Petersburg - Part 2 - The Crater

Continuing from Fort Stedman , I arrived at the site of one of the most infamous Union screw-ups of the War, The Battle of the Crater.  The civil war was littered with gross mistakes of Union generalship but this one was impressive.

In July1864 the Union Armies were dug in around the northern, eastern, and southern perimeter of Richmond and Petersburg. While Richmond was the capital, Petersburg was the key. It was at the junction of major rail lines that sustained the capital. If Petersburg fell so did Richmond. The map to the left shows the lines as they appeared in the fall of 1864 but they were much the same in July.

The Overland Campaign that had preceded the siege had been a bloody affair with totals on both sides of killed, wounded and captured numbering between 70,000 and just under 100,000.  (in 2 months)

The North was war weary and facing a presidential election in the fall and Lincoln was not expected to win.

The Explosion

In July of 1864 a good plan was hatched whereby Union soldiers would tunnel under the Confederate line, explode a cache of dynamite, exploit the breach, and thereby end the siege. On July 30th 1864 at 4:44am the mine was exploded killing 278 Confederate soldiers instantly.  The crater's dimensions at the time of the explosion were 170 feet long (across the front), 120 feet wide and 30 feet deep. So far so good - right?  Wrong!! At this point the Union generals managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The assault on The Crater

Accounts differ somewhat but the Union troops were delayed by 10 minutes and were not issued with the equipment they needed. Other accounts say that black soldiers who had been assigned as shock troops were changed at the last minute by less well briefed white soldiers.  The bottom line was that because of bad leadership they were late and instead of going around the crater they were ordered into it.  The Confederates had time to rally and turned the crater into a killing ground.  The Rebels were especially vicious with the black soldiers. Union casualties were 504 killed, 1881 wounded, and 1413 missing or captured. Confederate losses were 361 killed, 737 wounded, and 403 missing or captured.  The Confederates held the line.

The Crater from General Ambrose's vantage point

Watching the whole thing from his vantage point was General Ambrose Burnside. While later exonerated from direct blame he went on indefinite leave never to return to active duty.  The picture to the left was taken from the point where he observed the explosion.  The patch of trees dead center in the picture is the site of The Crater. It was raining heavily at the time and I was quite cold.  It seemed fitting. General Grant was quoted as saying. "It was the saddest affair I have witnessed in this war." He also stated that "Such an opportunity for carrying fortifications I have never seen and do not expect again to have. The battle is well recounted on Wikipedia and I have drawn upon it here.

The Crater - Feb 2nd 2012

I drove over to the crater itself. It's about a 2 or 3 minute walk over to the site itself from the parking lot and it was still raining quite heavily. I took this picture of the crater and quite frankly it does not look like much today. I asked one of the NPS rangers later about that and she told me that after the battle the confederates actually filled a lot of it in. I think time and erosion also had a lot to do with it.



Parts of the tunnel used to dig under the Confederate lines still exist today I found this U-Tube video which was quite interesting.

The picture above shows what the Crater looked like in 1865 after the Union had captured Petersburg

 I don't believe in ghosts, but I found it ironic that it should start raining and become cold just before arriving at the Crater. Shortly after I left, the skies cleared and it became warm. It seemed appropriate.