The Battle of the Crater: A Novel (George Washington Series)

by Newt Gingrich

  And he did not add that he could tell his President what happened as well.

  “28th?” a shadowy figure queried.

  “Here.”

  “Follow me,” and the shadow that addressed Russell, without waiting for a reply, set off.

  “What about the footbridges, the axes?” Russell asked. “They were supposed to be transferred to Ledlie’s division.”

  The shadow before him hesitated.

  “I know nothing about that. Leave them here; I’ll see that someone comes back to pick them up.”

  “Maybe we should take them with us,” Russell offered.

  “I have no orders for that. Once in position you are not to move. Ledlie’s men will most likely look for them where you were last camped. It’d be absolute chaos trying to hand them over once in line for the attack. There will be over twelve thousand men packed side by side. Moving that equipment around will be chaos. Just leave the damn things here.”

  Russell sighed, turned, and looked back at his command.

  “Drop the footbridges and axes by my tent. Now move out.”

  Garland stayed behind for a moment, whispering instructions as to where the men were to leave the equipment. The last company in column finally passed and started up the short distance to the top of the slope, which led down into the valley where they would form up for the charge.

  As men dropped the equipment, James could hear their muttered protests, their anger, and indeed, their rage.

  “I better get along now,” Garland finally whispered.

  “Garland.”

  The sergeant looked back at him.

  “I promise, for the sake of your men, I’ll try my best,” James whispered. “God be with you.”

  Garland stepped back and took his hand.

  “And may the good Lord guide you to the truth this day,” Garland said solemnly, and then, releasing his grip, he disappeared into the night.

  He had not cried when he watched his brother’s body lowered into the watery grave at Arlington—but now? James Reilly lowered his head and wept.

  JULY 30, 1864

  FORT PEGRAM

  1:00 A.M.

  “I think it will be tonight, at the latest, around dawn,” Captain Sanders whispered, looking over at Colonel Ransom. Ransom sighed.

  “I’ve passed the warning up repeatedly. Orders are we must stay in place.”

  “For God’s sake sir, let’s get the men out of the fort, move them back just a bit. God save them, they can draw lots for who stands picket for an hour at a time. If there is just a surprise attack we can be back in the fort in a minute at most.”

  “Do you know how that would play?” Ransom retorted. “This brigade, your regiment, the men of the battery in there would be the laughingstock of the army. I cannot order that.”

  “I’d rather have them alive as laughingstocks than dead.”

  “I cannot order that.”

  Sanders sighed, shaking his head.

  “You are to come back to brigade headquarters with me. At least some reserves are to move back here at dawn. General Lee has surmised that Grant’s attack north of the James River is nothing more than a demonstration. A feint.”

  “A feint to draw Lee’s attention from what will happen here,” Sanders snapped.

  “General Hill said he would come up tomorrow to inspect and if your suspicions are confirmed by him, he’ll order construction of a reserve line at once.”

  “That is a great comfort,” Sanders replied.

  “That is the best I can offer. Now let’s go back to my headquarters.”

  “I’m staying here.”

  “Captain, you heard my orders.”

  “And leave my men? No, sir. I am staying here.”

  “I am giving you an order.”

  “You can give it to me in hell, sir.”

  Ransom said nothing, until finally he reached over and patted the young captain on the shoulder.

  “I will see you in the morning,” he whispered. “I have to report back. I’m ordered directly by General Mahone to do so.”

  Sanders did not reply. He knew his commander was not a coward and besides, what good would it do them if he were blown to hell? He would be needed to rally what was left.

  After but a few yards he disappeared from view.

  “Cap’n sir, you are one fool of an ass.”

  Sanders could barely distinguish the head sticking up out of the hole in the ground. It was Sergeant Allison.

  “I thought I would stick around, Sergeant. Just once, just once, I’d like to see you actually frightened by something and see you wet your britches.”

  “Then come down in this hole with me and listen to how quiet it is,” Allison replied. “I’ve wet myself three times tonight already.”

  Sanders laughed softly, reached into his haversack and handed over the quart bottle of whiskey that Ransom had so thoughtfully brought up to what he must know was a captain with a doomed command.

  “Perhaps it is time to just get drunk,” Sanders whispered, as Allison sighed with delight, took the bottle, uncorked it, and gulped down half a dozen ounces before handing it back.

  “I don’t think Saint Pete will hold it against us,” Sanders whispered, taking a long drink as well, in fact the first one he had ever taken in his entire life.

  WAITING ACROSS FROM THE FORT

  3:00 A.M.

  “It’s three o’clock sir,” one of his men whispered.

  Colonel Pleasants did not need to be told. By the dim starlight he was just barely able to make out the face of his pocket watch.

  How the troops, which had been forming up in the valley behind him ever since midnight, had not been heard by the Rebels was beyond him. Batteries were firing at their usual intervals to mask the noise, but several rifles, loaded against orders, accidentally discharged. Someone—either drunk or hysterical—had started to scream that he didn’t want to die, and been beaten into silence, but from the Rebel side there had been no response, other than the occasional call of sentries, and the regular taunts between pickets.

