The Battle of the Crater: A Novel

by Gingrich, Newt

  If they encountered rock or shale it would be harder. That was highly unlikely here in central Virginia, but anyone who worked beneath the surface had learned long ago not to be surprised by anything. Rock or shale would dramatically reduce their progress of nearly twenty feet a day and would also cause noise. In short, it would be impossible in the short time span requested by Burnside, and furthermore, they would have to go three or four times as deep to try to conceal the noise.

  “So who are these officers?” Michael asked, as he helped shove dirt back to Lubbeck, who was rounding off a box to be hauled off.

  “Come on out and see. It’s time for a shift change and taking an angle and measurement anyhow,” the sergeant announced.

  Michael pulled a couple of candles out of his pocket and stuck them into the facing wall for the next crew. He put his hand against the opening of the ventilation pipe and warm air was definitely wafting out. They had to be careful that dirt falling away from the facing didn’t jam it. The flames on the candles to either side of him looked bright; there had been many a day in the coal mines where the hooded candles were barely a blue flicker. Satisfied that all was in order, he stuck his spade into the facing, turned, and helped Lubbeck drag the ammunition box loaded with clay out of the tunnel.

  They had made close to eighty feet so far, and by nightfall, with the change of shifts, it would be close on to ninety. As he crawled back, Michael cast a wary eye to the overhead shorings. Sandy loam was easy to dig through, but frankly he preferred hard anthracite; you could almost skip the shorings all together, the rock was so hard. Sand and loam constantly threatened to give way and cave in. More than a few overhead boards were bowed under the weight they now supported.

  It took less than a minute to crawl back. He saw Colonel Pleasants in the shadowy light and then, to his surprise, a great bulk of a man came into sight. Damn, it was the general.

  Dealing with Pleasants was one thing; their bond had been close across the war. Certainly he would get drunk on a regular basis, and Pleasants would admonish but then cut him loose. For in a battle he knew he could count on Michael O’Shay to do his duty and make sure others did theirs as well. And now Michael had arrogated unto himself the role of crew boss, for this was partially his idea and his tunnel.

  But a general?

  He had seen him often enough on parade and sometimes in a fight on the front line but not up this close. He hoped the scent of whiskey on his breath was not too evident.

  “Don’t repeat this outside of here,” Pleasants announced, “but I’d say, sir, this is just about my best digging team.”

  General Burnside, sitting on the floor of the tunnel, smiled and nodded, then actually extended his hand, shaking Kochanski’s, Lubbeck’s, and O’Shay’s.

  “It was Sergeant Kochanski’s brother, Stanislav, who thought this up,” and Pleasants gingerly patted the woodstove that was cooking away, just inside the entry to the tunnel.

  “Most ingenious, most ingenious indeed,” Burnside chortled.

  Michael saw that young Stan was squatting behind the two officers.

  “Explain it,” Pleasants announced.

  It is typical of him, Michael thought, ensuring that credit went where it was due and not taking it for himself, as too many officers did.

  “Well, sir, all that talk about it being impossible to ventilate a tunnel of this length without air holes, seems like nobody thought about convection and air flow with a fireplace or stove.

  “I figured that at the face of the tunnel, we put an airtight door,” and he motioned behind him to the wooden barrier. “We put this woodstove inside the tunnel right here at the entry and started a fire in it. That fire needs air and will suck it in, to fuel the fire, and, of course, the smoke and hot air will go up the chimney.” He pointed to the tin chimney, soldered tight, that rose vertically and poked through the ceiling of the tunnel and out into the open.

  “Then, it was simple enough,” Stan continued. “We make an airtight pipe—we’re making it out of cracker boxes—joined side to side with the facing to each side knocked out at the joints of each box; then we seal it tight with pitch. The start of the air pipe is on the far side of that airtight door.”

  He pointed back to the sealed door and where the cracker box pipe came through it, running along one side of the tunnel along the floor.

  “That pipe goes all the way up to the face of the tunnel and the last box is left open. So, sir,” and he cleared his voice a bit nervously, as if realizing he was talking to a high-ranking officer and not wanting to appear too boastful, “we all know the fire needs air, it sucks it in through the stove vents, that lowers air pressure here, and then draws air all the way down from the face of the mine, where fresh air from the outside comes rushing in, piped in from the outside.”

  He coughed nervously.

  “That’s about it.”

  “Works like a charm, it does,” Michael announced. “You got regular miners here, General, not a bunch of sod-busting farmers.”

  Burnside chuckled, and taking out a handkerchief, he wiped his brow. Someone had suggested to him that coming this close to the front line, it was advisable for him to shuck his regular uniform and tall conical hat. He was now hatless and wearing a private’s four-button jacket. If he inadvertently stood up outside the tunnel, he’d be an easy target with his great height and frame. Even if he survived that, if he was recognized it might start raising questions as to why a corps commander was up on the front line poking around. He found himself crouching and crawling the entire time he was close to the front. It was a new experience for a senior commander.

  “While you’re here, sir,” Pleasants said, “let’s take a measurement and check bearing and angle.”

