The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (48 page)

When the regiment deployed out of Indianapolis, late in April 1864, Governor Morton formally reviewed the troops, his action seen by all as a significant symbolic gesture.

As described, the 28th did serve as gravediggers at Arlington, and were finally incorporated into the Fourth Division of the Ninth Corps, sustaining fearful casualties at the Battle of the Crater.

After the Crater, the division was held back from the front line for several months, though it did participate in limited actions along the western edge of the Petersburg front later that fall. When a corps made up solely of black troops was finally created, the two brigades of the Fourth Division were transferred to this new formation and positioned along the siege lines in front of Richmond.

During the night of April 2–3, 1865, troops in the trenches before Richmond saw fires glowing in the city and were finally ordered to go forward. What ensued was a remarkable footrace, as dozens of regiments, black and white, dashed ahead to claim that they were the first to enter the Rebel capital, which was being abandoned when, after more than nine months of deadly siege after the Battle of the Crater, Grant finally broke Lee’s hold on Petersburg.

Nearly every one of those regiments tried to lay some claim to being the “first into Richmond,” and perhaps history should award that title to all of them, for they were indeed there at the ending of the great siege.

What unfolded next is truly the stuff of novels and not just dry history. Garland described the utter jubilation of thousands of liberated slaves, pouring out to greet men of the “sable arm,” pouring in disciplined ranks through the streets of the city. He wrote how, in all that confusion, he heard a familiar voice crying out his name and, turning, he saw his mother. His former master had brought her to Richmond as a house servant and, recognizing her beloved son in that surging column of troops, she pressed her way through the jubilant crowds to fling herself into his arms, a reunion after more than a decade of separation.

But the war was not yet over for Garland and the 28th; the actions of an emperor in France now kept them in service.

While our Civil War raged, Emperor Napoleon III launched a mad scheme to conquer Mexico as part of a French, Austrian, and Spanish alliance, and for a very brief time, with the connivance of England as well. Napoleon put an Austrian Hapsburg on the throne, the tragic Maximilian, who declared himself to be emperor of Mexico, backed up by the bayonets of the French Foreign Legion, Austrian, and even Belgian, troops.

With our fratricidal conflict at an end, it was clearly evident that the Monroe Doctrine would be back in play, and President Johnson ordered the deployment of over fifty thousand federal troops to the Texas border with Mexico. Yet while nearly all the volunteer regiments of white troops had signed on for durations of three years or “until the suppression of the rebellion,” that was not so with the USCT. Consequently, the corps of over thirty thousand black troops, who had signed a slightly different contract, found that less than two months after the victory in Virginia they were on ships bound for Texas, led by General Phil Sheridan in a show of force, with the implied threat that unless the emperor of France backed off, our army, well seasoned in battle, would invade.

What they endured was six months of hell. Fresh water was so scarce that watering ships had to sail clear to the mouth of the Mississippi, there to fill up with “fresh” water flowing past New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico, to be rationed out in the Texas heat at little more than a quart or two a day. Scurvy was rampant and more men of the 28th USCT would die of disease or be debilitated by scurvy than those who were felled by combat at the Crater.

At home, the war was over, and Texas was now a forgotten front.

Finally, during the winter of 1865–66, the crisis defused; Napoleon III cut his losses, leaving Maximilian to dangle, and finally to be pulled down by Mexican freedom fighters led by Benito Juarez. Gradually the American troops on the Texas frontier were demobilized and sent home. It is interesting to note that more than a few black soldiers, upon being allowed to resign from the ranks while still in Texas, crossed the border to be offered commissions as officers with Juarez and gain distinction in that fight for freedom as well.

The survivors of the 28th, with Major Garland White helping to lead them, returned to Indianapolis early in 1866 and were demobilized.

The laws that they had endured prior to the war nevertheless greeted them upon their return, and it was not until the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that some semblance of full rights were at last granted.

