Diary of 1st Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Monday, September 19, 1864 – Part 16

But Lee never in war arose to such sublime heights if indeed ever in a military sense.

Even Longstreet's Chief of Artillery, General Alexander, a man of splendid sense and judgment, in his “Military Memoirs of a Confederate,” holds that the real crisis of the War did not occur until Grant's movement against Petersburg, which is correct, and that his strategy in that campaign was well planned and successfully executed. He acknowledges that Grant completely out-manoeuvered Lee for the last three days during the Petersburg movement, thus saving his army from attack by the combined forces of Lee and Beauregard, which is also correct. Imagine Lee's disappointment when he found out what had been going on after Grant had crossed the James river! It completely checkmated him, even his last kick — Early's Shenandoah Valley campaign — proving worse than a failure it so weakened Lee's army. Think you Lee then thought himself a greater field marshal than Grant? Or after being continually flanked by him from the Rapidan to Petersburg and later to Appomattox where his surrender occurred?

In bringing up this matter at this opportune time when contrasts can be sharply and tellingly drawn as at Winchester and Gettysburg, my purpose has not been to disparage anyone unfairly, but to get at the truth as I see it for the sake of true history. So long a time has elapsed since the war that I look upon it and its actors dispassionately, and I can award praise or censure on either side whenever deserved with calmness and impartiality. Therefore if, as a veteran, I have advanced any new ideas on a subject necessarily somewhat perplexing to the general public, at any period, my object in treating it will have been accomplished.

Possibly there may be some excuse for such as did not fight in the Army of the Potomac three years and have not read the latest history on the Civil War and made it a study, erring in their estimates of the leaders in that conflict. I always, even during the war, thought the South had abler men to command its army of Northern Virginia even in that army than Lee, but none more lovely in disposition and character. He was a good man and good but not a great general; and, much less, in the same class with Marlborough, Wellington, and others of modern wars, or Grant, Sheridan, and others of the Civil War, which facts prove. Any man who is a military expert familiar with the subject both from participation, history and study, if of good judgment and honest, will readily concede this. Lee's distinguished lineage has nothing to do with his military history. He should be judged on his own merits in such a way, but his antecedents and charming personal character seemingly makes it difficult for most writers to place him in a military sense where he belongs. In my opinion, all things being equal, he was no match for Grant.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 207-9

Brigadier-General William F. Bartlett: Friday, July 29, 1864

Very warm. . . . . Afternoon, sent for, Division Headquarters. We storm the works tomorrow at daylight. Our Division leads. I hardly dare hope to live through it. God have mercy. . . . . If I could only ride, or had two legs, so I could lead my brigade, I believe they would follow me anywhere. I will try as it is. God have pity on dear mother, Agnes, and all loved ones.

SOURCE: Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Memoir of William Francis Bartlett, p. 118

Brigadier-General William F. Bartlett: July 30, 1864

March the brigade at one and half through covered way to front line. Mine sprung at 4.40. We rushed across the open field. I got up to the enemy's works about as soon as any one. Got into the crater. Took the first and second lines of the enemy. Held them till after one, when we were driven back by repeated charges. I fought them for an hour after they held the whole line, excepting the crater where we were, their flag within seven feet of ours across the work. They threw bayonets and bottles on us, and we returned, for we got out of ammunition. At last, to save further slaughter, there being no hope of our being rescued, we gave it up. That crater during that day I shall never forget. A shell knocked down a boulder of clay on to my wood leg and crushed it to pieces, killing the man next me. I surrendered to General Mahone.

SOURCE: Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Memoir of William Francis Bartlett, p. 118-9

Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman to Elizabeth Russell Lyman, November 11, 1864

November 11, 1864

The McClellan procession might have spared their tapers, as he has gone up, poor Mac, a victim to his friends! His has been a career manqué, and a hard time he has had, and low he has fallen. The men who stood, as green soldiers, with him in front of Yorktown, where are they? Many thousands lie in the barren land of the Peninsula and the valley of Virginia; thousands more in the highlands of Maryland and Pennsylvania and in the valley of the Shenandoah. Many are mustered out — their time expired — or sick, or crippled. The small remnant are sifted, like fine gold, through this army, non-commissioned officers, or even full officers. What an experience it is for an infantry soldier! To have carried a musket, blanket, and haversack to the Peninsula, and to the gates of Richmond, then back again to the second Bull Run; up to Antietam in Maryland; down again to Fredericksburg; after the enemy again to the Rappahannock; and at last, the great campaign, like all others concentrated in six months, from the Rapid Ann to Petersburg! All this alone on foot, in three long years, at all seasons and all hours, in every kind of weather, carrying always a heavy load, and expecting to fight at any moment; seeing so many men shot in each fight — the great regiment dwindling to a battalion — the battalion to a company — the company to a platoon. Then the new men coming down; they shot off also. Till at last the infantry-man, who left Boston thinking he was going straight to Richmond, via Washington, sits down before Petersburg and patiently makes his daily pot of coffee, a callous old soldier, who has seen too many horrors to mind either good or bad. It is a limited view of a great war, but, for that very reason, full of detail and interest.

