shovel to dirt on June 25.
Pleasants and his 400 men completed the
511-foot shaft on July 17 in just three
weeks—a mining miracle. Pleasants then
devised an ingenious system to pump fresh
air into the entire expanse when ventila-
tion issues arose. Some 320 kegs of gun-
powder—8,000 pounds—were placed in
twin galleries below Elliot’s Salient, while
enemy countermining efforts, belated and
uncoordinated, came to naught. Orders
were circulated that the mine would be
ignited at 3:30 AMon the 30th and that a
massive infantry attack would commence
immediately thereafter. During the night
of the 29th, the Federals moved up 164
guns, including heavy mortars, siege guns,
and Parrott guns. Also that night almost
the entire IV Corps assembled behind the
entrance of the mine, assuring the Federals
overwhelming numerical superiority at the
point of attack.
Three of Burnside’s four divisions, com-
manded by Brig. Gens. Orlando Willcox,
Robert Potter, and James Ledlie, had been
on line for 36 days, suffering at least 30
casualties a day from vicious sniping, and
were exhausted from life in the trenches—
drought, intense heat, bursting mortar
shells, and sharpshooters’ bullets. Burn-
side’s fourth division consisted of two large
brigades, nine regiments in all, of United
States Colored Troops (USCT) under a
white commander, Brig. Gen. Edward Fer-
rero. They had yet to see combat, but they
constituted Burnside’s freshest and largest
division and had actually been drilled in
preparation for the attack. Burnside had
devised an exceptional plan: he would
send the USCT division, 4,300 strong,
through the gap created by the explosion
in standard Civil War deployment—one
brigade in front, the second in the rear in
support. One regiment from each brigade
would leave the attack column and extend
the breach by rushing perpendicular to the
crater, north and south, while the remain-
ing regiments would advance through and
push west toward the Jerusalem Plank
Road and Cemetery Hill.
Burnside’s three remaining divisions,
their flanks protected, would follow anddrive west almost unopposed to help take
Cemetery Hill, from which they had a
clear shot at Petersburg. A possible rapid
end to the war could be envisioned. The
attack would mark the first deployment of
African American troops into major com-
bat in the Eastern Theater. Beyond the tac-
tical problems of leading so large an
assault, though, black soldiers and their
white officers had to prepare for combat in
which they could expect no mercy if they
were captured or left wounded on the
field. Colonel John Bross, commander of
the 29th USCT, told the press, “When I
lead these men into battle, we shall expect
no quarter, and shall not ask for quarter.”
Burnside was in high spirits; not only did
he have units from two other corps stand-
ing by to help exploit the breakthrough if
necessary—Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K.
Warren’s XVIII Corps and Maj. Gen.
Edward Ord’s X Corps—but he would
have 144 field guns in support and all or
part of another corps, Hancock’s, which
might return from north of the James
River in time for the battle.
The day before the attack, Meade, after
consulting with Grant, stunned Burnside
by ordering him to spearhead the attackwith a white, battle-tested division, a rad-
ical change that would have catastrophic
repercussions. Grant and Meade feared
political controversy if the black division
was annihilated, with Grant fretting that
they would be accused of “shoving these
people ahead to get killed because we did
not care anything about them.” Rather
than choosing the best of his three other
divisions to lead the attack, Burnside went
into a funk after he was unable to get the
order rescinded. When none of his three
remaining division commanders volun-
teered to lead the assault, Burnside had
them draw straws. Ledlie, a political gen-
eral with no military training, and an alco-
holic and coward to boot, won the hon-
ors—such as they were. Burnside’s
willingness to allow possibly the worst
general in the Union Army to spearhead
the attack rather than one of his more
experienced division commanders was a
disastrous decision. With his ranks filled
with inexperienced reinforcements and
artillery units whose gunners were serving
as infantrymen, Ledlie’s two-brigade divi-
sion was the weakest in Burnside’s corps.
Apparently, everyone in IX Corps knew of
Ledlie’s shortcomings except Burnside.All: Library of CongressFormer coal miners from the 48th Pennsylvania dig out a tunnel below Confederate lines with picks and
shovels, carrying out the dirt in hardtack crates. They completed the backbreaking work in three weeks.Q-Spr16 The Crater_Layout 1 1/14/16 12:41 PM Page 25