own lines, enduring a galling crossfire that
killed and wounded hundreds more. In the
pit’s southern recesses, Chippewa Indian
riflemen from the 1st Michigan Sharp-
shooters covered their heads and sang their
death songs amid the deafening roar of bat-
tle. At 12:30 PM, word arrived that Burn-
side had given up and ordered a with-
drawal; Union officers at the front were told
to use their discretion as to the timing and
method of withdrawal.
With the fighting now spread over a
square mile centered on the Crater, the bat-
tle was about to turn in the defenders’
favor for good. A few hundred yards to
the west, Mahone prepared to apply the
coup de grace. He sent Sanders’ five
Alabama regiments down the covered wayinto the creekside depression, telling
Sanders to march his brigade around the
friendly troops to his front (Wright’s Geor-
gians) and come in against the Crater from
the southwest. Their orders were simple:
clear the Yankees, black and white, from
the line. The method was simple as well:
one shot, then the bayonet. They would
advance just before 1 PMunder an artillerybarrage while Lee and other commanders
watched from the Gee House.
Supported by North and South Carolina
units, the Alabama troops stepped off
smartly. Once they passed the cavalier
trench, however, they came under heavy fire
from the Crater. The last few yards proved
the toughest. On level ground, the Confed-
erates were momentarily exposed to Union
artillery that blew great gaps in the gray
lines. The attackers doggedly closed ranks
and came on, reaching the edge of the
Crater before they had suffered more harm.
In these last minutes, Union resistance
centered at the Crater’s western edge
crumbled in vicious fighting. Federal mus-
kets with their bayonets still attached lay
scattered about everywhere, and oppor-
tunistic Confederates picked them up and
launched them like javelins into the teem-
ing blue crowd. Confederate soldierssurged over the Crater’s rim and into the
pit, slashing their way forward. Bayonets,
knives, and muskets used as clubs were
the weapons of choice as the dense mass
of humanity left little room for maneuver.
The Rebels again refused to accept the
surrender of black troops, dispatching
them with brutality. Once more, fearing
Rebel reprisals, many white Federals
killed their black comrades in a craven
attempt to ensure their own survival.
With Confederates pouring over the top,
Griffin and Hartranft yelled for anyNortherners within range of their voices
to retreat. The Union perimeter disap-
peared as a flood of survivors crawled out
of the pit and headed back through no-
man’s-land. With Rebel mortars and
artillery bracketing the area, more Feder-
als were killed and wounded in the retreat
than in Ledlie’s morning attack. Those at
the back of the pack turned and faced their
pursuing tormenters, the fighting as sav-
age as any witnessed in the entire war.
“Our fellows seized the muskets aban-
doned by the retreating enemy,” wrote one
Confederate soldier, “and threw them like
pitchforks into the huddled troops over the
ramparts. Screams, groans and explosions
throwing up human limbs made it a scene
of awful carnage.”
By 1:30 PMthe battle was over with the
exultant Confederates taking full posses-
sion of the Crater and the field works sur-
rounding it. Pioneers and engineers worked
all night to incorporate the Crater into the
Confederate defenses. Meanwhile, within
the Union lines, Burnside sat stunned as
casualty figures came in. At 3 PM, Potter
reported that his division was annihilated.
Full regiments had been captured whole,
and the majority of his field officers had
been killed or wounded. Other division
commanders reported similar heavy losses,
and stories of the heartless treatment of
USCT soldiers—by Rebels and Yankees
alike—shocked Burnside, who struggled to
make sense of the tragedy. He had com-
mitted 14,000 men from his corps and
within six hours had lost nearly 35 percent
of them. Despite numerous requests, Burn-
side waited until the next evening to report
to Meade, finally admitting to a loss of
almost 4,000 men, which he blamed on the
lack of support from adjoining corps that
were not committed.
The battle was over, but the repercus-
sions were still to come. During a battle
that reeked of command malfeasance on a
scale that equaled that of Cold Harbor—
two drunken Union division commanders
sitting out the battle behind the lines—the
Union Army suffered 3,798 casualties,
including 504 killed and 1,881 wounded.
Fully one third of the casualties were suf-A sketch made immediately after the battle
shows half-buried corpses, severed limbs, and
scattered debris still smoking from the explo-
sion, which could be heard several miles away.Q-Spr16 The Crater_Layout 1 1/14/16 12:42 PM Page 32