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

by Newt Gingrich

  “Well, this is now one hell of a time to learn that,” Bartlett shouted.

  Pleasants did not know how to reply.

  “If I had had some such orders to give the men before…” Bartlett looked back up the slope over which hundreds of men of his brigade and that of the other brigade of his division now swarmed.

  For the first time Henry heard the buzz of a minié ball snapping by. A few seconds later one of the men near them doubled over as another round clipped in. That began to set off a rush forward. As if by instinct, the veterans of so many forlorn charges raced for cover, with the crater ahead of them the best shelter of all.

  “The road?” Bartlett asked.

  “That was the plan.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll see what I can do in this madness,” he paused, “and if you see that son of a bitch Ledlie, do me a favor.”

  “What.”

  “Shoot him.”

  Leaning on his cane, Bartlett began to limp forward, remaining upright while around him men were beginning to duck, even though only a few miniés were whistling in.

  “Keep them moving up!” Bartlett shouted, looking back. “I’ll see what I can do up forward!”

  Pleasants, ignoring custom on the front line, this time did salute as the man limped off.

  Even as he turned to face back toward the rear the first Rebel mortar round came hissing down, detonating a scant dozen feet away. Pleasants ignored it, stepping through the smoke, calling on the men of his regiment to keep pushing the attack column forward, to pass the word that they were to push for the road, the precious road, just six hundred yards off. The road that even now was all but undefended and ready to be taken.

  Behind Ledlie’s division he saw the standards of Wilcox’s division, as disorganized as the lead division, remaining in place, some of the men already lying prone as the volume of fire from the Rebel lines began to increase.

  “For God’s sake, charge!” Henry cried.

  HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

  5:20 A.M.

  General Robert E. Lee stood silent, field glasses raised in the direction of the plume of smoke rising beyond the Blandford Church Cemetery.

  The first courier had come galloping in just minutes before, bearing news of what had happened. There was no need to awaken him. The distant rumble, the tremor passing through the earth, reminding him of the frequent earthquakes experienced while serving in Mexico, had caused him to spring from his cot, even before his adjutant, Colonel Taylor, had come to waken him.

  Officers of his staff were gathered around, waiting as he leaned over a map table, the courier breathlessly describing the destruction of Fort Pegram.

  It could be the signal for a general attack all along the line. He had thought the Union Army was pretty well fought out, but they had had a month to recuperate since the last of their major attacks. Grant might be venturing another bloody blow.

  “General Mahone is our only reserve in that sector,” Lee announced, looking back at his staff. “Send word to him that he must hold the Jerusalem Plank Road at all costs. Only if he feels overwhelmed should he call for more reserves. I will stay here for now because this might be the beginning of a general attack along the entire front.”

  He looked at his staff, all nodding in agreement. Walter Taylor jotted down the order to Mahone. Lee signed it and passed it to the courier who, seconds later, was off at a gallop back up the Jerusalem Plank Road.

  “Gentlemen, remain calm. Remain calm and we shall handle this situation, no matter what arises.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JULY 30, 1864

  THE BATTLE OF THE CRATER

  5:30 A.M.

  The three white divisions were at last going in, but the orders still stood that the Fourth was to stand in reserve, to be committed only by direct order and otherwise to remain in place.

  Random fire was now plucking the air about them, rifle balls from eight hundred yards away arching in, joined by occasional mortar rounds that were aimed more deliberately, so that Colonel Thomas was at last able to convince his frustrated men to lie back down … and wait.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Colonel Russell asked, tugging on Thomas’s sleeve and nodding to his right as a lone horseman trotted toward them, unidentifiable in the plain four-button jacket of a private, but recognizable nevertheless by every man in the army.

  “Maybe, at last,” Thomas sighed with obvious relief, stepping forward to meet the rider, coming to attention and saluting, Colonel Russell by his side.

  “Why have you not yet gone forward?” the rider asked.

  “Sir, our orders were to remain here until told to go in.”

  The general looking down at them was silent for a moment, shifting his unlit cigar, looking past them to the crater, where thousands of soldiers swarmed about. Yet few had advanced more than fifty to a hundred yards toward the road.

  Thomas pointed back to the battle.

  “Sir, my men were trained for this fight. You have the authority. Release us. Send us in now!”

  The rider continued to look at the growing chaos around the crater even as Thomas made his appeal.

  He was silent, as if taking in what Thomas was saying, then shook his head.

  “I will not interfere with orders given. It only will add to the confusion.”

  Stunned, Thomas knew better than to argue with the general in command of the armies, Ulysses S. Grant.

  “Wait until your immediate superior orders you in; otherwise, it just might make things even more confused and chaotic than they already are.”

  He turned his horse and rode away at a trot. Thomas was silent, shaking his head, Russell cursing softly under his breath.

  Even as Grant rode off, a courier came galloping past him and Thomas’s spirits rose.

  “I think this is it.”

  The courier reined in, looking about.

  “General Ferrero? I have orders for him.”

  Thomas and Sigfried, commander of the other brigade of the Fourth, looked at each other.

