. At 5 A.M. of July 30 victory was only one-half an undefended mile away. Flushed with the initial success of the explosion, some war correspondents sent messages back that a great victory was in the offing.

But the tragedy of allowing Ledlie's division to spear-head the attack now came into sharp focus. Ledlie, himself, a complete coward, was hiding in a bomb shelter 400 yards behind the line dead drunk. He never saw the explosion, the crater or the charge. In a stupor, he dispatches hap-hazard orders for everyone to move to the crest of the ridge. And Burnside, back with the artillery, was unaware that anything was wrong.

The operation ideas "snafued" from the start. Thousands of men were committed to battle to fight and die under incompetent, irresponsible leaders. The story of bungling, fumbling Union generalship, with broken chain of command, was repeated all through the war until the closing months. The Battle of the Crater only serves to illustrate the breakdown at its worst. In his Memoirs, Grant admitted "the effort was a stupendous failure".

Without a leader, Ledlie's whole division became a confused mob out of control. Mlost of it was jammed in the bottom of the crater. Two reserve divisions under Potter and Wilcox began to move forward. Slowly, though, because they moved up through the covered way which was only wide enough for two or three men abreast. However, they did make the empty Confederate trenches to the left and right of the crater, lining up on each side of Ledlie's disorganized division.

Meanwhile the Confederates were rapidly coming to. In contrast to the Union's, their chain of command was superb. Lacking in manpower and material resources they made up for it with teamwork. This teamwork never functioned better than on July 30.

On the right and on the left regiments wore being formed. So they could fire on the flanks of the attackers. As explained earlier, between the crater and the ridge there was a shallow ravine luckily for the Confoderates out of reach of Federal artillery. Troops were put here; their fire on Potter's and Wilcox's men pinned them down. Now Confederate artillery got into action only 400 yards north of the Crater. A four-gun battery pointed its charge at the Federal battle line. Union artillery tried to knock out this battery and succeeded in silencing three of the four guns, but one gun continued to fire canister at close range. Up on the Jerusalem Plank Road, on the ridge back of the crater, sixteen guns were put in line. These too drew Union fire, but the Plank Road was sunken and offered a natural gun-pit. Still the Union knocked out ten of the sixteen guns. Confederate shelling continued, now with the mortars lobbing shells into the dense mass of Federal troops.

The Union just didn't seem to have a chance. A few of Potter's men made a brave try to silence the guns on the ridge, but Wilcox's troops could do nothing but cower in the captured trench, pinned down by enemy fire. Unfortunately, they didn't realize how thin the Confederate line was at that hour.

Before the battle Meade knew that if the attack was to succeed it would have to succeed in the first rush. The element of surprise was all on the Union side. But what could have been done at 5 A.M. was difficult by six, and impossible by seven. Burnside was 400 yeards behind the front, Meade a half mile behind Burnside. He should have been up front, but Burnside was a headquarters operator; it was Fredericksburg all over again. At 7:20 Burnside wired Meade that he was pushing his men forward under great difficulty. Meade lost his temper and wired Burnsdie, "I wish to know the real truth." Burnside then lost his temper and wired Meade, "You are un-officer-like and ungentlemanly" -- all this while the Confederates were recovering.

Lee, at his headquarters back of Petersburg, didn't hear the news of the mine explosion until 6 A.M. He was informed of disaster while at breakfast. (By that time Meade had already questioned prisoners captured at the crater). Lee went into action fast. Instructions went out to General Mahone, who was North of Petersburg, to bring up his division to the ridge near Blandford Cemetery. The urgency was so great that Lee did not transmit the order through General Hill, the Corps commander, which would have been the normal procedure. It illustrates Lee's reaction to a given situation. Mahone, a cunning little man, had quietly withdrawn two brigades of his division during the night, unbeknownst to Warren who opposed him. These two brigades moved quickly to the ridge.

William Mahone

Meanwhile over the Union side, Grant was ready to call off the attack, but Burnside felt there was still a chance and Meade did not interfere. Orders went out to Ferrero's division of colored troops to advance and seize the crest. The colored boys had been ready since dawn, as far as they knew, the original assignment was unchanged: charge straight across the place where the mine had exploded and take the high ground overlooking Petersburg. They struggled up to the front line, scrambled over the parapet and ran forward with a cheer. On the way, Ferrero stopped off at Ledlie's bomb-proof and fortified himself with a swig of rum.

The colored troops tried. This was their first battle, they were fresh. They advanced to the Rebel abatis and then came the order: "Charge." There were dead and wounded on all sides, but they moved forward, led by their officers. They got to the hidden ravine where the Rebels waited to counter-charge. It was the high point of the day for the Union side.

But the colored tropps infuriated the Confederates. It was degrading to fight ex-slaves; what had the war turned into? (In the counter-charge, Mahone's men killed the negroes wherever possible, but took the white troops prisoners). In their fury they routed Ferrero's troops. Now both black and white soldiers ran desperately for cover, most of them scrambling down into the depths of the crater.

It was all over now except for the slaughter. Grant finally recognized the failure, told Meade to get the men back. Meade passed the word on to Burnside, who still thought the day could be saved and no recall was sounded. Confederate mortars had the range and were droppong shells into the crater on a helpless target. They could not miss. The sun was high in the sky now and it beat down mercilessly. The heat was magnified in the steaming pit. Thirst was almost worse than the Rebel infantry. More than two hundred dropped from sheer head exhaustion.

Around 1 P.M. it ended. The white flag went up from the crater. The men who could do so went back to the Union lines; the others just stayed down where they were and either died or were taken prisoner. Through it all, Col. Pleasants had been standing on the parapet of the fourteen gun battery near Burnside, where he could watch. When things went poorly he swore to Burnside, telling him he had "nothing but a damned set of cowards in his brigade commanders".

