by Jeff Shaara
HENRY PLEASANTS HELD UP A SMALL LANTERN, LOOKED AT HIS watch. It was three A.M. He glanced up at the dirty face of Sergeant Reese, the young man moving about nervously in the dark. Pleasants tried to force a smile, looked now at the somber, drawn face of Lieutenant Douty. He tried to say something, his voice choked off in the dust of his throat. He coughed, looked at the watch again, said, “It’s three o’clock. It’s time.”
There were three fuses, each leading to a different part of the mine. They had not been able to secure long lengths of the tight hemp, were forced instead to piece together smaller lengths. The elaborate patchwork was less than a hundred feet long, so Pleasants himself would have to move far into the mine to light the end. Once lit, the fuse would burn for nearly thirty minutes before reaching the kegs of powder.
Pleasants handed the lantern to Douty, and Douty held out a hand. Pleasants took the hand, looked now at Reese, who saluted him. They had been a part of this project from the beginning, had their own experience deep in the black mines of Pennsylvania. Reese had spent more time in this hole than anyone, had directed the placing of the powder kegs, and even through the hot night had been deep inside, checking and rechecking the fuse. Pleasants knew Reese wanted the job, was eager to light the fuse himself, but this was the responsibility of command, and so Pleasants smiled now, returned the salute, leaned down into the opening of the mine, and was gone.
GRANT HELD HIS FIELD GLASSES IN HIS HANDS, NERVOUSLY FINgered them, waiting for the chance to see … something. He stared into the dark, out toward the place where the great plan was to begin. He turned, looked behind him, thought, The sun will be up soon, very soon. He looked at the watch again, saw it was nearly four o’clock. Well, that’s it, let’s go. He wanted to look into the glasses, had waited for it now with some excitement. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel that, not yet, but here, alone in the dark, away from the staff and Meade and the dismal confidence of Burnside, Grant was feeling the churn in his stomach, the childlike sense that something truly marvelous was about to happen, something spectacular, something no one had ever seen.
He looked at the watch again, tapped it against his leg. Yes, it was working, six minutes after four. He began to move now, small steps, back and forth, impatience growing into anger. No, not this time, we cannot be delayed this time. If it doesn’t go … nothing good can happen, there can be no assault. He stared hard into the dark, took a deep breath, thought, Why is it … can we not do something right even once?
PLEASANTS HAD RECEIVED THE URGENT MESSAGE FROM BURNSIDE, but he didn’t need a commander to tell him something had gone wrong. The fuses were always slow, but they were consistent. No, there was something else, maybe the dampness of the ground. He cursed to himself, thought, No, we accounted for that, it has to be … they’ve gone out.
Douty looked at his watch, then turned to the east, said in a whisper, “Sir, the sun … it’ll be light soon.”
Reese stepped close to Pleasants now, said, “Colonel, we have no choice. Permit me, sir. I will go in.”
Pleasants glanced at the opening to the mine, then looked at the young man’s face. There was no fear. Pleasants handed him the lantern, said, “Quickly, Sergeant. Godspeed.”
IT HAD BEEN FIFTEEN MINUTES, WAS NEARLY FOUR-THIRTY, AND Pleasants was leaning down, staring at a faint glow from far up in the mine, the light of the lantern growing brighter now. He could see the shadows, blocking the light, the movement of the men. Douty had gone in shortly after Reese. If Reese had a problem, Douty would be there to help. Pleasants stayed behind, counting seconds to himself, nervous, closing his eyes with every bit of sound, flinching at every noise that came from the mass of troops waiting in the trenches behind him.
Now he saw faces, the two men covered in the mud and dirt of the long crawl. Douty emerged first, stood upright, stretched his back, saluted, smiled. Then Reese came out, held the lantern, saluted as well. They stood side by side, and Pleasants wanted to yell, Tell me! He had no patience now for riddles. He leaned close to both men, did not return their salute, said in a frantic whisper, “What happened?”
Douty was still smiling, said, “It went out, sir. At one of the joints. We repaired it. And then we lit it again. Shouldn’t be long now.”