  “Just give it to me,” Thomas said coldly, not mentioning that Ferrero was nowhere to be found, and in fact had not been seen since the officer’s meeting the day before.

  He opened the note. Men of his brigade were beginning to stand back up, in spite of orders, knowing with certainty that this was it, their order to go in and straighten out the chaos.

  Thomas scanned the message, handed it to Siegfried, and looked back at the courier.

  “This is it? This is all that you were told?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Convey that I will comply,” Thomas said bitterly, then turned to an adjutant, motioned for a note pad, and scribbled out a line.

  Sir. We are waiting to go in. The situation can still be retrieved. We beg you to send us forward at once. General Ferrero is not with his command, so I am assuming control of the division in the field.

  He showed it to Siegfried, who nodded and handed it up to courier.

  “Ride like hell,” he snapped, and the courier was off, galloping back to Burnside’s headquarters, little more than a quarter mile away.

  Thomas looked back to the commanders of his regiments.

  “No orders to advance. Instead we are ordered to take shelter in the covered way and there await developments.”

  As the order was passed, more men were standing, moving the hundred or so yards to the covered tunnel that led to the front, the murmuring of anger and frustration continuing to build.

  The covered way was nearly ten feet in width, six to eight feet deep, and covered over with planks, with earth heaped on top to protect the line of communication. Even as Thomas ordered the men down into its confines he raged at this new stupidity. The men would feel cut off, trapped inside. If ordered to go forward they would either have to run the length of the tunnel, or pour back out into the open field to reform. With this single order the entire formation for the planned assault, which still could work even no
w, had completely unraveled. To make matters worse, the first casualties were coming back from the front line, along with scores of demoralized men, pushing their way through, cradling bloody limbs, cursing, crying that the battle was already lost.

  From an opening to one side of the tunnel, Thomas and the other commanders climbed out, Garland taking it upon himself to follow. As long as he was not ordered to go back with the enlisted men he could at least see what was transpiring.

  All stood silent, sick with anger and grief. The roar of battle was building by the minute. It was now obvious that the Confederates were regaining their nerve, starting to try to push in from either flank. Another distant skirmish line was now barely visible through the smoke and haze forming along the Jerusalem Plank Road.

  And the veterans, thinking they knew where safety could be found, were filling the crater, thousands of them, seeking its temporary shelter and hunkering down.

  One of the regimental commanders, cursing violently, finally just lowered his head and wept.

  Garland, standing silent, awestruck, and numbed, continued to pray.

  HEADQUARTERS, NINTH CORPS

  7:00 A.M.

  Sitting in his bunker, Ambrose Burnside, unable to conceal his rage, thumbed back through the telegrams sent by Meade, less than eight hundred yards away, during the last half hour.

  Shortly after six, a preemptory order came from Meade to throw in every man, regardless of loss, “black and white.” Freezing inwardly at that, Burnside had climbed out of the bunker to look across the valley. So much smoke was now boiling up from the gunfire that it was impossible to discern anything that was going on.

  He had finally replied that it would take hard work, but that he still believed the crest would be taken. As for the black division, he was not sure what to do with them anymore, if anything at all. They had been trained to a specific task, but the opportunity of that moment had been squandered. Would sending them in now alter anything?

  And then Meade’s latest volley came:

  What do you mean by hard work to take the crest? Do you mean to say your officers and men will not obey your orders to advance? If not, what is the obstacle? I wish to know the truth and desire an immediate answer.

  As the telegrapher tore off the sheet of paper and handed the note to Burnside, sitting only a few feet away, it was obvious the telegraph operator was startled and nervous.

  Burnside scanned the sheet of paper and threw it down.

  “Damn him! Take down the following!

  “The main body of General Potter’s division is beyond the crater. I do not mean to say that my officers and men will not obey my orders to advance.”

  He paused, taking a deep breath, outraged by the insult to him and the men under his command, and then he continued.

  “I mean to say that it is very hard to advance to the crest. I have never, in any report, said anything different from what I conceived to be the truth.”

  He waited for the telegrapher to catch up while taking down the note. The bunker was now packed with his staff, standing rigid and silent.

  “Were it not insubordinate, I would say that the latter remark of your note was un-officerlike and ungentlemanly.”

  “Sir.” It was one of his aides, Vincent.

  “Sir, perhaps, sir, you should drop that last line,” but Burnside cut him off with a vicious wave of his hand.

  “Send it!”

  Even the telegrapher hesitated, looking up at Burnside appealingly.

  “Send it exactly as I said it, by God, or you will be relieved and I will find someone who will send it. I have had it with that man, his insults, and insinuations. If he had not altered the plan we would already be into Petersburg by now!”

  The telegrapher dutifully put fingers to the key and started to tap out the message. Outside the bunker the guns from the nearest battery, firing in support of the attack, continued to thunder, trickles of dust falling from the ceiling by the constant vibration.

  The sun, now two hours up, was beating down on the battlefield, the temperature already well into the eighties and rising fast. Some of the men within the bunker had already taken off their uniform jackets.

