The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (32 page)

He stood silent, while around him men continued to cheer. He knew he had just watched several hundred lives being snuffed out … it was nothing to cheer about, even if they were the enemy.

The pillar of smoke appeared to detach from the ground and slowly drifted, a cloudy mist hanging over the Rebel line. But after a minute or so it began to break apart.

And still no one was moving.

They had been trained again and again in what they were to do. When finally told what was to happen, that ten tons of powder would detonate under the fort, that it would disappear in a single heartbeat, to be replaced by a crater upward of two hundred yards wide, they had expected to already be moving forward.

“It will look like you are charging into Hell itself,” Colonel Russell had told them, “but better that than Rebel bullets and canister at point-blank range.

“The moment the explosion starts, I want every man of you up and racing forward as you have drilled over and over. Every man of you! Do not hold back. Yes, some of you might be injured, even killed by the falling debris, but I want you into the Rebel lines to either side of the crater before the dust even begins to settle and the smoke to clear. They will be running the other way, I promise you, and we must latch onto their coattails and run with them, clear into Petersburg!

“You must charge, and keep on charging!”

Instead of charging, the men of Ledlie’s division were on their feet, jumping up and down, gesturing, and to Garland’s utter disbelief, falling back! In the face of the debris raining down, their forward lines were actually pulling back, some of the men turning and running.

“For God’s sake,” he heard someone scream. He turned and saw that Sergeant Malady, true to his promise, had fallen in with their brigade and was standing at the side of General Thomas.

“Charge, damn you! Charge!”

With his cry more and more of the men of the Fourth took notice for the first time that the men of the division which had replaced them, rather than going forward, were recoiling back. A universal shout of rage began to rise up from the ranks. Officers turned, some raising their hands for the men to fall silent, but the sight was so overwhelming to them as well that some of their voices joined in protest.

Two minutes had passed, then three, and not one man had crossed the forward trench line. By this point the entire 28th would already have been across the Rebel trenches and racing toward the Jerusalem Plank Road.

And so they stood, and raged, and not a single man advanced.

4:51
A.M.

“In the name of God! Get your men moving!”

In his rage Colonel Pleasants had climbed out of the trench. The air around him was thick with the dust that had slowly boiled down the slope, but which was now beginning to clear.

He scanned their lines to either flank of the crater, half expecting to be shot as he stood up. There did not seem to be a single man in the trenches for at least a hundred or more yards to either flank of the smoking wreckage of what had been Fort Pegram. As he and Burnside had predicted from the first, the massive explosion had triggered a panic, understandably so.

Would more such explosions follow all along the Rebel line? Had the Yankees planted infernal devices along the entire front?

He could see scores of Rebels, out of the trenches, running pell-mell back toward the Jerusalem Plank Road. To either flank, for a mile in either direction, every Union artillery piece available—160 guns—had opened up as well, from the sharp bark of three-inch rifles, up to the deep thunderous cough of the huge fourteen-inch mortars, blanketing the Rebel lines with explosive and solid shot.

He turned back to face Ledlie’s men. They had fallen back a hundred yards or more in some places, all packed together. Debris from the explosion had fallen nearly as far back—clumps of dirt, equipment, unidentifiable wreckage, and bodies as well. Amazingly, one of the Rebels was still alive, staggering around just in front of his trench; several men climbed out, grabbed him, and then with a show of gentleness actually helped him down to cover. The survivor was an oddity that filled them with curiosity as to why he lived when nearly every other man in the fort was now dead.

The sight of several of Ledlie’s men who had been hit by the debris falling back when they should already have been over the enemy line filled Pleasants with rage.

He leaped over his own trench, and with arms flung wide, pointed to the enemy position.

“Charge, damn you! Charge!”

Some of his men, those who had labored so long for this moment, came out of the trench as well, pointing up the slope, screaming for their comrades to “Move, damn, it move!”

And finally, by ones and twos, and then in disorganized clusters the men of the First Division began to come forward. Only then did Henry realize that none of them were carrying footbridges to traverse the Rebel trench, and that none had been brought up during the night, to be thrown across their own trenches in the first seconds after the explosion. And not a single man with Ledlie was carrying an ax to clear away the abatis and chevaux-de-frise that were still intact on either flank of the crater.

