The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (27 page)

“At least you got the sandbags for us, sir. As for the rest, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” Pleasants replied, feeling strange that, as a regimental commander, he was reassuring his corps commander. “Even if by some miracle additional powder and electric detonating equipment appeared, it is too late to set it in. We’re already packing off the tunnels.”

He did not restate his anxiety that the Rebel counterminers might be drawing closer. With all the work that had to be done in the tunnel over the next day, it would be a miracle if they didn’t hear and bore straight in on them. If additional powder did materialize now, he would advise against setting it. It would only be a matter of days, perhaps hours, before they were discovered.

“I wish we had one of Professor Lowe’s balloons right now,” Burnside sighed.

“Sir?”

“I actually suggested it when all this started, but Meade dismissed it out of hand,” Burnside said hurriedly. “Professor Lowe’s balloons; one anchored behind our lines could easily tell us if the Rebels are digging reserve lines behind the fort or on Blandford Church Hill.

“He actually laughed and then just dismissed it.”

Burnside turned away from Henry to look back at the men who were now relaying the sandbags into the tunnel.

“It will work,” Pleasants said. “Sir, it will work.”

Burnside looked back at him, his features drawn.

“It has to work,” Burnside said softly.

TRAINING CAMP
11
P.M.

Camp had at last settled down. The quiet whispering after the playing of “Taps” had died down and all was silent. Garland White, with James Reilly by his side, walked through the encampment area, neither saying much.

There had been excitement, to be certain, in the camp tonight, men singing the song about being men of war, which had sprung to the other regiments so that it echoed and reechoed across the encampment area of Fourth Division. But there had been an increasing sense of somberness as well.

Officers had gone from group to group, urging the men to turn in promptly and get a good night’s sleep. In the morning they would be allowed to sleep in until eight, an unheard of luxury in this army. The noonday meal would be fresh beef and the first of summer corn rather than the usual rations. But tomorrow evening they were to settle down at dusk, to be awakened at midnight and then move up to their positions for the attack.

Tomorrow was to be spent cleaning weapons, stacking packs and all unnecessary equipment into a common depot, and drawing eighty fresh rounds of ammunition and three days of marching rations. The men were to drink as much water as they could hold, then top off their canteens, which were not to be touched once darkness settled. A full canteen was silent, a half empty or, worse yet, an empty tin canteen would bang and rattle.

James had stood silent, deeply moved by the number of men who had come to Garland during the evening to ask if he would pray with them for a moment, or if he could find the time to pencil a few lines to a wife or parents saying that they would meet in Heaven and not to mourn, for death had came honorably.

James had tried to sketch one such moment, a drummer boy and a young soldier who might have been his older brother, asking for help with a note back to a Quaker school mistress in Indianapolis, thanking her for her kindness to them.

Then he felt he was invading something sacred and poignant, and he gave up and turned away.

The scenes had, as well, reminded him far too much of Cold Harbor, but at least these men, not yet veterans, had yet to learn to pin the notes to their backs.

All was quiet now. A few who could not find sleep and did not wish to disturb their tent mates sat silent in front of smoldering fires. A small group was gathered around a lantern, a gray-bearded soldier whispering a verse from the Bible: “Though a thousand fall by thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, it shall not come nigh unto thee…” Another sat sideways by a fire, using the flickering light to write a letter, which was already several pages long.

Garland did not admonish any of them to turn in. He would simply nod, put a finger to his lips to indicate silence, and would walk on, hands again clasped behind his back.

“Do you think it will work?” Garland finally asked, breaking the long minutes of silence.

James did not reply. How could he? How many nights had he spent like this? He could not even count them anymore, so many nights before battle. Once they had been filled with anticipation and hope, but then merely resolve, and finally, in this last campaign, only a tragic resignation. These men believed; they wanted to believe. How could he answer honestly?

“If anyone has a chance at it, you do,” he finally said.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

James forced a smile.

“Why don’t you get some sleep, Garland?”

The preacher-turned-sergeant shook his head and smiled.

“When the last of my flock are asleep, maybe then—maybe then.”

James felt that to stay longer was to intrude. The man wished to be alone with his thoughts, his prayers. He took his hand, grasped it firmly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night before you go in.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s James, remember?” and he smiled.

JULY 28
FORT PEGRAM
11:50
P.M.

“The sound is different,” Captain Sanders whispered, looking over at Sergeant Allison.

“They’ve stopped digging, but they are still down there,” Allison replied nervously.

“Exactly.”

Sanders sat back on his haunches, looking at Allison.

“It’s when we don’t hear anything that we should start to worry.”

“They won’t withdraw us out of the fort?”

“At least our regiment isn’t inside the fort,” Allison whispered. “Thank God we switched places with these poor South Carolina boys … God help them.”

Sanders shook his head.

“Ransom thinks there might be a tunnel, but we can’t abandon the line,” and he nodded back toward the Jerusalem Plank Road. This night, like every night, the Yankee heavy mortars were lobbing shells at random back onto it, hoping to hit the supply wagons that could only move at night.

“We lose that, we lose Petersburg, so we stay here.”

“And get our asses blown off?” Allison retorted.

Sanders could only smile, pat Allison on the shoulder, and stand up.

“I’m gonna try and sleep. Give me a holler if the noise stops.”

“Oh, I’ll holler all right,” Allison sighed. “And you can holler right along with me, as we either get blown to heaven or hell.”

JULY 29, 1864
HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC
1:00
A.M.

George Meade, hands in his pocket while chewing on an unlit cigar, stood looking out across the valley to the Rebel lines beyond. There was a flash of light, followed long seconds later by a hollow thump. The nightly bombardment of the Jerusalem Plank Road. Rarely did it hit anything, but at least it kept the bastards on their toes and let them know we were watching.