  No one had noticed James Reilly, squatting in the far corner of the room, sketchpad out, acting as if he were drawing the scene. But after every few pencil strokes across his pad, along the margin he jotted down, word for word, everything that was being said.

  The message sent, all stood silent, Burnside turning his back on the men.

  His mind raced with confusion. Should I just mount up and go forward, he wondered. I have led from the front before. That’s it, go forward and rally the men. But this damn telegraph binds me, binds all of us, too far behind the lines. Some had thought this new technology would give corps commanders greater freedom and instant communication with their field commanders. Instead, it was tying them to their bunkers and headquarters rather than following the old tradition of leading from the front.

  But this was no longer like the open battlefields of New Bern and Antietam. It was a rabbit warren of trenches, revetments, covered approach tunnels. He would get lost in it, and how then to command?

  He now recalled having ordered the Fourth Division to take shelter in the covered tunnel. He had all but forgotten about them in the confusion and controversy with Meade.

  Order them in? Or should I just swallow my pride, ride up to Meade’s headquarters, and see if this can still be straightened out? Where was Tenth Corps? If I had control of them, I would already be sending them in to try and flank the chaos at the crater. Surely they could still carry it?

  The conflicting thoughts, the myriad of details racing out of control so overwhelmed him, that he just stood silent, making no decision at all. At last the telegraph key began to chatter in reply, with the telegrapher, pad on table, jotting down the letters as they came in.

  United States Military Telegraph.

  * * *

  I demand a copy of the previous dispatch you reference, since I did not keep a copy, intending it to be confidential. Your reply requires I should have a copy.

  Burnside glared at the telegrapher as if he had somehow created this message out of thin air. The implication was all too obvious. Meade was documenting every word for future reference in a court-martial for insubordination in the field.

  He no longer gave a damn.

  “Send it back to him again,” he snapped and, putting on his oversized high-crowned hat, stormed out of the stuffy bunker and into the blazing Virginia heat.

  James remained quiet. Drawing attention to himself would only wind up with his being ejected, so he remained squatting in the corner, sketchpad out, furiously jotting down notes of the exchange that came flying back just minutes later from Meade, demanding an immediate apology.

  Inwardly he raged. He had held Burnside in some regard until these last few hours. A general like Winfield Hancock would have just seized control of the moment, put himself on the front line out of the reach of Meade and the telegraph, and from there directed the battle. The story of Admiral Horatio Nelson raising his telescope to his blind eye to a signal to withdraw his fleet during battle, then proclaiming that he had seen no such signal, was known by all with an interest in history.

  Burnside could have personally pushed the men of the Fourth forward in the first minutes, regardless of what Meade had ordered. If he failed, he might of course be hanged, but no one hanged a victor.

  * * *

  “This is worse than Antietam,” someone whispered nervously, and James looked up to see that Captain Vincent was the speaker. “He’s locked up inside with this. The battle is out of control. The same thing happened at Fredericksburg, he locks up.”

  No one dared to speak, the telegrapher standing silent, like an accusing ghost, holding out the telegram from Meade demanding an apology, obviously fearful of delivering it himself.

  “I’ll take it, damn it,” Vincent finally snapped, snatching the flimsy sheet.

  He hesit
ated.

  “Write back the following,” Vincent said. “Sir, no insult was ever intended on my part. The situation at this moment is difficult in the extreme. Please accept my apology.”

  He hesitated.

  “Sign it, Burnside.”

  “I’ll be the one in a court-martial if I send that without his authorization,” the telegrapher replied, voice elevated to a nervous squeak.

  “I’ll take the responsibility, now send it!”

  Vincent raced out of the bunker, the room breaking into nervous chatter, and James was suddenly filled with a vast loathing toward all of it. Eight hundred yards away, the supreme chance of victory and an ending to this war was being thrown away, and men were dying by the scores every minute, while this staff gaggle stood and argued among themselves.

  He stood up and went out of the bunker.

  As he did so, Vincent came back, features drawn, nearly bumping into James.

  “What are you doing here?” Vincent snapped.

  “For heaven’s sake, I am on your side,” James replied sharply.

  “Leave this bunker, now!”

  “That is what I am doing.”

  But he still blocked the entryway.

  “Where is Burnside?” he asked.

  “Just leave him alone!” Vincent cried.

  James nodded.

  “Listen, I’m on your side in this. Just one thing. You still have the Fourth Division. They know the plan. I heard the order come in an hour ago to send them in and for whatever reason it was not passed forward. Send them in.”

  Vincent seemed ready with a retort.

  James put his hand up in a placating gesture.

  “I stayed with those men for weeks. I know them. They’re ready. They are tough, gallant men eager for battle. If anyone can retrieve this now, it is they. Send them in!”

  Vincent hesitated, gaze fixed on James. He turned without comment and ran back up the steps of the bunker.

  James followed slowly, seeing Vincent standing with Burnside, pointing to where the battle continued to rage, all now obscured by rolling clouds of smoke from musketry and artillery fire.