Pleasants backed away, eased up the embankment, peeked his head over the top, heard Reese climbing up beside him.
Reese said, “Excuse me, Colonel, but I’d be a-duckin’ if I was you.”
29. LEE
JULY 30, 1864
THEY HAD BEEN ON DUTY SINCE MIDNIGHT, REPLACING THE MEN who were there the twelve hours before. It was becoming the normal day now, half the troops manning the front lines, the best marksmen in the units sighting down their muskets, waiting for something, anything, some piece of motion. Sometimes they would fire at nothing, send the deadly message, “Come on boys, take a peek, just one look, and I’ll knock your head clean off.” For the men who did not fire the muskets, the duty was mostly quiet and tedious. The heat had made the covered trenches pits of hell. Some men fainted, and others just sat, stared at nothing, spent the twelve-hour duty waiting for the relief of sleep and whatever rations they would be given. The shelling would come at regular intervals, the guns firing blindly all along the line, on both sides, not at any target, but just … out there, across the way, a calculated guess where the exploding shell might find the enemy.
There was a new weapon now, the mortar, brought to the field by the Yankees first, but now the boys in gray had them too, and so the sport had changed. The mortars would throw a solid shot in a high arc, easily seen, and the gunners would watch it strike down hard, and if it did not bounce on solid ground, the clean miss, it had found the trench, a sudden crushing death to anyone who might be crouching low, believing himself safe.
They knew they were close to the enemy, the lines curving out slightly, the enemy’s doing the same. The sharpshooters had the advantage here, could easily see the motion, and the game changed again, the tease, men sometimes testing their opponent, the hat rising slowly on a stick just to the top of the earthworks, and the answer would come, a dozen shots, more, the hat ripped to pieces. There would be laughter. Yes, fooled you, Billy Yank.
The darkness, the wet stinking mud of the covered trenches was home now, and no one had any idea when this might change. They would look for any distraction, the long hours giving way to fantasy, daydreaming, nightmares. In the long quiet times, the dark silence of the ground had given up a new sound, something very faint. The men began to gather, to lean close to the wet ground, some even dropping down and putting an ear to the soft clay. The word had gone to the officers, and most paid it little mind, the madness of boredom, but a few did come themselves, heard the sounds with their men. The word spread all along the line. The Yankees were digging!
The sounds were unmistakable now, made more so by the imagination of the men aboveground. The jokes began, Grant digging his way to the other side of Petersburg, the attack would come from the rear! Maybe a railroad, an underground train, carrying the blue army far behind them. The officers began to give the order, probe, dig down, drive the long steel pike into the soft ground. If there was a tunnel, it would be found. The men probed and stabbed, and when a pit was dug and a man lowered the few feet down, the faint dull sounds would be clearer still. The jokes began to grow quiet, the search became more purposeful, careful, deliberate.
The engineers laughed along with the best of the rumors, knew the sounds were something else, magnified somehow by the lay of the land, a rock formation perhaps, echoing the sound toward them from far away, men in blue digging their own trenchworks. It was not possible, after all, to dig a mine that far, not if you had to begin behind those lines, over there, over four hundred feet away.
Even Porter Alexander, hearing word of the strange sounds, had come easing through the trenches himself, the men standing aside, quiet, respectful. They knew this young man’s name, that when it came to positioning the big guns, General Alexander was the best they h
ad, the best on either side. Now he was there, with these poor foot soldiers from South Carolina, and he knelt down, listened to the dull sounds as the muddy faces watched quietly. Alexander heard the skepticism of the engineers, but did not laugh. He moved away with a grim silence. It did not matter if educated men said it was not possible. The enemy was digging a mine.
The gunners of Pegram’s battery had heard the talk, but their duty was off to the right of the commotion, and they could not see the men with the shovels and picks searching the ground beneath them with hot frustration. The gunners still focused across the way, the four guns of the battery working with each other, the men enjoying another game, the perfect rhythm, trying to fire the guns in a quick sequence. They did not know if the work was effective, if they were killing the enemy, but the orders were plain, keep it up, adjust the range, a bit shorter, then fire again.