  That had been a tricky detail tonight. Men specially briefed by him had gone out after dark, as they did every night, to shallow dugouts between the lines, often not more than a rock’s throw away from their Rebel counterparts. Usually the forward pickets agreed to truces and at times would even meet and trade Southern tobacco for Northern newspapers, cherished both for the news but also for other more fundamental uses, or a tin of canned milk sought for a sick comrade. The disappearance of these pickets might elicit alarm, so they were to play their normal roles, if need be to chat with the Rebs and trade as usual.

  Three hoots of an owl, now expertly given by one of Pleasants’s men, was the signal for them to disengage, and as quietly as possible creep back into the main line. If questioned by the other side, they were to simply say they were being relieved or were feeling too sick to stay on the line.

  Pleasants waited nervously as, one by one, the men came slipping over the lip of the trench and dropping down. No alarm was being sounded.

  It was just after three. The slow fuse, he had calculated, would take twenty-eight minutes to reach the magazines. Puffing his cigar to a hot glow, he looked at those gathered around him.

  “Good luck to us all,” someone whispered.

  Without any ceremony or flourish, Colonel Pleasants touched the glowing tip to the end of the fuse. It sputtered to life and began to race forward. He watched as it reached the first splice just inside the now open door to the tunnel, passing easily through the well-made junction, and continued on into the tunnel.

  He stood up and stepped back.

  “Perhaps we should move away from the entrance,” he whispered.

  Some chuckled softly, others were silent, a few of the men patting the entryway as if saying good-bye to a friend.

  “This better be worth all that digging,” was all that Private O’Shay could say.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JULY 30, 1864

/>   HEADQUARTERS, NINTH CORPS

  3:50 A.M.

  “It should have blown by now,” Burnside whispered anxiously, unable to contain his concern, standing atop the parapet in front of his bunker. In the silence of anticipation, all could hear the clattering of a telegraph from within his command bunker.

  A moment later a telegrapher came running out, holding a sheet of paper. Burnside stepped down from the parapet, as a staff officer held a hooded lantern so he could read it.

  He turned away, features taut.

  “Meade wants to know why it has not blown yet,” he snapped.

  He crumpled the paper up and threw it on the ground, then turned to the telegrapher.

  “Tell him that if he would come to this command post rather than remain eight hundred yards away…” As he spoke he gestured with an angry wave of his hand to his right, “he could see for himself. Communicating this way by telegraph, when a battle is about to start, is absurd. Damn it! It is absurd!”

  The telegrapher just stood there, knowing better than to send such a message.

  Burnside sighed.

  “Tell him I am inquiring,” he finally replied.

  James Reilly stood but a few feet away, overhearing the exchange. He turned his gaze back to the valley below, where over twelve thousand men were waiting. Looking back to the east, he saw that the shoulder of Orion was beginning to fade with the first faint indication of approaching dawn. Just below the crest of the ridge, at the rear of the column, the men of Fourth Division were becoming visible in the pale light of the rising moon.

  IN FRONT OF FORT PEGRAM

  3:55 A.M.

  Unable to contain himself, Garland stood up and went to his colonel’s side. Company officers were gathered around Russell, whispering softly, falling silent as Garland approached. He suddenly felt nervous. Orders were for all men to remain lying on the ground; only officers were to stand.

  He formally saluted.

  “Sir, I think I should tell the men something,” he ventured.

  Russell sighed and nodded.

  “I know no more than you do.” He had his pocket watch out, gazing at it intently, its face now nearly visible in the early twilight.

  “Just tell them to remain calm. It’s still dark enough that the Rebs can’t see us.

  “Tell them to stay calm. It should go up any second now.”

  4:10 A.M.

  “Sir, a message from General Burnside.”

  The runner was out of breath, having just emerged from the covered way leading back to the rear.

  The officers surrounding Pleasants noisily hissed for the messenger to be quiet.

  “I know,” Pleasants replied, “he wants to know what the hell has gone wrong.”

  “Something like that,” the messenger whispered, looking nervously past Pleasants, in the direction of the entryway to the mine.

  Sandbag barriers had been erected across the trench, fifty yards back from either side of the entry, to protect them from the potential of any blowout emerging from the tunnel. A single lantern rested on the floor of the trench, directly in front of the entryway.

  “It’s the damn fuses,” one of his diggers whispered. “It must be one of the damn fuses.”

  Pleasants, stomach knotted, said nothing. He had personally inspected each splice, running his fingers along every foot of fuse as it was uncoiled from the T intersection back to the entryway.

  When confronted with the problem of the fuse yesterday morning, he had entertained the idea of a volunteer. He intended that it would be himself, just lighting the last thirty feet before the intersection, giving him a couple of minutes to scramble out. But after inspecting the splices and the condition of the fuse, he had decided to play it safe for all concerned and light it from the entryway, timing it to go off at 3:45 as planned.

  “I have to take something back,” the runner gasped. “They’re hopping mad back there.”

  Pleasants looked at his men, who had labored so long and hard on this. No one spoke. He dared a glance up over the lip of the trench, looking back to the east.

