The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (20 page)

JULY 15, 1864
TRAINING CAMP

“All right, boys, do it right this time,” Garland growled, stalking up and down along the flank of his column. They had been at it since dawn, the way they had been at it ever since dawn for the last two weeks.

Their once spotless uniforms, which they had been so proud of, were torn and mud-splattered, the red clay of Virginia ground in so deep that no amount of washing could get it all out.

Men were breathing hard, some bent over gasping in the heat, and he looked at them carefully. An order had come in to the brigade the day before reporting that nearly a third of the men of the 28th were to be detailed off for guard duty down at City Point. Russell had howled in protest, kicking it up to Thomas, their brigade commander, and had even gone to their seldom-seen division commander, Ferrero, with no results. At an officers meeting, which Garland attended, it was decided to cull out the men who were obviously not standing up well to the relentless drill and, at times, outright abuse showered upon them by Malady and the dozen other white sergeants Malady had brought in to assist with his brand of training.

Some of those sergeants were even worse than Malady when it came to the verbal abuse, and, now that the training had shifted, the physical abuse as well.

The hatred against the trainers was simmering to a boil. Even though Garland tried to reassure the men that these were veterans of such assaults, that they knew what it was like, and no matter how rough it got, the hard training was getting them ready.

Garland uncorked his canteen and handed it to a man who had just vomited from exhaustion and the heat.

“Here, rinse your mouth out, take a drink slowly, then go over yonder to those trees and lay down.”

“Not me, Sergeant Major,” the man gasped. “I sit down, they send me down to City Point to guard. I’m staying here.”

Garland slapped him on the back and waited to get his precious canteen back.

“Sergeant Major White!”

He looked up. It was Lieutenant Grant, breathing hard, face pale.

He went up and saluted.

“Five minutes, we go in again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know what the boys are thinking; let’s try not to have any trouble now.”

“I’ll try, sir, but their blood is up.”

Grant forced a smile.

“Well, at least let’s try.”

A whistle sounded; the shrill sound picked up, blown by the other sergeants, who were spaced at intervals up in front of the “Rebel line.”

Much had been added in the last few days. Eight rough-hewn wooden footbridges, several feet wide and twelve feet long, had been issued to the men of the 28th. Their task was to carry the footbridges up at the double, get across the moat, drag them up the face of the enemy parapet, and then fling them across the trench to serve as pathways. Men grumbled—why in hell had they not been given them on the first day? Suppose the bridges were lost or blown apart, for Malady seemed almost to relish telling them how their ranks would be torn by rifle and canister fire as they advanced.

New elements had been added three days ago, abatis and chevaux-de-frise. An abatis was nothing more than a maze of sharpened stakes driven into the ground, pointed toward an advancing foe. Chevaux-de-frise were logs, drilled out in a crisscross pattern, and stakes driven through, so the whole affair rested chest high like a spiked fence. These barriers now dotted the landscape in front of the moat and had been driven into the face of the parapet. Two men had actually been killed by them, pushed into the barriers by comrades shoving from behind, and dozens more had endured various cuts and bruises. They had been placed there during the night between exercises. The first time the advancing columns came to them, so proud of their progress up to that point, they had ground to a confused halt.

Malady continued to shower abuse on them to find a way through.

After several failed attempts he at last relented. A wagon pulled up, offloading a hundred axes, which were handed out to the men at the front of the column. The moment the signal was given for the advance, their job was to sprint ahead and smash the barriers clear before their comrades reached the line.

It had worked reasonably well the first time, though all grumbled when they had to rebuild and replace the barriers themselves before falling back for another go.

This morning, two new elements had been added. The first was the object of lively speculation among the men. What about the earthen fort smack in the middle between the two advancing columns? This morning that fort was now marked off with a circle of marker flags and cloth strips nearly two hundred yards across. Malady announced that any man who stepped into that circle was a dead man and would spend the rest of the day repairing the barriers after each practice charge and would get no rations. He also announced that his new assistants would block men at random, and if blocked, the man was to fall to the ground and remain there.

All knew what that meant.

And then the trouble started. The white sergeants were less than gentle standing in the way of the charging column, tripping men as they ran by, knocking others over. Men getting too close to the “dead man’s circle” were shoved into it by the sergeants screaming they were dead and had to fall out for work detail.

Brawls were starting, and several men had already been dragged off by provosts for striking a noncommissioned officer.

Garland was at the front of the line, looking back at his men and then eyeing the sergeants, who seemed eager for the fracas to begin.

“Keep calm, boys,” he cried. “Follow your orders!”

But he could tell that tempers were wearing thin in the boiling heat.

Beyond everything else the men were now heavily burdened down. Full uniforms, rifles slung over shoulders, backpacks, and cartridge boxes stuffed with forty rounds were part of the load, as well as an extra forty rounds stuffed into haversacks and pockets. Canteens were filled and many an officer and sergeant was carrying an extra, some even a third.

Garland looked over at Russell, who just smiled calmly.

“They want you angry, Garland, remember that. No matter what they do to you, it is only a taste of what the Rebels will do when this is for real.”

Captain Vincent stood atop the fortress wall, his pistol replaced by a small mountain howitzer, which could be more clearly heard and seen.

The gun recoiled.

“Axmen forward!” Russell cried.

The men of the lead ranks, axes held high, leaped forward like demented medieval warriors, advancing at a full run. Men of the second and third ranks hoisted up the wooden footbridges and started forward at the double behind them, while behind them the rest of the column started to advance at the walk.

Garland put himself forward, running alongside six men hauling a footbridge. Russell was in front of him. Garland looked up the slope, but vision was difficult with sweat streaming into his eyes.

The axmen were already into the barriers, swinging blades wildly, smashing a way through. The white sergeants had let them pass, and he smiled, wondering if they were more than a little afraid to confront and stop the biggest men of his regiment—wielding axes and with their blood up.