Far beyond, to the west and north, the skyline flared, settled, and then flared again, a distant storm marching down, perhaps to arrive here in a few hours. If so, it would be a cool comforting relief after the days of such intense heat. Once this war was over he never wanted to see the South again. Before the war he had worked along the New Jersey shore, supervising lighthouse construction. Perhaps he would return there to settle down after all this was over.

Even a fool could realize how things would fall out once this was done. Grant would aggrandize himself with the glory of victory and pull his trusted companions from the West—Sherman and Sheridan—along with him. When the war ended and the army demobilized there would be no room for him. The mistakes that had been made, the butchery of the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness to this godforsaken place, would be laid to him. He was pragmatic enough to know that if victory was ever won, the Westerners would get the credit, and he would get carping about how he had not pursued Lee after Gettysburg.

He thought of the note, carefully folded away in his breast pocket for future reference if need be. That tactical control of the forthcoming operation rested solely with him.

It had been masterful on Grant’s part. A victory won, and of course the correspondents would all rush to Grant for his views and comments. Grant, with that outwardly humble nature of his, would say the glory was due to the Army of the Potomac. “
His” Army of the Potomac,
he thought bitterly. And if it were defeat? The note said it all: “tactical control of the forthcoming action” would rest in his hands.

I will take the blame; he will take the glory.

Another shell detonated somewhere near the road, the hollow thump washing over him six seconds later.

Damn that Burnside,
he thought, almost whispering the curse out loud.

This army was fought out; Grant had bled it out. And yes, he had bled out Lee as well and pinned him in place. It was not masterfully done the way a Napoleon would have done it. It was like a battering ram relentlessly slamming away until the wall around Richmond collapsed. And it had bled his army out.

If that meddlesome fool, Burnside, had left well enough alone with his madcap schemes the siege would have played out. We just keep extending the lines farther and farther west until Lee is finally overstretched and snaps. This was again placing it all on one shake of the dice, another damn Spotsylvania, or Cold Harbor, perhaps even a Pickett’s Charge in reverse.

… And then Burnside pulls out what he thinks is a trump card with his colored division, claiming they were fresh, eager, full of piss and vinegar and would carry the day. The fool—didn’t he realize that either way he and this army would lose with such a gesture?

Who would win this victory, if there was even a remote chance of victory? Every damn abolitionist newspaper would trumpet that it was not his comrades, his army, his Army of the Potomac that had won the crowning glory. It had finally taken colored soldiers to do it. If there was to be a glory at last well earned, by God, it would be by his men, not them.

And if it went down to defeat, as he feared the chances were it would, he would be the one blamed for having approved such madness. And again the abolitionist newspapers would scream that he, George Meade, was more than happy to sacrifice colored men in yet another Cold Harbor. While every anti-abolitionist paper would mock him for having trusted such a task to “darkies” in the first place.

He could see the handwriting on the wall, and inwardly he cursed Grant. A slaughter and Meade carries the blame, Lincoln blames him, and he finds himself quietly removed and stationed out in Nebraska or some godforsaken command the way Pope and others had been exiled.

Victory and it would not be the Army of the Potomac that could claim it.

The storm coming down from the northwest drew closer and for a moment he actually wished that it would pass directly over them, that a bolt would strike the ground directly above the mine and set it off here and now. It would blow the Rebel fort to hell; dispatches the next day would claim it had accomplished its purpose and the entire scheme would be forgotten.

But he knew fate would not deal him such a kind hand.

He thought again of the dispatch and the authority it gave him and at that moment he decided to well and truly use it.

CHAPTER TEN

JULY 29, 1864
TRAINING CAMP AT DIVISION NINTH CORPS
NOON

“M
ounted and moving at a slow trot,
G
eneral
A
mbrose Burnside rode the length of the battle line, a line of nine regiments, nearly four thousand men. They looked fit, proud, and ready. They seemed far tougher than the men who had marched across the bridge and first passed in review little more than a month ago. He could sense their spirit, their eagerness to get on with the task.

He had no words to say to them. He knew he was not, like some generals, an orator who could inspire. He rode the line, hand raised in salute, somehow wishing that this final gesture before battle would convey the respect he held for them. Reaching the end of the line he slowed, turning to look back at Ferrero, their division commander, and Thomas and Siegfried. The brigade commanders.

“We all know the plan,” he announced. “Tell the men I am proud of them and tomorrow evening it will be my honor to shake the hand of each and every one of them in Petersburg.”

The three did not reply.

“Don’t let the rumors affect you. The good news is that I just received a message from Colonel Pleasants. The last of the sandbags have been placed, the mine is still secure, and he is confident it will go exactly as planned.

“I will meet you gentleman at my headquarters at eleven tonight for a final review.”

The three saluted and he turned to ride back to his headquarters a half mile away. He was surprised and then increasingly unnerved to see General Meade with his staff, dismounted and obviously waiting for him. He slowed, and finally came to a stop; an orderly came up to hold the reins as he dismounted. Stomach knotting, he approached Meade, who simply gestured for him to follow, the two walking off toward the burned-out farmhouse near his headquarters.

Without any preamble Meade stopped and turned to face him.

“Did you receive my memo?” he asked.

“No, sir, I was out inspecting the troops.”

“It should have been sent up to you at once.”

“Sir, I was inspecting the troops and had said I would return by noon.”

There was a long moment of silence.

It was obvious that Meade was displeased with this response.

“Then I will tell it to you, here and now. I am pulling the Fourth Division out of the attack.”

Burnside stood as if struck, started to say something, then actually turned and walked away from him.

“Do not turn your back on me, Burnside,” Meade snapped. “Do you understand the order I have just given you?”

General Burnside turned, glad that a dozen feet or more now separated them.