The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2) / A Narrative and Critical History

by George Cary Eggleston

The affair was badly managed from beginning to end, and resulted in a disaster which amounted almost to a crime. For the execution of such an enterprise as this, General Meade ought to have selected his most daring and determined subordinate to lead the assailing force. Instead of that he permitted the selection to be made by some species of lot drawing, and the choice fell upon General James H. Ledlie, who proved himself peculiarly unfit for the conduct of an enterprise that required so much of heroic daring. General Grant in his "Memoirs" says of this officer that, "Ledlie, besides being otherwise inefficient, proved also to possess a disqualification less common among soldiers." He did, indeed, order his men to advance into the breach made by the explosion which occurred at about daylight, but he did not lead them. He remained instead, during all that terrible day, securely ensconced in the ravine that lay in rear of the Federal line.

The explosion completely destroyed a Confederate fort and its garrison, leaving a vast crater thirty feet deep and two hundred feet long into which Ledlie's men were sent like sheep to the slaughter. Having reached the crater they stopped there instead of pushing on as had been intended and running over the weak second line of Confederate defense. Thus the whole purpose of the enterprise was completely defeated at the outset for lack of capable leadership.

It must be remembered that at that period of the war Lee's army was so far battle seasoned that any form of panic was to it completely impossible. Even when it saw the most important part of its line blown up, and thousands of Federal troops rushing into the crater, the Army of Northern Virginia remained steadfast and unshaken. Hurried orders were given, and promptly obeyed. Within ten minutes after Ledlie's column came to a halt in the crater it was forever too late for them to gain the advantage intended by rushing through that slender second line which held the Jerusalem plank road, and which alone stood then between the Federal army and Petersburg. Under Lee's command, the Army of Northern Virginia had become as perfect a piece of military mechanism as ever existed, and under Lee's command, for both Lee and Beauregard were promptly present at the post of danger, the men of that army were quickly shifted into positions against which an advance of their enemy would have been nothing less than wholesale suicide.

In the meanwhile Ledlie's men in the crater were as helpless to retire as they were to advance. They were practically leaderless and the space in rear of them was already commanded by Confederate artillery which could sweep it with canister from end to end. To this commanding force of artillery Lee promptly added thirty-five other guns, placing each in a position from which it could hurl its missiles from one end to the other of the doomed space.

It was not until after midday that these preparations and others of a like kind were completed. But in the meanwhile detachments from Lamkin's battery of mortars were pushed up and placed behind traverses within sixty yards of that cavernous hole in which thousands of Federal soldiers were lying helpless for lack of a leader fit to command them. These mortars continued ceaselessly throughout the morning to hurl twenty-four-pound shells into the hole at the rate of twenty a minute. This fire was murderous in an extreme degree, but there was no escape from it. The men subjected to it had no choice but to sit still and await the end. They could neither advance nor retreat with any hope of escape in either direction.

Finally a little after midday, and after he had completed his preparations and the placing of his guns, Lee ordered Mahone, with a heavy infantry force, to charge across the field to the very edge of the crater, and pour into it a fire so destructive that its further tenancy should be rendered impossible. The more desperate of the Federal troops in the hole risked flight toward their own lines, fifty yards away. Not many of them succeeded in getting there. The rest surrendered, and the Confederates occupied the crater.

The narrow space between the two lines was literally piled high with dead Federal soldiers, lying on top of each other, sometimes three deep, and in some places five. A day later there was a suspension of hostilities for a few hours, and the dead were dragged away and buried.

This badly managed affair well nigh rivaled the blunder at Cold Harbor in its costliness to the Army of the Potomac. Grant's loss was more than 4,000 men,—Lee's less than 1,000.

The whole enterprise was of doubtful military propriety. Yet if it had been conducted with an energy and capability equal to that which had been brought to bear upon other fields it might have promised the early and complete destruction of Lee's defenses. If there had been, in command of the troops set apart for the assault, such a man as Sheridan, for example, or Hooker, or Hancock, the chance was an even one or better that the force hurled suddenly upon Lee's broken line could have made its way into Petersburg by impetuous advance. It must be accounted one of General Meade's rare failures in judgment, that he did not place the assailing force under some such commander upon whom he could depend to give wise personal direction and leadership to the desperate fighting needed on such an occasion.

In its outcome, this enterprise which had been planned for the destruction of Lee and his army, resulted rather in their strengthening. Having recaptured the crater they promptly threw up a line of works along that side of it which lay nearest to their enemy, thus in fact, shortening the distance between the two lines, without in any way weakening their position.