Pension records for some of the 28th can be found in the National Archives, dating well into the late 1920s. One man ventured as far as England to serve as a steward on a channel steamer; another became an “Exoduster,” part of a movement of blacks to settle in Kansas claiming their “forty acres and a mule.” Most settled back into life around the Indianapolis area, raising families, some well respected by friends and neighbors who realized all that they had given for their country.

As for Garland White? He crops up in a newspaper report out of Toledo, Ohio, leading a fight to integrate the schools there. His efforts, sadly, failed.

The last record the authors can find of him dates from the mid-1890s. Impoverished, ill, and crippled from his years of service in the field and the lifelong effects of scurvy contracted in Texas, White, in the final entry in his pension records requested a meager increase of several dollars a month to help him in his final years with his medical bills. There is no further entry after that, though usually the pension records bear a stamped mark when the recipient is deceased. His date of death and final resting place remain a mystery.

If any who read this should know of Garland White’s final resting place, the authors of this work would be deeply indebted, for surely his final resting place should be properly honored. We should all be indebted to men like him, the forgotten men of the Fourth Division of the Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, who, on a terrible day in July 1864, did indeed offer up the “last full measure of devotion.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When my coauthor, Bill Forstchen, and I first met early in 1994, I was Minority Whip, laying out the first stages of the “Contract with America” that would help propel my party to its first majority in the House of Representatives in nearly fifty years, and Bill was spending the summer in Washington D.C., working on his doctoral dissertation at the National Archives and the Library of Congress. He was breaking new ground in historical research with a first-of-its-kind study of a Civil War regiment of African American troops, the 28th United States Colored Troops (USCT) recruited out of Indiana. On more than one evening, he’d walk up from the National Archives to Capitol Hill, where over sandwiches we would talk about our projects. I found his topic fascinating even then, and a seed was planted that nearly two decades later became this novel.

We have written nine books together since then, but this one is unique and close to the heart for both of us. The role of the USCTs in winning the Civil War and preserving the Union is little known today. Few are aware that at the end of the war one out of every five men wearing Union blue was of African descent. Nearly two hundred African American regiments were mobilized for the field, with tens of thousands more blacks serving in the navy, which had been an integrated force ever since the American Revolution. The USCTs were the direct ancestors of the famed Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen until full integration in all branches of service was finally achieved during the Truman administration. Bill’s deep involvement in the study of this topic led him to write a young adult’s novel on the 28th USCT,
We Look Like Men of War,
a decade ago. When, last year, we were approached by our publisher to write another book on the Civil War, the topic of the USCTs, and in particular their misdeployment in their largest single combat engagement, the Battle of the Crater, was our obvious first choice.

There are so many to thank for making this work possible. Two acknowledgments date back twenty years to Bill’s dissertation committee, headed by his beloved mentor Professor Gunther Rothenberg, a famed military historian and the head of Bill’s graduate program, Professor Gordon Mork. Long before heading to D.C. to wrap up his research among the pension records of “his” regiment, Bill found invaluable help with the teams at the Indiana State Archives, the Indiana Historical Society, and those working in the Indiana War Memorial, truly one of the finest of state military memorials, located in Indianapolis and its attached library and archive. The only surviving flag of the 28th USCT is located there and Bill speaks with deep emotion about the experience of actually being able to see it.

Personnel associated with the Petersburg National Battlefield Park have been most gracious and eager to see this work move forward, and, as will be explained in the postscript of this book, they are delighted to work with us to fulfill a long-held dream of ours to see a monument placed on the site of the Crater in memory of the thousands of men of the USCTs who fought on that field. As far as we have been able to find out, not a single battlefield monument to any USCT regiment exists on ground they fought for. We hope to rectify this long-overdue honor and acknowledgment.

