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

by Newt Gingrich

  For that, Burnside was responsible. But at this moment, Pleasants did not have the heart or stomach to tell him to his face that, on that score at least, he had utterly failed.

  Those who had escaped the crater spoke with admiration, some with tears in their eyes, of the courage of Brigadier General Bartlett, his cork leg blown off, trying to take command of the fiasco, to organize the fight while several of his men carried him around. In the end, Bartlett had refused to be carried out, saying that come what might, he would stay until the last soldier, white or black, escaped. If necessary he would go into captivity with them, and if captured he would try to ensure fair treatment for the prisoners.

  A brigade commander had been doing the job of a division commander. With some corps, such as that of Winfield Scott Hancock, the corps commander would have been in there with them as well.

  “As to your report, Henry,” and Burnside motioned to the torn-up paper, “I am not submitting it.”

  “I think I have a right to ask why, sir.”

  “Because I have too much respect for you, Colonel, to see you throw yourself on your sword.”

  “What?”

  Burnside chuckled and leaned back in his chair. He was a man known for mood swings that could be confusing at times. Often he was cheerful, encouraging, ready with a joke, always quick to praise, but then suddenly he would sink into a black funk. He would become withdrawn, morose, all but paralyzed when it came to a decision. That had been abundantly clear when the plan had unraveled and straws had to been drawn. Rumor was, as well, that throughout the battle he just stood at the parapet of the reserve line, bombarded by telegrams from Meade.

  You should have gone forward, Pleasants thought inwardly. Gone forward; to hell with Meade and the damn telegraph. You could have seized control, sent the colored troops in immediately, and led them yourself. You could have won the war by doing so. History never casts blame on a winner of wars.

  “Your report, Henry, I will not submit. You can write something else out later tonight, after you have had some sleep, but not a word about Meade. Your observations of how the change in order of battle affected the outcome will be removed. Just a straightforward narrative of your digging the tunnel is all that is needed.”

  Burnside paused and lowered his head, then looked up again with that curious smile.

  “No recriminations about Meade’s engineers saying it was impossible, about the lack of equipment, or the faulty fuses and the cutting of the powder charge down to forty percent of what we requested.”

  Burnside stood up, went to the coffee pot, poured more out, opened up the desk drawer and poured a fair amount of sour mash in, and returned to sit across from Pleasants.

  “But, sir, I wrote the truth,” the colonel protested.

  Burnside smiled as he sipped his drink.

  “The truth? What is the truth now? What you saw? Maybe, what I saw?” he hesitated. “God forgive me, but I should have gone forward and not allowed myself to be pinned down by that damn telegraph.”

  Pleasants did not reply.

  “Did you know that Meade arrested my telegraphy operators today?”

  “What?”

  “Said they had been privy to private correspondence now related to the court of inquiry and therefore would be held incommunicado until after the trial.”

  “What correspondence, sir?”

  “It will come out in the hearing,” he paused. “I hope.”

  Burnside took another sip.

  “And thus, to you, Colonel Henry Pleasants, the court of inquiry starts…” he paused, opening his pocket watch and then snapping it shut. “In one day and eight hours from now General Winfield Hancock will preside. Winfield is a fair man, but after what happened at Deep Bottom last week, I don’t think he is quite the man I once knew.”

  Pleasants did not dare to reply. This was in the realm of one corps commander commenting on another. All in this army knew that Hancock was the most daring of all corps commanders, at least of those still alive after three years of war. His performance at Chancellorsville as a division commander, holding the rear while being attacked from three directions, and at Gettysburg confronting Pickett’s Charge, was the stuff of legends. But he had taken a debilitating, near fatal wound back at Gettysburg and returned a shadow of the robust man he had once been.

  Veterans often commented that even the bravest man, after being badly wounded, lost some of his innate courage and impulsiveness upon his return. It was rumored that when his command broke and ran the week before, Winfield had wept. That in the charges at Cold Harbor and Petersburg, he had stood silent, stunned by the slaughter of his gallant Second Corps. Was he still the same man all knew from a year before?

  “The others on the board of inquiry, Generals Ayres and Miles, are fairly good men, but they are Army of the Potomac men.”

  Burnside fell silent and Pleasants knew the clear implication. They were Meade’s men. The Ninth always had been something of a stepchild after falling under his command.

  “But I never held much truck with Colonel Shriver as inspector general of the Army,” Burnside continued. “Too much the lawyer.”

  He looked off, sipping his drink.

  “And so, Colonel Henry Pleasants, I will not accept your after-action report.”

  “Sir, it is the truth.”

  Burnside just smiled.

  “Rewrite it as ordered and make no reference to anything other than the digging of the tunnel and that you were in reserve when the attack went forward. That is it.”

  Pleasants started to protest.

  “That is an order, Colonel.”

  “Why, sir?”

  Burnside chuckled sadly.

  “Because I do not like group hangings. You and your men came up with a plan—of course you wish to defend it—but it was not your plan that failed, it was the army…” he sighed. “And me.”