A sergeant sprinted in front of Colonel Russell, shouting, “You are down, sir!”

Russell did as ordered, first moving to one side of the column so he wouldn’t be trampled and then sitting down and taking off his hat to wipe his brow. A look from him told Garland that he, more than any other man in the regiment, was expected to see it through.

That moment had filled Garland with a stomach-knotting horror. He had served under Colonel Russell ever since the day he had enlisted, December 24, 1863. Russell had singled him out on the very first day, knowing Garland’s record as a political activist, as a literate man who could read and write, and as a man who had worked as a recruiter for both the 54th and 55th Massachusetts. He knew Garland had been offered the rank of sergeant major in both those famed units.

Russell had tutored Garland for months, grooming him for command; even many of the white officers who had joined the regiment over the ensuing months deferred to Garland or sought his advice when a particular recruit was proving difficult. Usually Garland had been able to talk the recruit around; on several occasions, though, he did what sergeant majors had done since the armies of Pharaoh: he passed a quiet word to a couple of corporals, walked the other way, and ignored the sound of a man getting a good thrashing.

The quick look from Russell spoke volumes: “This might happen for real, and if it does, you’ve got to lead them.” It was a fearful thought but one that filled him with pride, as well: to have such trust placed in him by a white officer, whom he respected in turn.

He offered a quick salute as he ran by.

The sergeant who had stopped Colonel Russell zeroed in on the men with the footbridge: “All of you, down!”

Some of them stopped, but Sergeant Felton, leading the team, looked less than pleased and continued to drag the bridge forward.

“You are down!” the sergeant screamed, shoving Felton with both hands.

Garland started to approach, ready to order Felton to drop the bridge and lie down as ordered; behind him, the rest of the regiment was closing in quick, already advancing at the double.

“Sergeant!” He was trying to address Felton, but the white sergeant turned and pushed him hard.

“You, too, boy, you’re dead!” He shoved Garland with both hands, nearly knocking him over.

Garland stood there incredulous.

“You heard me, you damn darkie!”

“You are talking to a superior rank!” Garland shouted, and now the main body of the charge was up and around them, pushing forward.

The sergeant, fists balled up, took a step toward Garland and then went sprawling. Sergeant Felton, standing behind the man, coldcocked him with a single blow against the side of the head.

Felton was grinning.

“Come on!” Felton shouted, and Garland ran with him, picking up the footbridge and dragging it forward.

“Knocking me down is one thing,” Felton gasped as they hauled the bridge. “But you is the best damn sergeant in this army, and I’ll be damned…”

“You’ll be damned if you keep talking like that,” Garland said, the preacher in him coming out even as he grinned.

Others fell in, hoisting the bridge high, nearly running with it, crossing over the moat, which fortunately had dried out over the last week of unrelenting heat. Others were already atop the parapet, reaching out, grabbing the bridge, throwing it across the trench, men of the main column storming across within seconds after the footbridge was dropped in place. Garland and Felton scrambled up the far side of the parapet and pushed their way to the front, where the regimental flags marked their position.

They were no longer being ordered to stop just beyond the trench. They now had to sprint nearly six hundred yards, then deploy out into the line of battle at a right angle to their line of advance, the second regiment behind them already doing so to cover the flank of the column, the remaining regiments coming up behind the 28th and then deploying out as well.

Two hundred yards to their left, the second column was doing the same, deploying to face in the opposite direction and shake out into battle line.

There was not a man in these two columns who did not know his task by this point, and around the campfires in the evening they could all, easily enough, surmise what would soon await them. They were practicing to be a lead division, a breakthrough force, seizing some objective six hundred yards or so behind a Rebel line. What left them worried and questioning, though, was the fort in the middle that they were bypassing. They also wondered if they were to be the only division to charge or if more men would come pouring in behind them for support once they had established the perimeter behind the Rebel lines.

If their officers knew something, they were keeping mum about it. Garland could sense, however, that many of the officers—even Colonel Russell himself—were questioning and worrying, but they did not share this with their men.

Six hundred yards, at the double, with full gear; rifles now unslung and carried at the charge, though without bayonets to prevent men impaling each other in a practice drill. But when the time came for the real thing, it would be with fixed bayonets, though their rifles would be unloaded.

Men were breathing hard, some staggering to keep up, but they held together, and he caught a glimpse of Captain Vincent running alongside them, pocket watch in hand.

They reached a set of marker flags and without orders—with Colonel Russell sitting this one out—the men knew what to do. Company A pivoted to their right and the flag bearers held their colors high, shouting, “28th form up on us!”

In the mad dash companies had become intermingled. Russell had told them repeatedly that if that happened, to hell with falling in with your own company; just fall into line of battle and later, if time permitted, things could be sorted out.

What looked like a disorganized block of 250 men was transforming itself. Orders were being shouted, officers holding up swords, and within seconds, the men melted from the block column into a battle line two ranks deep and nearly a hundred yards wide. Behind them came the men of the 32nd doing the same thing, thirty yards to their rear. Behind them, the other regiment of the brigade. Back at the entrenchment, the 29th stood solid and ready, facing the same direction.

Malady came walking up, ramrod straight as always, surrounded by a dozen or so of his sergeants. It was obvious more than one of them had taken a drubbing in this last charge. The one who had confronted Garland was rubbing the side of his head and gazing at him with a cold eye. Garland tried not to smile as he looked straight ahead.

Malady went over to Vincent, who showed him his watch; Vincent was obviously pleased, but Malady’s expression did not change.

He stepped in front of the formed regiments.

“I bet you think you are getting good at this!” he shouted, and the men looked sidelong at each other. It was the kindest thing he had said to them during the last two weeks.