Of course we might have known that this pack of political “commissioners” could not get down here without a shindy of some sort. The point they brought up was fraudulent votes. A long-haired personage, fat and vulgar-looking, one of that class that invariably have objectionable finger-nails, came puffing over to General Meade's tent, with all the air of a boy who had discovered a mare's nest. He introduced himself as a Mr. Somebody from Philadelphia, and proceeded to gasp out that a gentleman had been told by an officer, that he had heard from somebody else that a Democratic Commissioner had been distributing votes, professedly Republican, but with names misspelled so as to be worthless. “I don't see any proof,” said the laconic Meade. “Give me proof, and I'll arrest him.” And off puffed Mr. Somebody to get proof, evidently thinking the Commanding General must be a Copperhead not to jump at the chance of arresting a Democrat. The result was that a Staff officer was sent, and investigation held, and telegraphs dispatched here and there, while the Somebody puffed about, like a porpoise in shallow water! Finally, four or five people were arrested to answer charges. This seemed to please Stanton mightily, who telegraphed to put 'em in close arrest; and, next morning, lo! a lieutenant-colonel sent, with a guard of infantry, by a special boat from Washington, to conduct these malefactors to the capital — very much like personages, convicted of high treason, being conveyed to the Tower. Were I a lieutenant-colonel, I should feel cheap to be ordered to convey a parcel of scrubby politicians under arrest! But that is the work that Washington soldiers may expect to spend their lives in. General Meade, I fancy, looked with high contempt on the two factions. “That Somebody only does it,” he said, “to appear efficient and get an office.  As to X, he said he thought it a trying thing for a gentleman to be under close arrest; and I wanted to tell him it wasn't so disgraceful as to have been drunk every night, which was his case!” That's the last I have heard of the culprits, who, with their accusers, have all cleared out, like a flock of crows, and we are once again left to our well-loved ragamuffins, in dirty blouses and spotted sky-blue trousers.

The day was further marked by an émeute in the culinary department. I would have you to know that we have had a nigger boy, to wait on table, an extraordinary youth, of muscular proportions and of an aspect between a drill sergeant, an undertaker and a clergyman — solemn, military and mildly religious. It would, however, appear, that beneath this serious and very black exterior worked a turbulent soul. The diminutive Monsieur Mercier, our chef, had repeatedly informed me that “le petit” (the unbleached brother is about a head taller than Mercier) was extremely indolent and had a marked antipathy to washing dishes — an observation which interested me little, as my observation went to show that the washing of dishes by camp-followers tended rather to dirty than to cleanse the platter, and that the manifest destiny of the plate military was to grow dirtier and dirtier, till it at last got broken. However, Anderson was reproved for not washing his crockery, and replied with rude words. On being reproved again, he proposed to smite Mercier, remarking, he “would as soon knock down a white man as a nigger.”

At this juncture the majestic Biddle interfered and endeavored to awe the crowd; but the crowd would not be awed, so Biddle put Anderson at the pleasant occupation of walking post with a log on his shoulder. Upon being liberated from this penalty, he charged upon Mercier, giving him the dire alternative of “Pay me mer wages, or I'll smash yer crockery!” This being disorderly, I allowed him to cool his passions till next morning in the guardhouse, when he was paid off.

SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, p. 262-5

Review: The Battle of the Crater

The Battle of the Crater

By Newt Gingrich & William R. Forstchen

Walt Whitman wrote, “Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors, (not the official surface courteousness of the Generals, not the few great battles) of the Secession war; and it is best they should not — the real war will never get in the books.”

One hundred and fifty years have passed since the beginning of the American Civil War, and truer words have never been written.  Many have tried in words to capture the experience of those who fought this nation’s most tragic war.  A few are more successful than others.  Newt Gingrich and his co-author William R. Forstchen, are among those few.

Their novel, “The Battle of the Crater” is set during the summer of 1864.  The war in the eastern theater has settled into a stalemate with both armies entrenched and facing each other around Petersburg, Virginia.  Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania, a mining engineer in his former civilian life, proposed to hasten the end of the war by tunneling under the Confederate line and detonate a large explosive charge directly beneath the enemy’s feet; leaving a hole in the line for the Union army to charge through.

Given the go-ahead by Major General Ambrose Burnside, Pleasants supervised the construction of the mine, while the troops who were expected to exploit the break in the Confederate defenses.  Two brigades of United States Colored Troops were chosen for the assault, one to go around to the left of the crater and the other to right.

James O’Reilly, an Irish artist correspondent for Harper’s Weekly is Gingrich and Forstchen’s primary protagonist.  But Harper’s isn’t his only employer.  O’Reilly, a close friend of President Lincoln has been sent by him to provide an honest report from the battlefront and also on the performance of the Colored Troops.

Under the guise of reporting for Harper’s O’Reilly is in the trenches of the Union Army around Petersburg, and witnesses the digging of the mine and the meticulous training of the Colored troops.  He is also privy to the bickering between Burnside and Major General George Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac.

The day before the attack Meade, fearing political ramifications if the assault should fail, ordered Burnside not to use the Colored Troops.  Brigadier General James Ledlie’s 1st Division was selected for the job.  The result was a catastrophe.  Instead of attacking around the rim of the crater as the colored troops were trained to do, the white soldiers charged into the crater, trapping themselves, and providing an excellent opportunity for the Confederate forces gathering on the rim of the crater to fire down into the swirling blue vortex of Union soldiers.

Burnside makes matters worse by sending the Colored Troops in and exposing them to dangerous cross fire.  O’Reilly follows the Colored Troops into the battle and not only witnesses the battle from within as it degenerates into bloody and savage hand-to-hand combat, but becomes a participant in it as well.

While listening to the audiobook of “The Battle of the Crater,” I was reminded of the opening fifteen minutes of Anthony Minghella’s film adaptation of Charles Frazier’s novel “Cold Mountain.” Though the film brings us closer to what it might have been like during the fighting in the crater, Walt Whitman may have been right.  The real war may never get in the books, but Gingrich and Forstchen have done an admirable job trying.

Book: ISBN 978-0312607104, Thomas Dunne Books, © 2011, Hardcover, 384 pages, Map & Illustrations, $27.99

Audiobook: ISBN 978-1427213280, Macmillan Audio, © 2011, Unabridged, 10 Audio CD’s, Running time: 12 hours.  $44.99