  Merciful God, the eastern horizon was brightening, the first faint traces of the approaching sunrise. The stars of Orion were fading, the thin crescent moon beginning to fade as well.

  The ground behind the trench, clear back to the main line eight hundred yards away, was carpeted with an entire army corps. The men lay down, as ordered, but too many damn fool officers were up, pacing back and forth. The sounds of nervous whispering were rising by the minute.

  The swale was deep enough that the western slope, the side closest to the Rebel line, was almost entirely concealed by the low ridge upon which the Union’s forward position was dug in. But farther back, on the eastern slope, looking closely he could now discern something different about the land, a darker darkness of thousands of men lying prone.

  He looked back up toward Fort Pegram. In a few more minutes surely they would see or hear something.

  “Sir?” It was the runner.

  “Give us a few more minutes,” he said, voice tight. “Just a few more minutes; the fuse must be burning slow.”

  He wanted to shout out that if they had been given a damn galvanic battery and proper detonator the fort would already be gone. The road would be taken, the way to Petersburg and beyond that to Richmond already open.

  Did I do all of this in vain, he wondered?

  The runner saluted, forgetting the protocol of the front-line trench, and turned to dash back down the covered way, obviously glad to be the hell out of a position directly in front of four tons of powder that could blow at any second.

  HEADQUARTERS, NINTH CORPS

  4:25 A.M.

  The telegrapher handed up another message. He no longer needed a lantern to read it.

  United States Military Telegraph.

  * * *

  It is evident that the mine has failed. Your forces are already positioned. I am ordering you to attack now.

  “This is insanity,” Burnside cried, looking down at the preemptive order from Meade and back toward Fort Pegram, which was now clearly visible as a dark line on the western horizon.

  “My God, if the men go in now and then it detonates, the entire corps will be annihilated.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Hold this telegram,” he replied sharply. “I did not see it.”

  He looked back to his staff.

  “One of you, go. Damn it, run! Tell Pleasants to send someone in and find out what has gone wrong!”

  An officer climbed up over the parapet and started off at a run.

  4:28 A.M.

  “I’m going in,” Pleasants announced, peeling off his uniform jacket.

  “Sir?”

  It was one of his diggers, Kochanski.

  “What is it?”

  “Regiment will be in one hell of a fix if we lose you before the fight even starts. I’ll go.”

  Pleasants started to shake his head. But Kochanski, jacket off, was already up over the safety barrier.

  “O’Shay, come with me.”

  “Oh, God bless you, Sergeant, and the saints watch over you, of course,” O’Shay snarled, tearing off his jacket and following Kochanski, the two running to the entrance.

  “If I wind up getting blown to hell,” O’Shay hissed, “I’ll curse you forever while we’re sitting down there, you damn Polack.”

  Kochanski almost chuckled as he picked up the lantern, bent low, and stepped into the dark chamber.

  4:30 A.M.

  “My God, they must see us by now,” Russell gasped, looking back to the east, then back toward the Rebel line.

  “Are they blind?”

  FORT PEGRAM

  4:35 A.M.

  Captain Sanders stood on the parapet. In a few more minutes that would be suicide, but it was still dark enough behind him that he felt relatively safe.

  Shading his eyes against the increasing glow of light, he carefully scanned the ground. Something seemed different on the broad
open slope leading back to the main Union line. The landscape looked darker somehow.

  He opened his watch and looked at it. Sunrise was little more than thirty minutes away. With dawn, he knew he could most likely breathe easy for another day, and perhaps his team of diggers would at last find whatever it was the Yankees were doing beneath them.

  INSIDE THE MINE

  4:37 A.M.

  “Hail Mary, full of Grace … Hail Mary, full of Grace…”

  “The next damn line is, ‘The Lord is with Thee,’” Kochanski snapped, without bothering to look back at Michael. Holding the lantern up, he pressed forward, O’Shay behind him, running his hand along where the fuse had been laid. All that was left was a blackened trail. Now, by the glare of the lantern, they could see the sandbag barrier ahead at the intersection into the two galleries.

  “It’s burned; it’s burned through to the other side of the sandbags. Sweet Jesus, now what do we do?” O’Shay hissed.

  Kochanski struggled against absolute terror, against just turning around and running. If it had burned this far, they were little more than thirty feet from the tons of powder. There was a fleeting thought: Would the explosion kill me instantly, before next breath? Am I going to be standing before Saint Peter? Dear God, don’t let me be burned, buried. He had pulled out too many bodies from faulty blasts, their faces blue, contorted in agony. Make it quick; please make it so quick I don’t even know it.

  “God, please forgive me my sins…”

  “Fuse!” O’Shay gasped.

  There it was. Just before the beginning of the canvas hose that snaked the fuse in between the sandbags.

  They stopped, both staring at the end of the fuse, dangling out of the canvas hose; this last splicing, just before the fuse disappeared into the built-up wall of bags, had failed.

  The other possibility had terrified Kochanski, because, if they had not found the break by this point, it would have meant tearing into the sandbag barrier and trying to worm into the explosive-packed gallery.

  Both were panting for breath, since the ventilation had been cut off. They stared at the charred end of fuse sticking out in front of them.