  Moving to the far side of the narrow tunnel and several feet back to get away from the massive iron and tin bulk of the stove, Pleasants drew out a well-made compass with a sighting ring set into it. He put it atop a small flat board set into the side of the tunnel. Stan first checked that the board was perfectly level. Tying a string to a stake that was driven into the side of the tunnel just below the sighting board, Stan crawled up the length of the tunnel, looping the string around marking sticks that were set in place earlier, and then finally reached the facing.

  “Bet two bits we made eight feet,” Michael announced.

  “I’ll take six,” Lubbeck replied.

  “Eight and a half,” Sergeant Kochanski whispered, and Michael looked over at him angrily, about to protest that there should be a foot between each bet.

  “Hold the candle right in front of the string so I can sight on it,” Pleasants announced.

  All were silent watching him as he lay down and carefully adjusted the sighting ring, looking at the compass face to ensure it was properly aligned. Then back to the ring again.

  “Drift from the wall?” he asked.

  “About six inches sir,” Stan replied.

  “Rise?”

  “Not sure, sir. I’m holding it level, and it is on the ground. Give me a few seconds.”

  By the flicker of the candlelight all could see him pushing a stake into the ground, wrapping the measuring string around it, laying down, and lightly putting a level on top of it.

  “I’d say three- to five-degree climb, sir, but can’t be certain.”

  Pleasants pulled out a small notebook and flipped it open.

  “Length?”

  “Eighty-eight feet, four inches.”

  Pleasants jotted it down.

  The diggers waited expectantly while Pleasants ran a few calculations.

  “I’d put the face at a real distance from here of eighty-seven feet, six inches.”

  He flipped the book shut and stuffed it back into his haversack. Michael sat counting on his fingers, from the measurement of yesterday.

  “That’s eight feet, nine inches of actual length,” Lubbeck announced quietly, and the sergeant chuckled over his win.

  Pleasants sat back and looked over at Burnside.
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  “Men, this is most impressive. I wish I could bring a few officers down here who just a week ago were telling me this was impossible.”

  “Well, sir, it will be impossible if we go much further without a proper theodolite.”

  Burnside sighed.

  “Engineering at army headquarters claims they lost them during the march from North Anna to Cold Harbor. There’s not one to be found.”

  Pleasants looked at him coldly, not saying a word.

  “I wanted you to see how slapdash all these measurements are, sir. I’m doing the best I can with what I have, but off by even a few degrees, and at four hundred feet, that could mean half a dozen feet or more out of alignment. And God forbid we start our gradual climb to compensate for the slope but get it wrong. And distance—I need to shoot at least a couple of good bearings, outside and to either side of this tunnel, to get an absolutely precise distance. Without that, we could very well wind up blowing a huge hole behind the fort, in front of it, or to either side, or suddenly pop out of the ground right under their noses.”

  “I know, Pleasants,” Burnside replied, and there was a bit of a cross edge to his voice.

  “I find it hard to believe there is not a single theodolite with the entire army.”

  “Both of us do, Colonel,” Burnside responded with a growl of frustration.

  He looked at the enlisted men, realizing they were taking in every word.

  “Pleasants, you know what kind of instrument you want?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If I sent you personally back to Washington, there are several instrument makers there. If you take the afternoon dispatch packet, you could be up and back in three days.”

  “Sir?”

  “You know what you need. Go up and buy the dang thing and get back here with it.”

  “Sir, a proper instrument is damn expensive, a couple of hundred dollars at least. And I’d want a better compass and level, and some well-made measuring rods; using string the way we are, there’s always stretching.”

  Burnside smiled.

  “Remember, I was trained as an engineer at the Point before I got into gun making. I know how much it costs. I’ll get you the money; you get the instruments…”

  He paused and looked at the diggers.

  “And you, lads, keep at it.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pint bottle of whiskey, and handed it to the sergeant.

  “After you are done for the day, men, and not before.”

  Squatting low he waited for Pleasants to pop the door open, and there was a rush of a breeze as the airtight seal was broken, the candles lining the tunnel flickering with the change in wind direction. As the officers got out, Burnside stood up to stretch, and Pleasants grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him down with a warning.

  With the hatch open, the morning digging crew crawled out into the boiling heat of midday, men now reaching in to grab the crates full of dirt that had stacked up inside the airlock, hauling them out into the trench and restacking them. After dark, work crews would haul them down into a ravine, dump them, and cover it all with topsoil just in case some Rebel managed to slip through the lines and spotted the difference in soil color.

  More empty crates were loaded in through the airlock, firewood for the stove. The next crew of diggers, stackers, and crawlers were now ready to go in.

  “Sergeant Rothenberg, we’ve angled over about four to six inches to the right,” Pleasants said to the replacement crew. “Carefully work it back, keep an eye on your alignment.”

  Rothenberg nodded, bent low, leading his team in, the last of them pulling the door shut. Seconds later there was a burst of white smoke from the chimney sticking up out of the sod as someone opened the firebox and tossed more wood in.

  “You men did good work today,” Pleasants announced. “Just keep a sharper eye on your angle of deviation.”

  “Yes, sir,” all chorused.

