works, 20 feet underground, and packed it
with 8,000 pounds of highly explosive
black gunpowder. After the mine was
exploded at 3:30 AMand a concentrated
Union artillery barrage hit the two-mile
stretch of Rebel works, a massive assault
by 14,000 Union troops was planned to
exploit the expected breach blown in the
enemy’s line. If the Federals could swarm
past the ruptured strongpoint and take the
high ground 500 yards behind it, where
Blandford Church’s cemetery was located,
the city of Petersburg, terminus of four rail-
roads and Richmond’s crucial lifeline to the
Deep South, could be captured before the
day was done. With Petersburg in Union
hands, the Confederate capital of Rich-
mond would surely soon fall as well. After
a series of Union thrusts against Peters-
burg—flanking movements rather than
costly frontal assaults—from June 9 to June
24 had failed and General Robert E. Lee
had reinforced the Confederate defenders,
a month-long lull fell over the trench lines.
After the carnage at the Wilderness, Spot-sylvania Courthouse, North Anna, and
Cold Harbor, Union commander in chief
Ulysses S. Grant had continued trying to
maneuver Lee into position for an open-
field battle to destroy the Army of North-
ern Virginia, but Lee responded by fighting
behind an elaborate trench system, hoping
to hold out long enough to discourage the
Northern people into forcing their leaders
to make peace with the South. Lee had
remarked to Maj. Gen. Jubal Early, “We
must destroy this army of Grant’s before
he gets to the James River. If he gets there,
it will become a siege, and then it will be a
mere question of time.”
Neither Grant nor the commander of
the Army of the Potomac, Maj. Gen.
George Meade, was especially optimistic
about the mine’s potential usefulness—
Meade termed it “clap-trap and non-
sense”—but they allowed it to proceed as
a way to keep the bored soldiers busy. In
late July, after problems in the Shenan-
doah Valley and a Union setback at the
First Battle of Deep Bottom put pressure
on Grant to break the stalemate at Peters-
burg, the mine’s potential took on a whole
new significance to the Union high com-
mand. On July 26 Grant sent Maj. Gens.Winfield Hancock and Phil Sheridan on a
diversionary attack against Richmond in
an effort to get Lee to fatally strip his
Petersburg defenses. Hancock’s II Corps
and Sheridan’s two cavalry divisions failed
to crack the Confederate fortifications,
but they achieved their objective. After
Lee ordered 20,000 men north of the
James River, General P.G.T. Beauregard,
commander of the Department of North
Carolina and Southern Virginia, was left
with just three divisions at Petersburg,
some 18,000 effectives in all.
Meanwhile, Pleasants’ men had come
up with a viable alternative to costly
frontal assaults and flanking maneuvers:
they would go under the ground rather
than over it. The 48th got almost no sup-
port from Meade or his chief engineer,
Major James C. Duane, largely because the
mine would have to be longer than 400
feet, a distance that would pose serious
ventilation problems. Meade neglected to
officially sanction the operation, allowing
Duane to refuse the 48th the materials they
needed to do the job: tools, timber, wheel-
barrows, and sandbags. Left to their own
devices, Pleasants’ men went to work any-
way using improvised equipment, puttingA lone observer from Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants’
38th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment peers
carefully above the Union trench opposite Elliott’s
Salient at Petersburg.Q-Spr16 The Crater_Layout 1 1/14/16 12:41 PM Page 24