The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (George Washington Series)

by Newt Gingrich

  Union Army plan of attack on Petersburg, Virginia, July 30, 1864.

  “That is based on a lot of assumptions, Burnside. You,” Meade paused, “more than most, should know how plans collapse the moment battle is joined.”

  Burnside took the almost insulting comment without response. Every newspaper in the country had lambasted him for Fredericksburg, and in his heart he knew they were right. He had lost control of the battle before it had even started. What was so frustrating, though, was that of his victories, especially against Longstreet at Strawberry Plains outside of Knoxville, not one in a hundred knew of them.

  “Sir, there are so many details we can settle later. I simply ask now for approval to move forward and at least prepare my corps for the potential of action. Pleasants states he can complete the tunnel in thirty days. I ask for those thirty days to let it go forward and to get ready.”

  Meade grunted, taking a deep draw on the Cuban and blowing it out.

  “I told you I passed it up to Grant without endorsement.”

  He hesitated as if for dramatic effect.

  “But Grant said to proceed with the digging.” It was obvious that he was not pleased to have to give Burnside this approval.

  Burnside could not contain a sigh of relief and a smile.

  “But all the operational plans are still to be sorted out. First, let’s see if your coal crackers can actually dig a real tunnel while at war. If there is even the remotest indication that the Rebels hear them, or get wind of what you are doing, the entire operation is off. Once completed, if completed, we can discuss details then.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Meade looked up at him, said nothing, and turned away.

  Walking back up the slope, his staff gathered around him. They mounted and rode off.

  Burnside’s staff, a bit hesitant, slowly walked behind him down to the river’s edge.

  He looked back at them and smiled.

  “It’s on.”

  Smiles greeted his announcement, several adjutants their hands to congratulate him. He was warmed by their loyalty—many of them having served by his side since the start of the war—and by their evident enthusiasm for the plan.

  They started back up the slope and one of them pointed to a man wearing a long canvas duster in spite of the heat, an oversized haversack by his side.

  “Some reporter is pestering to see you, sir.”

  Burnside, with a remarkable memory for names and faces, remembered the man and nodded.

  “Give me a few minutes with him, then back to headquarters.”

  He nodded for the reporter to approach and extended his hand.

  “Reilly isn’t it, with Harper’s Weekly?”

  “Yes, sir, surprised you remember me.”

  “I rather liked the sketch you did of me that your paper printed.”

  “Thank you, sir,” James offered with a smile.

  “The sketch was good, but the rest of the reporting of Fredericksburg…” His voice trailed off, and he gazed into Reilly’s eyes. The man returned his gaze unblinkingly. A good sign he felt.

  “Sir, I simply do the drawings. Others do the writing.”

  Burnside did not reply.

  “Sir, we must admit, it was not the best of battles for our side.”

  Burnside sighed and shook his head. Would his name forever be associated with that debacle? Hooker had basically cribbed his plan for what became Chancellorsville but panicked and froze when, in those dark woods, his communications broke down. He had frozen in place, easy pickings for Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Burnside, himself, would have pushed on through into open land beyond. If … always if.

  And now Hooker was out west, a corps commander again, but gaining a good name once more. Yet, Burnside always seemed to be saddled by Fredericksburg.

  He shook his head.

  “Not your fault, Reilly. Mine. I have and will always take the blame. I was in command and where the victory would have been mine so must the failure be. That is the nature of command.”

  Reilly seemed to relax, as if fearful that Burnside might have banished him because of the paper he represented.

  “Reilly, I know your work. I don’t hold much love for newspapermen, but I admire your drawings. You have an eye for the ordinary soldier as good as that of Ward. You don’t glorify it the way Homer sometimes can. I’ve never heard a single complaint about you. You strike me as an honest man trying to do his job.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I even remember some of your sketches of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the 1860 campaign. It was obvious you were a Lincoln man even then.”