  Burnside made the gesture of shaking their hands and patting them on the shoulders.

  “My boys, you have no idea how much is riding on this,” he announced and, ducking back down, he followed Pleasants into the communications trench that led to the rear.

  “A gentleman he is,” Michael said, reaching over to try and take the bottle from Kochanski, who stuck it in his pocket and grinned.

  “Tonight, boys, tonight.”

  ACROSS FROM THE MINE ENTRANCE

  “Cap’n Sanders!”

  Sergeant Joshua Allison, Company D, 25th North Carolina, looked back from his lair, a beautiful concealed sharpshooter’s position carefully dug in under a fallen oak where the front line jutted out slightly from Fort Pegram. Men who occupied this post were under the strictest orders not to shoot, which would reveal its position, unless the target was truly special. Otherwise, they were to remain quiet and use it to keep an eye on the Yankee line.

  Captain Bill Sanders, moving low, came up to the lip of the trench, where Allison was perched in a shallow depression dug under the fallen oak.

  “I swear I just seen him,” Allison announced.

  “Who?”

  “General Burnside.”

  “You certain?”

  Allison did not remove his gaze from the narrow observation slit, eyes still glued to his field glasses.

  “Sir, like I told ya a hundred times. I served with him out in New Mexico chasing Apaches back in ’49. I’d know that man anywhere, and we all know it’s Ninth Corps over there.”

  “You get a good bead on him?”

  Allison hesitated, eyes still glued to the field glasses.

  Could he have shot the man? Actually, he thought rather highly of him, not like most of his officers. And when he took that arrow he showed grit, staying in the fight, and helping to pull Allison out after he took an arrow in his leg, which still left him with a bit of a limp.

  “I’d of tried,” he lied. “His head was up for only a few seconds. But I’d know that man anywhere. Then caught a glimpse of him again, right there through that little culvert where you can see into their trench to the rear that they don’t know we can see. I’m certain it was him.”

  Sanders took it in and nodded thoughtfully.

  “Good spotting, Allison. Keep at it.”

  He started to turn away.

  “Would you have shot him if you had the chance?”

  Allison was purportedly the best shot of the regiment and at times would be loaned one of the precious Whitworth rifles for long-distance shots. He had claimed more than once to be able to spot Burnside a half mile back at their main lines, and had even lobbed a few shots at him more out of fun than with a real desire to hit him, though all laughed when he apparently had gotten real close, sending the knot of Union officers scrambling.

  Allison took his eyes off the field glasses and looked back at his captain.

  “No, sir. I owe him one.”

  And then he smiled.

  “But I’d of scared him a bit for the fun of it.”

  Sanders smiled and turned away.

  “Keep a damn close watch on that spot.”

  He hesitated and then decided something was up. Allison had picked up on it. Why a cooking fire, up in the front line, going day and night? Glimpses of men moving back and forth, more than was usual in their forward trench. And now a corps commander literally up on the front line.

  Sanders ducked into the communications trench leading to his regimental reserve area and the headquarters of Colonel Ransom.

  JULY 1, 1864

  TWO MILES BEHIND THE UNION LINES BESIEGING PETERSBURG

  “My name is Captain Vincent, of General Burnside’s staff. And this is Sergeant Major Kevin Malady.”

  The men of the Fourth Division Ninth Corps were drawn up in a huge semicircle, without arms, around the captain and sergeant major, standing at ease.

  “What you see there before you,” and he pointed over his shoulder, “was, until six weeks ago, the outer works of the Confederate lines defending Petersburg. These fortific
ations have been under construction since the beginning of the war, and I will say much of them were built by the labor of slaves.”

  There was a muttering of voices around Garland, and he looked around sharply to still the chatter.

  “The works you see before you are similar in size and position to the inner line, which the Rebels now hold just short of Petersburg.”

  Vincent paused for a moment.

  “The task of Sergeant Malady and me will be to train you men in how to storm those works and take them. Because, men, that is precisely what you shall do.”

  Excited voices now rose up, many of them jubilant.

  “Quiet in the ranks, by God!”

  It was barrel-chested Malady, stepping a few feet forward, his voice sounding nearly inhuman with its power and strength. He did not seem to care that he was addressing commissioned officers as well as enlisted men.

  Vincent did not seem to mind the interruption by Malady. Garland gave a sidelong glance to Colonel Russell, wondering if he was offended, but the colonel, so long ago an enlisted man, actually had a slight grin.

  Malady nodded to his captain and stepped back.

  “We will do this training one step at a time. As you master each step, we shall move on to the next. You men shall be kept in isolation while doing this. Provost guards will ring your campsite behind the lines. I will be frank. I want the curious to think that it is because you are colored troops, and therefore you are being kept separate from the rest of the army.”

  A few muttered and fell silent.

  “Secrecy and surprise are the keys to this attack. One leak could destroy it. You are to keep your mouths shut. You are not to say a word about this training to anyone other than your own immediate comrades. If anyone asks you what you are doing and you do not know the man, you are to collar him and find the nearest officer or provost. And by heavens, if any of you slip from your camp and speak but a single word of what you are doing…”