When the sharpshooters were quiet, the gunners were more relaxed, but this morning the Yankees were active, very active, a steady shower of lead, much more than usual. The gunners cursed, kept low. This morning there was no game with their friends, each gun fired on its own, the men waiting for the slight pause in the musket fire, then scrambling to position, loading, firing off a round. On the far right, the fourth gun, the men were flat on the ground, began to rise now, brushing dirt away, laughing. The enemy had nearly gotten lucky, and there were admiring nods, small comments, a close one, a good shot. The shell had come within a few yards of the gun pit, knocked them all to the ground. They moved slowly at first, then the captain barked the familiar command and they were up around their gun, loaded quickly, and all thought, Well, time to return the favor.
One man leaned on the wheel, waited for another man to ram the shell hard into the barrel. He jumped, startled, felt something move under his feet, then felt the gun rising slowly, the wheel in his hand now jumping, lifting off the ground. The men backed away, looked at each other, wide eyes in the gray darkness, and now the sound came up toward them from below, the earth itself rising in one massive mound. Then the mound broke, pushed skyward, the dull sound erupting into a deafening roll of thunder, a great hollow roar. To their left, where the rest of the battery had been, there was only fire and a great column of black smoke. Dirt now blew across them, the air thick with a fiery wind, knocking them flat on the ground. Above them the flames tore at the darkness, the blast carrying the earthworks, the timbers, the big guns and the bodies of men, high overhead. Slowly, the huge black cloud began to rain down on them, the roar still thundering over them, now pierced by the screams of men, the sound of debris hitting the ground around them, pieces of the guns, horses, torn pieces of men.
It was the men from South Carolina, men who had heard the small laughs and the new joke from the men who moved past them in the dark, the shift they had replaced. As they’d filed into the works, some repeated the joke, laughed that the Yankees must have given up. They had huddled low in the trenches, held their ears to the ground, some climbing down into the small pits, listening hard, possessed of a nervous curiosity. These men who had strained to hear the familiar sounds from below, who wondered why just last night the sounds of digging had stopped, felt it first, the ground lifting under them.
LEE HAD THOUGHT IT WAS A MAGAZINE, ONE OF THE CAISSONS maybe, but the sound rolled over him now in a hard wave, and he knew it was no single shell. He moved quickly. The staff was out in the open now, and he could see it, the bright horrible glow, the tall spiral of flame and smoke. The small trees to one side began to lean, struck by a sharp gust of wind, and then the smell blew past him, the choking sulfur, carried by the sudden wave of wind and thick dust. He looked around, and now Traveller was there, and he climbed up, spurred the horse hard, rode straight for the blast.
Men were moving quickly around him, officers yelling orders. Soldiers were emerging from earthworks, the lines farthest from the front, the men grabbing their muskets, surprised faces all staring toward the great sound. Lee heard a new sound then, a steady roar of cannon fire, throwing their shells right into the area of the blast, then out in both directions. The front lines began to erupt in a steady burst of explosions, flashes, and thunderous impacts. He knew it was not his guns, it was the enemy, the line had been shattered, and now the assault was on. He tried to move the horse faster, thought, They are coming, they have broken the line.
He saw a house, a group of horses, more men, and pulled up in the yard, tried to hold the big horse still, stared out, could see the chaos of motion against the dull glow of the sunrise. He heard something new, musket fire, a wave of sound reaching him now, the cheering of men pushing forward, rolling over the narrow stretch of open ground. He raised the field glasses, stared into thick black smoke, a dense cloud of dirt and debris boiling up from a vast hole in the ground, saw a long mound of dirt, ragged, uneven, the edge of the crater itself. Beyond, he saw motion, flags, then the long lines of men, moving straight at him, straight into the horrible place, the hole blown right through his defenses, right through the lines of his men.
Lee looked around, saw Taylor, Venable, the staff now with him, and he said, “We must stop them, keep them from coming through!”