  He wondered if Burnside was probing; if there were any rumors afloat as to just how close he truly was. He said nothing in reply.

  “And your reason for this interview now?” Burnside asked.

  “Well, sir. I’ve been up here a few days. I should have checked in with you first, but let’s just say there is a word going around.”

  “What kind of a word?” Burnside snapped.

  “Just that something is up.”

  Burnside bristled. His cigar had gone out, even though he tried to puff on it. Reilly fished into a breast pocket, pulled out a cigar for himself, a lucifer, and relit Burnside’s half-finished stogie.

  “Sir, please. I am as loyal a Union man as you are and know enough when to keep my own damn mouth shut. Besides, I am only an artist, not a print correspondent.”

  “Assuming your hunch is even remotely correct,” Burnside snapped, and then his voice trailed off.

  “Sir, all I am saying is that you know how soldiers talk. A bit of a rumor going around your First Division is that something is up, but no one is saying anything specific.”

  He hesitated. He was trying to win this man over.

  “Sir, I am simply telling you because if I can pick up on it, others will as well, and sooner or later some Reb picket will get wind, or some deserter or prisoner will spill about it. Or, yes, some reporter who will blow it back to the papers in Washington or New York.”

  “And you are asking me what it is all about? Perhaps give you, what do you people call it, an exclusive?”

  “Absolutely not, sir,” James replied forcefully. “And frankly, sir, I do not want to know until the lowest private in the ranks is given the details and not before.”

  Burnside filed that away. The men gossiped all the time between the lines when out on picket duty, and more than one plan had been revealed by a boastful private who met a savvy Reb in middle field during the night who was ready to share a canteen of good corn liquor, and by morning a report would be sitting on the desk of General Lee.

  He would have to tighten the lid around the 48th, keep that section of the line totally isolated and their encampment isolated as well. Veterans at least did have one good instinct and that was to keep their mouths shut when their own necks might be on the line. and the men of the 48th, he hoped, could be counted on to keep their work secret and see the reason for it. In fact, he would go to their encampment tonight to impress that upon them.

  “If you are asking for any further information, Reilly, I have none to offer, but I thank you for the warning I sense you are giving me.”

  “Well, sir, I actually wanted to ask a favor.”

  He felt better disposed to the man with the information given, but now he wondered if that was merely tossing out a bone to gain confidence for some bigger reward.

  “Go on,” he said coldly.

  “The colored division.”

  “What of it?”

  “Permission to visit their camp and sketch them for my paper.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “They’re a unique story, sir. The largest formation of black troops in the East, now serving with the Army of the Potomac. It is a special moment.”

  “You will give them a fair shake?”

  Now it was Reilly who seemed to bristle slightly.

  “Sir, I got to know some of them while in Washington
earlier this month.”

  “How so?”

  “They buried my brother,” he said quietly. “Wounded at Cold Harbor, he died in Washington, and some of those men who just marched by buried him.”

  Burnside nodded.

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  “We’ve all lost someone.”

  “That we have,” Burnside sighed.

  Burnside looked away from Reilly, back to the main road that led up to the front at Petersburg. The regiments of his new Fourth Division had disappeared from view, cloaked in swirling dust kicked up by their passage.

  “Let’s just say I am partial to them now, sir, and curious as well.” He did not add that he was also under orders from Lincoln to see how they were received and treated by the high command.

  “You ask for a favor. I will consider it if you provide one in return.”

  “Please ask, General.”

  “You have my permission to visit their camps, sketch them as you wish. But for God’s sake, I will have you drummed out if I see your paper print but one illustration that is derisive of them. If you were that damn Tom Nast, I’d personally grab you by the neck and throw you in this river.”

  Reilly laughed softly.

  “You can tell by my name and the occasional hint of the brogue where I come from. I have no more love for Nast than you do, and I promise you all my sketches will be respectful of your men.”

  “They are men. Soldiers, by God, and to be respected as such.”

