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

by Newt Gingrich

  “For a bunch of benighted darkies, I guess you are getting good at it.”

  He slowly shook his head, looking down at the ground.

  “Being a Sunday you have the rest of the day off.”

  Now there were murmurs of approval from the men.

  “One thing more, though.”

  And now he was smiling.

  “Starting tonight, form up where we usually do. I want ranks formed at nine this evening, no torches or lanterns.”

  “They can smile at each other,” announced one of the sergeants—the man Felton had knocked out. “Darkies can always see each other in the night when they grin them pearly whites.”

  No one spoke. Malady looked over at the sergeant but did not say a word. Garland wondered if, in fact, he really approved and wanted to believe he did not. None dared to speak, but Garland could see their white officers bristling and knew words would be exchanged once the men were dismissed.

  “You are going back to step one and will relearn everything, but now you will do it at night.”

  He smiled.

  “By the way, I think I smell rain in the air. Hope so, that ought to fill the moat back up with mud.”

  He actually smiled at them and then turned and stomped off to inform the regiments who were deployed on the other side of the field.

  Colonel Russell had come up to join his men.

  “Battalion, stand at ease.”

  The men grounded their rifles, grumbling—cursing this sadist who controlled their lives—but Russell was smiling.

  “Night?” he announced. “Men, this is beginning to make a little more sense. Back to camp with you; take the afternoon off and try and get some sleep.”

  They broke ranks, gossiping among themselves. Garland felt a hand on his shoulder; it was Russell.

  “Let the men know how proud I am of them,” Russell said quietly. “Tell them if we’re going to do this charge, something like this has never been done at night, and it just might give us the chance of surviving after all.”

  “But that fort in the middle?” Garland asked.

  “I know, Sergeant Major, it is a puzzle to me, too, but I believe someone is really thinking this thing out. This time, I hope the generals have something up their sleeve.”

  “Yes, sir; I’ll pass the word. It’ll be good for the men to hear it.”

  “And, Garland.”

  “Sir?”

  “Felton sure knows how to throw a punch.”

  Startled, he looked at his colonel, who only smiled and then turned to go over to speak to some of the other men.

  THE TUNNEL

  Michael O’Shay was glad to finally be working the night shift. The air wafting out of the ventilation shaft was cooler, not laden with the suffocating heat of midday. Besides, it meant they had the daytime off and could skip morning parade. They had found a cool spot behind the lines, down by a spring. It was well shaded, and they could wash off, and then loll about in comfort while others stood guard in the front trenches or worked on the tunnel.

  By today’s measurement they were nearly three hundred feet in, less than thirty yards out now from the main Rebel line. This evening they had been ordered to change how they dug. No more broad spades; the ground was to be probed first with a bayonet, loosened up, and then carefully worked out with a trowel. The number-two man, up by the side of the digger, would hold up a sandbag to catch the dirt as it fell so that it didn’t rattle against the tunnel floor. It had cut their pace of advance by a third or more. To make it worse, the soil had shifted to a sandier composition, meaning that the shoring crews had to work close behind them, carefully slipping in upright supports and cross planks of boards torn from ammunition and cracker boxes. There was not to be any hammering; it would have to be brute strength, shoving the posts and slats into place.

  And now the inevitable happened.

  Michael could sense it, a few seconds before the ceiling let go, a trickle of sand from where the shoring team had yet to set their supports in place.

  He barely had time to hiss a warning to Lubbeck and to cover his own head when the ceiling let go—a ton or more of sand and loam crushing down on them. He had just enough time to brace his hands around the back of his neck, trying to get up on his elbows to form an air pocket. He wasn’t sure about Lubbeck, though, and could feel him kicking and thrashing by his side.

  Michael wanted to scream at him to be still, but it would only cause him to lose whatever air pocket he had, and might cause him to lose his own as well. If this was anthracite the whole thing would be moot; he’d be dead, or with luck, just have some broken ribs. In this soil it was about suffocation, and praying that the cave-in had not caught the shoring team behind him, or that it wasn’t an entire shaft of earth letting go, clear up to the surface.

  He fell back upon the instincts of childhood, saying a quick Act of Contrition and then, lips barely moving, reciting Hail Marys one after the other. Then Michael sensed that, try as he might, he was breathing too fast, the small pocket of air under his face turning fetid.

  Don’t panic, don’t panic, he kept thinking between prayers, “Now and at the hour of our death, amen.”

  And then at last he felt it, a hand grasping his left ankle. Another hand on his right. Seconds later, they had pulled him out.

  In the fluttering candlelight he saw a man frantically clawing at the dirt to the left of where Michael had just been pulled out.

  “Got him,” the digger hissed, sliding back, holding on to an exposed ankle. Someone else crawled up, grabbed hold as well, and they pulled Lubbeck out. The man was still, one of their rescuers rolling him over, putting his head to the man’s chest.

  “He’s still alive,” and then he slapped Lubbeck’s face several times and thumped his chest hard.

  “Come on, laddie, spit it out, spit it out.”