Just under four thousand men were lost to the Union, one-third of them colored. Most of the casualties occurred after Grant and Meade realized the cause was lost, but Burnside had never sounded recall and his two superiors were too far behind the lines to realize that Burnside was not carrying out their orders.. The Confederates lost close to one thousand men. In his Memoirs Grant said, "It was the saddest affair I witnessed in the war. Such an opportunity of carrying fortifications I have never seen".

One of Pleasants' men wrote to his sister, "I expected to write to you of one of the most glorious victories ever won by this Army, but instead of victory I have to write about the greatest ahame and disgrace that ever happened to us."

Shortly after the battle Burnside, on whom the initial blame for the debacle fell, was removed from command of the IX Corps. On August 13, he was granted a leave of absence from the Army. Soon after that he resigned. Burnside was blameed by Grant for not making the "debouchement" he was ordered to. In his Memoirs Grant explained that he thought Burnside could have leveled the parapets and removed the abattis in front of his lines without the enemy's knowledge -- even at night. He also blamed him for allowing Ledlie, in view of his past record, to lead any troops at all.

Grant later said, "Burnside was an officer, liked and respected. Ho was not, however, fitted to command an Army. No one knew this better than Burnside himself. He always admitted his blunders."

Ledlie was also immediately dismissed from command, that was all -- no court-martial,. no official reprimand for his drunkenness. Grant said this of him: "Ledlie being otherwise inefficient, also was disqualified because he displayed cowardly tendencies less common among soldiers of his rank."

Meanwhile, on August 4, Meade, perhaps because of a guilty conscience, applied to President Lincoln for a Court of Inquiry. "It is due the public, the Army and myself", said Meade. Secretary of War Stanton granted Meade's request, and on August 6 directed that a Board be formed to investigate the matter thoroughly, but that the action of the Board would be merely to collect facts -- no charges or even implications were to be made. General Halleck was named President of the Board.

The report of the Board came out December 20. Though complying, in general, with instructions about no charges or implications, the report left little doubt, through its summary and the testimony of witnesses, that all three generals - Burnside, Meade and Grant, not just poor Burnside - had handled the situation at Petersburg poorly. In fact, the Court upheld Burnside's controversial choice of using colored troops to lead the attack. "General Meado", the report went on to say, "should not havo entirely disregarded the plans of Burnside who had devoted so long a timo to the subject, who had carried out the successful completion of the project of mining the enemy's works, who had carefully selected and drilled his troops. Your Committee cannot from all the testimony avoid the conclusion that the first and greatest cause of disaster was the change made on the afternoon preceding the attack in the arrangement of General Burnside to place the division of colored troops in advance.

"The reasons assigned by General Burnside for not taking one of his divisions of white troops for that purpose are fully justified by the result of the attack. Their (the white troops) previous arduous labors and peculiar position exposed continually to the enemy's fire, had as it were trained then in the habit of seeking shelter, and true to that training they sought shelter the first opportunity that presented itself after leaving our lines. And it is but reasonable to suppose that the immediate commander of a corps is bettor acquainted with the conduct and efficiency of particular divisions of his corps than a general further removed from them. The conduct of the colored troops, when they were put into action would seem to fully justify the confidence General Burnsdie reposed in them."

In his own testimony on the witness stand, Grant expressed his belief that if they (the colored troops) had boon placed in advance the assault would have boon successful. "Still, I agreed with Meado in his objection to that plan", commented Grant. If the troops had been properly commanded and lead in accordance with Meade's orders, we would have captured Petersburg with all the artillery. The opportunity was lost in consequence of the choice in commanders not going with their men, but instead allowing them to go into the enemy's entrenchments and spread themselves without going on further, thus giving the enemy time to collect and organize against them. They had no person to direct them to go further.

"I blame myself for one thing. I know of Meade's orders changing Burnsido's plan to have colored troops lead, and concurred, I was also informed that Burnsido pulled straws for which division to lead. It happened to fall on what I thought was the worst commander in his Corps -- I mean General Ledlie. I knew that fact before the mine exploded but did nothing in regard to it. That is the only thing I blame myself for."

The sending of colored troops into battle left a bad taste on both sides. To the Southerners the setting of race against race clearly indicated that the Union leadership had become interested only in destroying the Southern whites and not in preserving the Union in which Negroes could be free citizens. It was setting worker against worker, adding class conflict to race conflict. Northerners, Too, felt bitterly. Many Northern papers editorialized on the Negro as a poor soldier; they used the Negro as a scapegoat to cover up Union bungling.

Southernors never hated Grant as they did Sherman or Sheridan, but Grant embittered the South at the Crater. It seemed low and underhanded to use a mine to blow men up when he had such numerical strength over the Confederates. (The Confederates used land mines early in 1862 but discarded them under McClellan's protest at this "barbarous warfare". They agreed to suspend such action.) Clifford Dowdey, the famous Southern author, wrote: "Part of the postbellus alienation of the South was dug at the Crater".

Our story ends on this note. Tho South was victorious at the Crater., but it was fighting a losing battle. The war dragged on another nine months and only after Lee's dilapidated and depleted forces collapsed from shear exhaustion and the mounting pressure of ever increasing Union numbers did they give up. To the last bitter skirmish near Appomattox Courthouse, where they were covered liko rats in a trap, Lee's men remained devoted to him; even then they didn't want to quit. When the surrender came, Grant respected this attitude. He knew he was lucky. Though he demanded unconditional surrender, the terms to Lee's men were decent and honorable. Perhaps he was thinking of his own failure at the Crater.