  James again nodded in agreement.

  Burnside sighed.

  “Fine then. You draw them fairly and you stay.”

  “Agreed,” and Reilly extended his hand.

  “But there is something else,” Burnside said before agreeing to shake.

  He seemed to hesitate, as if mulling a decision over in his mind. He looked again toward the dust-covered road.

  “I’ve reached a decision today regarding those men.”

  “And that is?”

  “I want three things of you, Reilly. You draw them fair. Second, they will soon go into a special kind of training, unlike anything this army has ever done before. They will be kept off the line for a while and in isolation but that training will be damn serious. I will trust you to see it, but to keep your mouth shut. You do that and after everything is over, you can report it. But if you even attempt to leak a single word of it, by God I will have you flogged out of this camp.”

  Reilly nodded. “And the third favor?”

  “Just drop in on me occasionally. Tell me how you see it all going. That’s all.”

  He tried not to smile. If only this man knew that was already his task, a task for someone far higher than any general.

  He wondered for an instant if there was something about him that elicited such trust, or whether it could be that this towering man, whom so many mocked, actually was outsmarting all of them, and by some means already knew the task Reilly had been assigned by his President. It did not seem possible, but it was worth pondering.

  “All terms agreed to,” Reilly replied and raised his hand. And this time Burnside took it and shook it warmly.

  James could not help but wonder who had played a game on whom as he shook Burnside’s hand. Regardless, and in spite of his reservations because of the debacle at Fredericksburg, he felt he could actually like and trust this man.

  * * *

  Farther up the road, halfway back to the front line, General Meade sat waiting impassively while one of his staff stricken with the two steps had run off into a woodlot to relieve himself, joined by several others suffering from the same “discomfort.”

  Burnside. It would have to be him coming up with such a scheme. He looked out across the open field to his left, heat shimmers rising. That day at Fredericksburg, it had been cold, so damn cold, the frozen ground flecked with snow, and carpeted with the bodies of men from his division, his division that he had led with such pride.

  The plan of attack: all knew it was foolish. The Rebs held a long ridgeline that stretched for miles, paralleling the flood plain of the Rappahannock above the town of Fredericksburg. Of course the Rebs had let them throw pontoon bridges across the river … they actually wanted them to cross. Throughout that cold, bitter night the army had swarmed over, forming up rank after rank, with the arrival of dawn concealed beneath the mist that rose off the river on a cold winter morn.

  And the order from Burnside, with all its lack of imagination, had simply been “Go forward.”

  No coordination, no maneuver, just go forward across the wide-open bottom land and then up the long slope, crossing 1,400 yards of open ground while before them waited near to 70,000 Rebs and 150 artillery pieces.

  It was slaughter and yet he had obeyed. He had no choice: he was merely a division commander and that tall, fat fool in the conical hat was the commander of the Army of the Potomac.

  And it was his division, his division alone, which had actually accomplished the foolish task. He recalled traversing the open ground, keeping formation and control as he rode back and forth along their length, urging them forward into the maelstrom.

  They had pierced the Rebel line. Alone. As all the other divisions were charging not as one mass unit but like uncoordinated amateurs with no communication between the various divisions and corps. He alone had pierced the Rebel line, driving them back out of their position. It was then that he had sent back a triumphal note, informing headquarters of the breakthrough achieved, calling for reinforcements.

  As the precious minutes ticked away he saw no columns coming up behind him out of the battle smoke and mist. Just emptiness. Another courier, and another, went galloping back, each appeal more desperate, that by God, we have a breakthrough, bring up the reserves.

  But there were no reserves. None, not a single damn one. No artillery to anchor the flanks of the breakthrough, no fresh infantry to push on through and begin rolling up the Rebel line. While off to his right he could hear the continued roar of battle, of other divisions which, rather than pivoting to help him, instead continuing their own futile charges without any rhyme or reason other than because that damn fool had ordered a frontal attack.