  Lubbeck stirred to life, rolling onto his side, coughing, spitting out dirt, gasping, and then coughing again.

  “Get them out of here,” Sergeant Kochanski hissed.

  It was easier said than done. Half a dozen men had scrambled forward to the rescue when the cave-in hit; they were all tangled together, but finally managed to push Michael and Lubbeck back. The two crawled on hands and knees to the entryway of the tunnel, Lubbeck coughing loudly like an asthmatic.

  “Stay here,” the sergeant hissed. “Don’t need you coughing like a dying man out in the open. The Rebs might hear you. Just stay here and get your breath.”

  “Sergeant, darlin’?” Michael asked, and Kochanski relented. It was a tradition as old as mining. You survive a cave-in, you get the rest of the shift off and a bottle to calm your nerves. Kochanski popped the air-tight door, went out for a moment, and came back with a pint bottle, handing it to Lubbeck first, who took a drink, coughed, and spat it out. Michael managed to keep his gulp down.

  “You boys all right?” Kochanski asked with genuine concern.

  Both just nodded.

  “Not too bad,” one of the shoring team announced, coming back to join them. “A pocket about six feet across and several feet upward gave in. Think it will hold.”

  “Double shore the spot and get some heavy planks in beneath it rather than those cracker box boards. More of it might let go at some point.”

  “Right, Sergeant.”

  “At least it didn’t go up to the surface,” Kochanski sighed.

  “Imagine some Reb out on picket crashing down on top of me, that would have been a sight,” Michael whispered, trying to act steady and not doing a very good job of it as he took another drink.

  FORT PEGRAM

  Colonel Robert Ransom of the 25th North Carolina and Captain Sanders looked at each other without a word. For a long half hour they had sat on the ground up against the southeastern wall of Fort Pegram. The men within and along the line to either flank had been ordered to stand in place and not speak. Both had felt increasingly foolish while staring at a foot-wide tin pan, filled to the brim with water. There was a cork from a
wine bottle in the middle of the plate, kept in place by a thread attached to a one-ounce lead weight resting on the bottom of the pan.

  Of course the Yankees had not been cooperative in the slightest. For the last three weeks, with the coming of sundown, their artillery from a battery up on their secondary line would fire at regular intervals. Sanders found it fascinating that the water in the pan would actually register the concussion of the gun firing, as it raced through the earth long before the shell finally screamed overhead, displaying an ever so slight ripple emanating from the cork anchored in the middle.

  Ransom was just about to give up and offer some compliment to Sanders about his diligence keeping watch and all that, when it happened.

  The cork had bobbed ever so slightly, a ripple puckering the water filled to the brim of the pan, so that a few droplets of moisture had splashed over the side. Sanders flung himself to the ground, pressing his ear to it, and laid there, holding up a hand for everyone to remain silent.

  “There,” he hissed. “I think I hear voices.”

  Ransom was down by his side, imitating his posture. They waited for several minutes. Sanders held a finger up in front of Ransom, then held it to his lips to indicate silence.

  Another few minutes passed and finally Sanders sat back up.

  “Did you hear that, sir?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Ransom whispered.

  “It sounded like someone coughing and other voices.”

  “I’m not really sure,” Ransom said slowly, but then nodded his head.

  “How far do you think they are, if indeed they are there?”

  “Sir, first there was my report about observing someone taking observations on this fort from at least two different angles and now this. Sir, I’m convinced they’re digging a tunnel under us and it’s getting damn close, fifty yards, maybe thirty, maybe under us already. I wish we could find some old miners with this army to give us some advice on it.”

  Ransom sat back on his haunches, face illuminated by the lantern resting by the tin pan, which shook as a mortar shell detonated on the far side of the fort.

  “I’ll not discount you, sir,” Ransom finally replied. “But I’ve been assured by a couple of the officers at corps headquarters that digging a tunnel of such a length without ventilation holes is impossible.”

  Sanders shook his head.

  “Sir, I’m no engineer, but could you at least ask a couple of them to come down here tomorrow night and take a listen and report what we’ve seen?”

  Ransom nodded.

  “We don’t want to appear jumpy.”

  “Let’s just say cautious, sir. We are the closest position to the Yankees on this entire line. We are also almost a straight line right into Petersburg. At the very least, maybe a reserve position should be dug in back along the Jerusalem road and up on the Blandford Church Hill.”

  “That’s for corps to decide,” Ransom replied. “We barely have the tools, as is, to keep our forward lines intact.”

  “Just a thought, sir.”

  Ransom did not reply.

  “I’ll send some engineers up tomorrow night—if they’ll come,” Ransom finally replied.

  The colonel stood up, climbed up on to the parapet of the fort to check on gun positions, and said a few words to the men, who were obviously dying of curiosity. Why were two officers on their bellies at midnight, staring at a tin plate of water, and then putting their ears to the ground? It didn’t take them long to figure it out and for rumors to begin to fly. They rotated position in the fort with a South Carolina regiment and soon bets were flying as to which regiment would be the losers.

  HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

  10 P.M.

  “Those are my concerns and objections, General Burnside,” Meade announced, finishing a fifteen-minute lecture through which Burnside had remained silent. Anyone who served under Meade knew it was best to let him vent first, then try and counter later.

  He had not been offered a drink, and Burnside felt he could sure use one at this moment. The evening was hot and stuffy. The thunderstorm of the previous hour had at first cooled the air slightly but now the mugginess had returned, made worse by the swarms of mosquitoes and biting gnats that had become a plague to this army.

  Burnside sighed, looked down at the sketches he had brought along for Meade to review, and began to stack them up.

  “Nothing to say?” Meade finally asked.

  “Plenty, George,” and he looked Meade in the eye, deciding to go for the familiar tone shared between generals at least technically of equal rank.

  Meade’s features did not shift or show insult, so he pressed on.

  “You seem to object from nearly every point, George. The amount of powder, the consolidation of the men to participate in one unified command … you even raise questions about using my Fourth Division first.”

  “They’re green troops. The administration in Washington has expressed some concern to General Grant about the number of casualties this army has endured.”

  “They’ve been training hard for two weeks now.”

  “I heard.”

  “You should ride out and inspect them. They’re shifting to night drill starting tonight. I tell you, those boys are responding well, perhaps even better than white troops to the drill. Veterans? They’d just stare at us at this point and tell us to go to hell.”

  “And suppose something goes wrong and they get slaughtered.”

  “Nothing can go wrong if we follow the plan as outlined.”

  “Damn it, Ambrose, everything goes wrong in every damn battle we’ve ever fought. Nothing follows plan after the first shot.”

  “It seems to for Bobbie Lee, most of the time.”

  He knew he had misspoken, for Meade bristled at that.

  “And they’re not even really men of the Army of the Potomac yet,” Meade said coldly. “And by God, if this scheme of yours does work…”

  His voice trailed off.

  Burnside leaned back from the table. He had always thought of himself as a bit slow on the uptake; the kind of man that would not grasp the full implications of what others said until long afterward, especially if intentionally veiled. But this?

  “Is this about who gets the glory of taking Petersburg?” Burnside asked, voice pitched low. “The rest of this Army of the Potomac has never really looked at the Ninth Corps as one of ‘theirs.’ Most of the time we are shipped off somewhere else. Is that what this is about?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Meade said coldly, eyes narrowing.

  “… and now made worse in that I have agreed to take the colored division into my corps.”

  “That was not popular with some. I didn’t see any of my other corps commanders leaping for them to join.”

  “Their loss, my gain,” Burnside retorted. “I don’t give a good damn what color they are as long as they can fight.”

  “And will they fight when this scheme of yours blows up?”

  “Hell, yes, they will fight. They have every reason to fight.”

  “We’ll see,” Meade replied, his voice pitched low. “We’ll see. Just remember, this country can’t stand another Fredericksburg.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JULY 27, 1864

  It was an hour before dawn, Orion rising over the eastern horizon but already beginning to be washed out by the first faint streaks of sunlight, which promised another scorching day.

  In spite of the cool morning chill, the men standing to either side of Garland were panting hard. They had run through the drill four times during the night.

  He could see the faint outline of Sergeant Major Malady, standing with the commanding officers of the five regiments of their assault column. The other four regiments were just two hundred yards away to the west, yet nearly invisible in the early light.

  All could sense that something was different, that something was in the air. The drills had gone almost too perfectly, the cussing of the sergeants had diminishe
d. In this last charge, they had just stood back and let the men go through their paces. Signal to attack … axmen race forward, followed by men carrying footbridges, followed by column. Clear obstacles, cross the moat, up the parapet, lay down the footbridges, charge across, sprint six hundred yards, pivot and turn to the right deploying into line of battle.

  It had gone like clockwork.

  The officers broke away from the conference, calling their men to attention. The men of the 29th, who had the task of pivoting at a right angle as soon as the trench was crossed, were coming across the field, falling in with their comrades of the First Brigade of the Fourth Division.

  Malady stepped before them, the order being shouted for the men to ground arms and stand at ease.

  “You black bastards…” he started, and some of the men stiffened. When the hell would this man ever relent?

  “Your drills with me have ended,” he continued.

  “Well, thank Jesus for that,” some wag grumbled from the ranks, and there was a low ripple of laughter.

  Malady ignored him.

  “The next time you do this, you will be doing it for real—for real. It is not many days off, so those of you thanking Jesus now better start praying good and hard, because more than a few of you will be standing before him soon enough.”

  There was no laughter now.

  “Within the next day or so you will all be briefed on the exact details of this charge and any questions you still have will be answered.”

  Malady acted as if he was beginning to turn away, then he paused and looked back at the men standing in the shadowy twilight.

  “I am going in with you. I have volunteered to stay with your brigade commander. I am doing that because, God and all the saints help me, I must of lost my mind but I think you are some of the finest soldiers I have ever trained.”

  They stood there stunned.

  “Dismissed!”

  HEADQUARTERS, GENERAL AMBROSE BURNSIDE

  10 A.M.

  “That, gentlemen, is your objective,” Burnside announced, pointing westward.