Pleasants ran down the length of his own trench, drawing out his sword, holding it up high, waving it, pointing it toward the Rebel line.

“Do it! Do it now! Take it!”

The first of Ledlie’s men reached his trench. Some managed to leap across, while many just lowered themselves down, then scrambled up the other side. Whichever units still had any cohesion now broke apart.

Raging, Colonel Pleasants found himself literally grabbing men, shoving them forward, leaping back over his trench and then turning to grab hold of men trying to climb up and out, yelling at them to keep moving.

Several hundred were now out into what would have been a killing ground only fifteen minutes before, walking slowly, cautiously, as if expecting at any second a blazing volley to erupt and give them reason to turn and dive back into the protection of their own trenches.

Not a single shot greeted them, and now more men, emboldened, began to push forward. But many stopped to gawk, to gather around a three-inch rifle, nearly intact, lying inverted halfway up the slope, others slowing to look at the bodies and parts of bodies of dead Rebels blown out of the fort.

“Keep moving!”

“Who the hell are you?”

He turned and saw a star on an officer’s shoulder, but did not bother to salute.

“I asked, who the hell are you?”

Pleasants realized that the explosion must have affected his hearing; it was hard to catch what the man was saying.

“I’m Colonel Pleasants, 48th Pennsylvania. My men dug the mine. Why in hell are your men not advancing?”

He looked into the man’s eyes, and saw that, for a general, he was quite young, not more than in his mid-twenties.

“Because we have no orders, that’s why!”

“And who the hell are you?” Pleasants cried.

“General Bartlett, First Brigade of the First Division.”

Startled, Pleasants could not help himself, and looked down. General William Bartlett was leaning on a cane, the straps of his artificial leg visible beneath his uniform trousers.

The man was something of a legend with Ninth Corps, and Pleasants realized that he himself must be in shock, otherwise he would have recognized Bartlett immediately.

Enlisting in the first days of the war as a private with the famed 20th Massachusetts, the same regiment which had produced Robert Gould Shaw, Bartlett had risen to company command by the spring of 1862. A Rebel sharpshooter had nailed him during the opening days of the Peninsula Campaign.

Losing his leg above the knee, Bartlett had finished his college education at Harvard while recuperating, gone back into the army, this time raising a regiment to go with him, and had then been wounded twice more, nearly losing his other leg, and having a hand permanently crippled after his wrist was shattered. He refused to allow the surgeon to cut it off, saying he had given enough of his body to the damn Rebels already. While Bartlett was recovering from those wounds, Burnside had recruited him to take over a brigade under Ledlie, and nearly every man of the division had looked forward to the day that Ledlie was finally booted out and a real fighting general like Bartlett took over.

It was therefore shocking to Pleasants that Bartlett, leaning heavily on his cane, apparently did not know what to do.

“What do you mean, you have no orders?” Pleasants asked, voice going tight, not believing he was asking such a question of this man.

It wasn’t just the explosion that was making it difficult for Henry to hear. All along the Union line every gun was firing as rapidly as possible, the cannonade a continual wave of thunder.

“Just that!” Bartlett shouted. “My orders were to form and then advance after the explosion of some sort of mine; that once formed my men and I would be briefed. I waited all night for further instructions, but there wasn’t a word and then suddenly this!”

He pointed at the still smoking crater.

Pleasants reeled with this blow. He could sense this was no coward or fool standing before him. The man was out in the open, confused, but obviously enraged as well.

“Where is General Ledlie? He was supposed to be leading this!” Pleasants asked.

“Damn him! You tell me!” Bartlett cried.

And even as the two stood out in the middle of what had been a no-man’s-land but minutes before, they saw the first of the men reach the crest, look about, and then just disappear, jumping down into the crater.

“You had no orders to take the road and the hill beyond it?”

“What road? The Jerusalem Plank? That’s what we’re supposed to do now?”

“Merciful God,” Pleasants gasped, not even realizing he was clasping Bartlett by the shoulder and nearly knocking him off balance.

“Once blown, the plan was for the lead brigades to charge around the crater, not into it!” and he pointed to where more and yet more men of Bartlett’s command were doing just that, jumping down into the crater, or still poking around at the wreckage, like boys exploring a shipwreck after a storm.

“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.

T
he 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.