Any book is a team effort involving the work of many more than just those names listed on the cover. As always we wish to extend our thanks to Pete Wolverton and Tom Dunne for their suggestion to write this book and their support of it. Anne Bensson, Pete’s assistant, is a real gem, as are the copyeditor, Sui Mon Wu, the proofreader, Ted O’Keefe, and the production editor, David Stanford Burr. Additionally, we want to thank Ruth Chambers for identifying our talented illustrator, Evalee Gertz, and her gracious agent, Shelley Pina.

Within our own “teams” of course a thank-you to our agent Kathy Lubbers and our advisers Randy Evans and Stefan Passantino; the talented members of Gingrich Communications and Gingrich Productions, including: Catherine Butterworth, Joe DeSantis, Sylvia Garcia, Anna Haberlein, Vince Haley, Jorge Hurtado, Bess Kelly, Christina Maruna, Crissy Mas, Alicia Melvin, Kate Pietkiewicz, Michelle Selesky, Liz Wood, Ross Worthington, and interns Kathryn Erb, Justin Lafferty, and Lindsay Meyers.

We would be remiss if we did not thank the American Enterprise Institute and the very capable Caitlin Laverdiere, Brady Cassis, and AEI interns: Ellery Kauvar, Adam Minchew, Alex Hilliker, and Danielle Fezouati.

A special thank-you goes to Albert S. Hanser for his ongoing participation, partnership, and friendship in this and previous novels.

And, as always, thank you to our spouses and families for their patience when the next chapter “calls” and other things have to be put on hold “for just a few minutes longer—!” Thank you, Callista Gingrich, Krys Hanser, and Bill’s daughter, Meghan, for your continued love and support throughout.

In closing we must offer a special acknowledgment to Major Garland White. Born a slave, he was the personal servant of Senator Robert Toombs (D-GA) at his Washington residence before the war. Escaping to freedom in Canada, White taught himself to read and write (a study of his letters between 1861–1865 revels a brilliant intellect always striving forward). He helped with the organization and mobilization of the famed 54th Massachusetts, the regiment immortalized in that wonderful film
Glory,
and was offered the rank of sergeant major, the highest position a “man of color” could hold at that time, but felt his duty was to press forward with helping to mobilize yet more regiments in the Midwest. The key figure in bringing the 28th USCT to life, he became its sergeant major and served gallantly with the regiment in every campaign. He was one of the first eleven men of African descent to be commissioned as chaplains/majors. For thirty years after the war he was a passionate activist for equal rights, fair treatment of “colored” veterans, and the fulfillment of the promises of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. He died in obscurity and poverty sometime in the 1890s in Washington, his burial site unknown to us.

We close this acknowledgment with a salute to this gallant man. Shortly after the war he wrote: “The historian’s pen cannot fail to locate us somewhere among the good and great, who have fought and bled upon the altar of their country.”

We pray that this work is a fulfillment of Major Garland White (28th USCT) and his dream and that the 28th’s sacrifice shall be forever honored.

Thank you, Major White, and thanks to all those who served with you on that terrible day of July 30, 1864.

A
LSO BY
N
EWT
G
INGRICH AND
W
ILLIAM
R.
F
ORSTCHEN

Gettysburg

Grant Comes East

Never Call Retreat

Pearl Harbor

Days of Infamy

To Try Men’s Souls

Valley Forge

About the Authors

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, is the bestselling author of
Gettysburg
and
Pearl Harbor
and the longest-serving teacher of the Joint War Fighting Course for Major Generals at Air University and is an honorary Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Professor at the National Defense University. He resides in Virginia with his wife, Callista, with whom he hosts and produces documentaries, including their latest,
A City Upon A Hill
.

William R. Forstchen, Ph.D., is a Faculty Fellow at Montreat College in Montreat, North Carolina. He received his doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of more than forty books. Forstchen’s doctoral dissertation on the 28th USCT was one of the first in-depth studies of a USCT regiment. He is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
One Second After,
published by Tor/Forge. He resides near Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter, Meghan.