  Pleasants did not reply to that because there was indeed truth in what the man had said.

  “Also, I have cut an order for you to go on furlough immediately, dated as of today. You are to take the morning packet out of City Point. Be there at dawn, so scribble out some quick report and one of your aides can deliver it to me, and then get the hell out of here. It is good for thirty days, and I am ordering you home—now.”

  “Sir?”

  Burnside stood up, as if indicating the interview was at an end.

  “Henry, if you’re here you will be summoned to the court of inquiry. Knowing you, I know you will talk freely, too freely. Colonel, the decisions have already been made. I think that will become evident, and I refuse to see a good officer dragged down with me. And believe me, they will drag you down as well if you appear at the hearing.”

  Pleasants stood speechless. Part of him was just overwhelmed, stunned. Home? My God—home, to my wife, my family, to my Pennsylvania mountains—away from this damned place with its heat, its stench, its death. But everything inside him that had become a volunteer soldier across the last three years now rebelled.

  “No, sir” was all he could say.

  “What?”

  “No, sir, I refuse.”

  “Henry, you can’t argue with your corps commander.”

  “Oh, yes, I can, sir, and I will. I insist upon appearing before that damn court.”

  “For what?”

  “To tell the truth of what I saw.”

  Burnside sighed, stepped forward, and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder.

  “I forbid you to throw yourself on my funeral pyre.”

  “Sir?”

  Burnside chuckled again.

  “What about history, sir?”

  Burnside actually threw his head back and laughed.

  “History comes long after the war. For now let’s focus on your survival, and the truth will not help you in that cause.”

  CITY POINT, VIRGINIA

  6:00 A.M.

  Henry Pleasants stood at the stern of the packet boat, foam churning up behind the boat, now cle
ar of the dock as it began to race out into the broad James River on the journey back to Washington.

  The river was alive with traffic this morning. Steamers were bringing in supplies, one hauling a barge loaded with lolling, terrified cattle that seemed to have sensed what their fate would be. By the end of that day they would feed the hungry maws of more than one hundred thousand men. A hospital steamer, a side-wheeler, the faded letters of Commodore Vanderbilt’s line still faintly visible on its side, whitewashed over, green flags of the hospital corps snapping from its bow and stern, was just ahead of him. It was most likely loaded with the wounded from the crater, too gravely injured to be of further use to the army. Now they were going back to Washington, to the invalid hospitals, before being discharged and given a crutch or perhaps one of the new artificial arms made of gutta-percha.

  Around him there was excited chatter of men going home on furlough or self-important talk about missions to Washington.

  Few noticed him standing there, sipping brandy out of a flask, looking at the receding shore line.

  “Say, you were with the Ninth, weren’t you?”

  He half turned and saw an officer, a one-star general, looking at him, gesturing to Pleasants’s cap, adorned with the fouled anchor insignia of his corps.

  He only nodded.

  “Were you there at the big fight?”

  Again, he nodded.

  “Heard, if ever there was a botched affair, that was it. Bet you’re glad to be getting out of here.”

  The man gazed at him with a strange smile.

  “Heard the damn darkies really panicked and that’s why we lost. Whatever fool put them there should have been shot. What do you say?”

  Pleasants simply gazed at him.

  “Go to hell, you son of a bitch,” he said ever so slowly, enunciating each word clearly.

  The general blustered and puffed up.

  “By God, I should bring you up on charges for that.”

  “Go ahead,” Pleasants replied, voice again pitched cool, even gaze boring into the rotund general. “But it will be on charges of murder because in about ten seconds I am going to blow your damn brains out.”

  As he spoke, he let his hand drop to his holster and unsnapped the cover to his Remington revolver.

  The general looked at him, stunned, and turned a bit to look to either side to see the reaction of others. Some had simply turned and walked away, not wanting to be dragged in as witnesses for a court-martial, which might ruin their furloughs. But at least a few, men obviously from combat commands, just stood there silent … none offering support.

  With a foul curse the general turned and stalked off. Pleasants spared but a glance to the others. A few nodded approvingly and one half raised a hand in salute. He turned away, and they left him alone.

  He gazed at the receding shoreline, but in his mind’s eye he could not escape it, even as the miles separated him from his war. It would always be there, the dream, the hope, then the anguish, and the look in a young black soldier’s eyes as he gasped out, “I ain’t no coward, sir,” closing those eyes, standing up to go back in—laden down with canteens of water for his wounded comrades—and dying but seconds later.

  Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania, who would miss the trial and thus return unscathed for promotion to brigade command, stood silent. At least for now, the war was over for him.

  He lowered his head and silently wept.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CITY POINT, VIRGINIA

  DAY TWO: COURT OF INQUIRY INTO THE “INCIDENT” AT THE BATTLE OF THE MINE,

  AUGUST 4, 1864

  It was hot, blasted hot. James Reilly wiped the sweat from his face with his bandanna and tried to return to his sketching.

  General George Gordon Meade was sitting before the tribunal; his hat was off and his face drenched in sweat like all the others, but his uniform was buttoned up as was proper.