  He held the breakthrough for nearly an hour until the far more adroit Rebels, bringing up the reserves that any army should have in place for such a moment, swarmed over his men, and drove them back.

  Drove him back, leaving more than half his command dead, wounded, or captured on that bloody slope.

  And even as he fell back he half expected that at last someone, even just a fresh brigade, would be coming up in support, enough to rally his men around and open the hole back up.

  Nothing, not a single man. It was the worst moment of this nightmare he had ever known. So many a good comrade was dead, lost for nothing, while the fat fool in that damn stupid-looking hat sat upon the far side of the river, like a statue frozen in place, never acknowledging even one of his appeals, nor ever once offering a word of apology or solace after that nightmarish day was over.

  And now he wants me to give him a third of the army I now command and throw it into another frontal attack?

  He shook his head wearily. Beside him his staff was coming out of the woods, one of them having to be held up by a comrade on either side, features sweaty and pale, grinning weakly and thanking his general for waiting and apologizing for the inconvenience.

  More men die from that than from bullets, Meade thought, looking over impassively and judging that the lad had better be sent back to the hospital because there already was that pallor about him. At least he’ll die in a bed rather than facedown on a frozen field, he thought grimly. In fact they would all be home by now if only that bastard had supported me that day in front of Fredericksburg. If only …

  “James, Foch, would you please guide Captain Wayne to the hospital.”

  Wayne offered no protest, which showed indeed how sick he was.

  “The rest of you, staff meeting in an hour to go over this scheme of our good friend General Bur
nside,” he announced coldly.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA

  JULY 1, 1864

  THE TUNNEL

  “Officers coming.”

  “So what the hell are we supposed to do? Stand up?” Michael O’Shay said with a laugh.

  He turned from the face of the tunnel and looked back at Sergeant Johann Kochanski, who had just passed the word up in a stage whisper.

  “Keep your voice down,” Kochanski hissed.

  “Damn it, Sergeant, we’re still eighty yards short of the Rebel line; they can’t hear anything we say.”

  “Get used to keeping your mouth shut now,” Corporal Lubbeck retorted. “We don’t want the mistake of a drunken Irishman to kill us all.”

  “Then get someone else to dig if you don’t like my chatter, and I can sit outside and have a pipe.”

  He knew he could always win on that point. He was the best digger in the Pottsville mines back home, bringing out nearly twice the tonnage of others, and he was the best here as well.

  Lubbeck was the number-two man for this shift. The number one worked the face of the tunnel, digging with a short-handled spade. Prying the dirt loose while squatting or kneeling, the number-two man would scrape the dirt back and pile it into a box, usually an empty ammunition or hardtack box. It was already decided that once they got a bit closer to the Rebel lines they’d haul the dirt out in sandbags. There would be less chance of scraping, or worse, someone dropping a box and it clattering. The number two would then slide the bag or box back to a “crawler,” who then, scuttling in a low squat, would carry or drag the dirt out, leave it by the tunnel entrance, get an empty box or bag, and crawl back up. Behind him came the shoring team, who carefully erected vertical supports, then put in ceiling and floor, rough cut timber for the shoring and overhead cross beams, and finally sidings from ammunition boxes between the beams and for the floor and ceiling.

  The tunnel was about three feet to a side, high enough and wide enough so that when finished, the barrels of powder could be quietly maneuvered into place. As they got closer to the Rebel lines, it had already been decided, the men digging would shift to bayonets to probe with, and a shovel not much bigger than a hand trowel. The shoring team, which occasionally needed to hammer or shove a beam into place, would only work during the day, while guns from the Union side would keep up a slow but steady tattoo of fire to mask the noise. Fortunately the soil they encountered consisted of layers of either sandy loam, which required a lot more shoring, or the ubiquitous red Virginia clay, which cut away easily and remained stable. So far they had not hit any springs and only a shallow trickle of water ran beneath the flooring.