He looked through the glasses again, all down the lines in both directions, tried to see his men, who was there, the response. From both sides of the crater he saw his own troops, gathering now, men stumbling in shock, some just standing and staring. But there were officers, and slowly the lines began to form, and now musket fire was echoing all around, the small flashes from far down the line. If there was no one in the center, nothing to stop the enemy from coming forward, the men on either side understood what was happening, and across the open stretch of ground they had a clear target. Now the sounds of the big guns were close, his guns, throwing their fire toward the mass of the enemy. He still tried to see, but the smoke filled the open space, different, white smoke now, the smoke of the battle, of the fire from the guns.
Men were moving on horseback, he heard voices, frantic, and one man said, “General Lee, the enemy is coming … this area is undefended, sir. You must withdraw!”
Lee looked at the man, shook his head, said, “No … we must not let them through!”
He turned now, saw Venable, the older man watching him, waiting for instructions. Lee said, “Colonel, go directly to General Mahone. There is no time for chain of command, we cannot wait for General Hill to pass the word. Tell General Mahone he must withdraw from the enemy in his front with great care, but he must use speed. We are in a dangerous situation here. It is my desire that he bring whatever force he can to close this gap.” Venable spun his horse, was quickly gone.
The musket fire was increasing now. Stray shots whistled past him, and he pushed the horse forward. Behind him, he could hear the shouts, his staff receiving the messages, the word being passed, the army waking from a stunned sleep, recovering from the shock. He spurred the horse up a small rise, raised the glasses again, could see past the mass of destruction, the torn earth yawning open, ripped from below, piles of dirt and clay spread out in all directions. He could still see the enemy flags, saw them drawing closer together, pressed from both sides by the gathering storm of fire.
Now he could see the men on the other side of the crater, gathering together, a tide of blue, drifting down, following their flags right into the crater. The guns were still firing from far down both sides, and the blue lines that were still out in the open were falling into panic, the lines breaking up, more men moving forward, disappearing into the protection of the great hole. He could see one single gun, very close, just to the right of the big hole, and the men were firing down, an odd angle, the rear of the gun carriage raised, the barrel pointing … down. Lee stared, felt something turn in his gut, watched as the gun fired again, saw one man fall beside it, struck down, the others still moving in quick steps, then the gun firing again. He thought of the words, the horrible phrase that only a soldier understands … point-blank. He moved the glasses slightly, to the crater itself, could only se
e the far side, not what he knew to be down deep in the hole, a vast sea of blue soldiers, swarming right into a trap of their own making.
Closer, on the near side of the crater, a thin line of blue troops had emerged, coming up out of the hole. They were flowing down into more lines of trenches, firing out at the gray troops on both sides of them. But there were not many, not enough to push forward and sweep out on both sides, and Lee understood, thought, Yes, that was the plan, burst through, push through with great strength, then spread out, both ways, roll up the line. But it didn’t work. The crater … they can’t get out of the crater.
Now the men in blue were drifting back, pushed by growing numbers of Lee’s troops, the musket fire slicing through the blue troops from all directions. Lee watched them, the ones who did not fall, saw them backing up, moving back toward the edge of the crater, then over, gone, dropping away, joining the mass of men who did not go forward with them, who did not try to climb out. Lee could see it now, most of the assaulting force had sought the cover of the great wide hole or been stopped by the hole itself, men dropping down, only to find themselves staring up at the crest of the wall of earth in front of them. Peering through the glasses, Lee could feel it, the great thrust, the momentum of the enemy’s assault gone. Men were still moving past him, moving forward, forming new lines. Stronger lines. He knew it was the Third Corps, Hill’s troops, the division of Billy Mahone. A few cheered him, but most had their eyes on the front, toward the job at hand, the deadly gap in the line. Lee looked again at the edge of the crater, saw the last signs of blue disappear over the edge, saw his men moving forward, closer, the enemy’s thrust now contained, held together by Lee’s men and by their own plan, by the great hole in the earth.
