By this time, the Federal tunneling operation outside Petersburg, Virginia, was complete. Miners of the 48th Pennsylvania under Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants had dug a 511-foot tunnel that ended beneath Confederate defense works at Elliott’s Salient. The Pennsylvanians planned to mine the tunnel with gunpowder and blow a hole in the Confederate line, but they had been waiting three days for the material to arrive.
The Confederates of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia initially believed that the Federals were tunneling under them, but they eventually concluded that it was impossible for the Federals to build a tunnel long enough to reach their lines. A reporter covering the Confederates for the London Times assured them the British army had determined that no man-made tunnel could be more than 400 feet long.
Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside, commanding the Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, was in charge of the tunnel project, and he had been training Brigadier-General Edward Ferrero’s division of U.S. Colored Troops to lead the Federal assault through the gap that would be caused by the explosives. Burnside’s plan called for the Federals to “explode the mine just before daylight in the morning, or at about five o’clock in the afternoon. Mass two brigades of the colored division in rear of my first line, in columns of division… and as soon as the explosion has taken place, move them forward with instructions for the division to take half distance.”
The two black brigades would be followed by Burnside’s three other divisions “as soon as they can be thrown in.” Burnside added, “It would, in my opinion, be advisable, if we succeed in gaining the crest, to throw the colored division right into the town.”
The gunpowder and fuses needed to detonate the mine finally began arriving on July 27, four days after the tunnel’s completion. However, Pleasants discovered that instead of getting 1,000 feet of safety fuse as requested, he was given normal blasting fuses that were not long enough to cover the 511-foot length of the shaft. Pleasants later testified, “They sent just whatever they had. It hardly ever happens that they require fuze for that distance.” Pleasants had also requested 12,000 pounds of gunpowder but received only 8,000. Nevertheless, as he recounted:
“The charge consisted of 320 kegs of powder, each containing about 25 pounds. It was placed in eight magazines, connected with each other by troughs half filled with powder. These troughs from the lateral galleries met at the inner end of the main one, and from this point I had three fuzes for a distance of 98 feet. Not having fuzes as long as required, two pieces had to be spliced together to make the required length of each of the lines.”
The troops placed about 1,000 cubic feet of sandbags around the magazines to direct the explosion upward. It took them 20 hours to put the sandbags in place. Pleasants reported that the gunpowder was ready for detonation at 6 p.m. on the 28th.
Around this time, Major-General George G. Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, informed Burnside that Ferrero’s black troops, despite training for this operation for a month, could not be used to lead the assault after the explosion. Meade seemed to lack confidence in the fighting ability of black troops, but according to Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman of Meade’s staff, Meade argued “that these negroes were green and had never seen a great action; he had no right to run risks; if they failed people would justly say ‘Oh! You put forward the negroes to sacrifice them for nothing!’”
Burnside explained that the black troops had been trained for this mission, they numbered over 4,000 strong, while his “three white divisions had for 40 days been in the trenches in the immediate presence of the enemy, and at no point of the line could a man raise his head above the parapet without being fired at by the enemy. That they had been in the habit, during the whole of the time, of approaching the main line by covered ways, and using every possible means of protecting themselves from the fire of the enemy.”
Meade and Burnside appealed to General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant for a final decision. Grant later wrote:
“General Meade said that if we put the colored troops in front (we had only that one division) and it should prove a failure, it would then be said, and very properly, that we were shoving those people ahead to get killed because we did not care anything about them. But that could not be said if we put the white troops in front… I do not think it would have been proper to put them in front, for nothing but success would have justified it.”
Grant sided with Meade. When Burnside asked them to reconsider, Meade said, “No, general, the order is final.” Burnside said, “Very well, general, I will carry out this plan to the best of my ability.” Under Meade’s plan, upon detonation of the explosives, Burnside would advance his three white divisions into the breach, supported by troops from the corps to the left and right (under Major-Generals Gouverneur Warren and Edward O.C. Ord respectively). Over 100 field guns of varying sizes and calibers would also be used. The troops were to advance as soon as the mine was detonated (with engineers in the lead to remove enemy impediments) and not stop until they reached the ridgeline in the Confederate works.
On the 29th, Burnside gathered the commanders of his three white divisions (Brigadier-Generals Orlando Willcox, Robert Potter, and James Ledlie) and announced that one of them would be leading the assault instead of Ferrero the next morning. Burnside did not want to choose which division should lead, so he suggested that the generals draw straws to determine the order of battle. Ledlie’s division was chosen.
Ledlie was a questionable leader was had been notoriously drunk during the fight outside Petersburg on June 18, and his men had accused him of cowardice. His was arguably the weakest division in the entire Potomac army. Ledlie would be followed by Willcox and Potter, with Ferrero in the rear. The Federals made their final preparations throughout the 29th, with the mine set to be detonated at 3:30 the next morning.
Grant issued orders: “All officers should be fully impressed of the absolute necessity of pushing entirely beyond the enemy’s present line if they should succeed in penetrating it…”
Bibliography
- Bearss, Edwin C. with Suderow, Bryce, The Petersburg Campaign: The Eastern Front Battles, June-August 1864, Volume I. El Dorado Hills, Calif.: Savas Beattie LLC; Casemate Publishers, Kindle Edition, 2012.
- Catton, Bruce, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1953.
- Davis, William C., Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
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