  Sitting opposite him was Winfield Scott Hancock, features pale, the heat obviously getting to him. To Hancock’s left were Generals Miles and Ayres, to his right Colonel Shriver, inspector general of the Army, and then at the far end of the table a captain who knew this new thing called stenography and was furiously jotting down a word-by-word transcript. The windows were all closed to prevent eavesdropping, and the audience was a select few of the more important officers of the Army of the Potomac, several others he could not identify, and, finally, himself.

  Gaining access had taken some rapid work on his part, a coded message to his friend in the White House that elicited an order sent back down to City Point the next day that an artist should be allowed to be present, as long as he took an oath not to write down any transcription of the session, to repeat not a word of what was being said, and that his drawings were to be released as an historical record only after the hearing had ended.

  Meade was in his second and final day of testimony, the opening witness, which struck James as strange. An inquiry such as this should have started with the lowest ranks and then moved up the ladder of command. Any professional or volunteer army officer with a lick of sense knew to take his cues from the rank above if he wished to climb. If his testimony placed blame in the wrong direction, he could find himself stripped of a command and shipped to California to sit out the rest of the war.

  Meade was finishing up. His report had been damning. He had adroitly avoided implicating General Grant in any of the decision making, stating that Grant, while in overall command, had seen to diversionary operations directly in front of Richmond to draw off Lee’s reserves prior to the attack. He claimed that Grant had agreed with Meade’s misgivings about the use of the colored troops for the first wave of the attack, but had, as per standard procedure, given him command of the assault. However, Meade stated that Burnside had tried to sidestep that chain of command with repeated inquiries directly to Grant. Finally, under pressure from Hancock, Meade had at least conceded that Grant had reviewed the plans, as submitted by Burnside, but Meade claimed that he had only given his grudging approval.

  As for Grant, his testimony would never be heard; he was back in Washington on “official business.”

  Meade had testified that his own staff of engineers, all of them West Point men—unlike Burnside’s engineers—had expressed misgivings about the amount of powder demanded, saying it was excessive and would have created vertical walls within the crater, making it unusable as a position to be held; that all adequate logistical support had been properly provided; and that it was his own decision to withdraw the black troops from the assault out of fear that fresh untrained men would panic in the opening minutes of the attack and create a debacle.

  “Is there anything else that you should wish to add to your testimony?” Colonel Shriver asked, an obvious suggestion that the day’s testimony was drawing to a conclusion.

  Meade sighed.

  “It turned into a tragic affair, we all know that. It could have been a coup de main, which might very well have succeeded if my orders had been properly carried out. I did see it as a forlorn hope and thus, as stated, felt that only veteran troops could see such a storming of a heavily entrenched enemy position through to a proper conclusion.

  “To expect untried troops to achieve that end was a grave misjudgment on the part of the corps commander directly responsible for the assault.”

  “Why then did you delay until the last minute in changing the order of battle?” General Miles asked.

  James could sense a stiffening on Meade’s part, a glance at Miles that must have been chilling. Miles, across the two days, was the only member of the tribunal who had dared to ask pointed questions.

  “Gentlemen, the press, as you know, is already commenting on that. I heard today that the New York Herald, no friend of the current administration, is declaring that the battle was lost because quote ‘the darkies panicked and ran’ and that in so doing, they sowed confusion and disorder among the white troops who had already successfully gained a lodgment in the Rebel lines.<
br />
  “I think it obvious, gentlemen, that my decision was based upon sound military logic and my many years of service, dating clear back to Mexico and the campaigns in the West. If you wish a job done properly, you need professionals do to it, not amateurs, be they officers or enlisted men.

  “I bear no prejudice against the colored troops. Their role in support positions for this army will free thousands of troops with experience for the front lines. Given seasoning on quieter fronts, I believe, over time, they can prove themselves. There was no time for that seasoning or for any gradual breaking in of those troops to a combat role. In their first action, to send them into that kind of frontal assault was a decision of utmost folly. If I failed, it was in deferring too long to one of my corps commanders.”

  As he said this Meade nodded to Winfield Scott Hancock, a man who, like him, had risen rapidly from brigade to division and then to corps command.

  “But to answer your question: After a final reconnaissance of the Rebel position the day before the planned assault, and the analysis of how many reserves of the Confederates that General Grant had been able to draw off by diversionary actions north of the James River and around Richmond, it became clear to me that the decision to send untested troops into a frontal assault, against the flanks of the enemy line outside the perimeter of the explosion, would be a grave error. Their slaughter would have raised an even louder outcry with some in the press and general public. It would have sown panic among the follow-up divisions, and what little we did gain in this action would instead have been, far worse, a bloody repulse all along the entire front.”

  He fell silent.

  James knew that he himself must remain silent, as it was only by covertly contacting Lincoln that he was even in this room, and to express anything, even a slight expression of disdain, might result in his ejection. He kept his eyes focused on his sketchpad, not even writing down a word or two of what had just been said. A provost guard had been ordered to inspect his sketches at the end of each day to insure no testimony had been jotted down.