No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864

I have rarely read a book with as many errors as Dr. Richard Slotkin's No Quarter: The Battle of the Crater, 1864.  This book came from Random House, not some obscure publisher.  The author dates the Cold Harbor assault as June 7, 1864, when it was June 3.  He has IX Corps at Petersburg on June 16, 1864, under Baldy Smith when in fact it did not arrive until Meade had taken command and if if had arrived earlier Hancock would have been in command.  The last of the initial Federal assaults on Petersburg took place on June 18, not July 18.  Hill's Corps arrived at the Petersburg June 18, not June 19.  The Federals did indeed experience a "panic rout" on June 22,  The 12th Virginia Infantry had ten companies, not twelve.  In 1864, George S. Bernard (a member of the 12th Virginia Infantry and author of War Talks of Confederate Veterans and Civil War Talks: The Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and his Fellow Veterans) was a private, not a sergeant--he had given up his billet as a sergeant in the 12th's Company I when he transferred back to Company E in early 1863.  The author on page 127 writes June 21 when he means July 21, the last day Confederate counter-miners heard Federal mining toward Pegram's Salient.  On the next page, the author writes June 24 when he means July 24 in regard to Early's rout of Hunter.  On page 140, the author writes July 18-19 when he means June 17-18 in regards to Meade's inability to coordinate his attacks at the end of the initial assaults on Petersburg.  The author gets backwards at page 247 Private Bernard's belief that a man belongs in his proper place--Bernard did not switch positions with Private Butts to get out of his proper place but to get into it.  Weisiger's Brigade had a sharpshooter battalion, not just a company--each of the brigade's five regiments contributed a company to the battalion.  Part of Hall's Georgia Brigade participated in Mahone's first charge.  Burnside was hardly responsible for the delay in implementing a truce after the Battle of the Crater--Grant and Meade well knew from the negotiations at Cold Harbor that they would have to admit defeat before a truce would be allowed.  United States Colored Troops participated minimally in the fighting north of James River and not at all south of James River in August 1864.  United States Colored Troops did not fight at all at Fort Sedgwick, Poplar Grove Church or Hatcher's Run in the autumn of 1864.

Again and again and again quotations are unattributed in the text.  The reader wants to know who uttered the words the author thought important enough to quote.  The book should also have been properly indexed--when the source of a quotation does appear in the text, he often does not appear in the index.  An example is Private Bird of the 12th Virginia Infantry, who is quoted and mentioned in the text but not indexed.

Dr. Slotkin makes valuable observations on the command decisions in the Battle of the Crater, the command structure of the Army of the Potomac, and the importance of United States Colored Troops to the Federal war effort.  He finds at work in the Battle of the Crater the same animosities that wrecked Reconstruction.  Even here, though, he seems at a loss:  Nat Turner's rebellion took place just down the Jerusalem Plank Road from Petersburg in 1831 and it had an impact on how the Confederates--particularly the Southside Virginians in Weisiger's Brigade--reacted to the employment of United States Colored Troops in the assault of July 30, 1864.

In his next book, Dr. Slotkin must get the facts straight, name his sources in the text, and properly index them. 

Dr. Earl Hess' Invaluable "In the Trenches at Petersburg"

            Dr. Earl Hess has written a book that better than any other conveys the enormous effort that went into the fortifications and mining around Petersburg and Richmond and the terrible suffering that took place in the trenches and mines.  This book belongs in the library of anyone interested in the fighting around those cities in 1864 and 1865.

            After most of the offensives or counteroffensives during the Petersburg-Richmond campaigns of 1864 and 1865 (yes, there were two campaigns, one for each year, but more on that later), the participants improved or extended their lines until the final Federal breakthrough on April 2, 1865 ended the fighting and compelled the Confederates to evacuate.

            Dr. Hess makes as good a case for the use of Ledlie’s division at the Crater as I have ever seen.  He perceives that digging precluded training, and this worked against General Grant.  In making the lines capable of being held by a minimum of men in order that offensives could be launched on the flanks, he denied the soldiers who participated in those offensives training that they badly needed.

            I disagree with Dr. Hess only on minor points.  The fighting around Petersburg and Richmond in 1864 and 1865 amounted to the longest and bloodiest of the war, but it was not the most important of the war.  That distinction belongs to the Atlanta Campaign, which decided the election of 1864 and hence the Campaign of 1864 and ultimately the war.

            I think Dr. Hess’ breakdown of the offensives mostly acceptable, though for the sake of simplicity I incline to stick with Dr. Richard Sommers’ breakdown.  Dr. Hess enters the realm of the silly when he designates the Unionist attack of April 2, 1865 an offensive of its own when it clearly proceeded from the offensive that General Grant launched on March 29, 1865.  One might as well separate the fighting of August 22-25, 1864, from the preceding fighting of August 14-21. 

             Dr. Hess thinks Baldy Smith’s 14,000 overwhelming against Beauregard’s 4,200 in fortifications.  Given that mere field works often allowed soldiers to hold off twice their numbers, I do not see why troops in fortifications supported by artillery ought not to have held off thrice their numbers or more.  Dr. Hess pays little attention to the failure of Hancock’s Corps to attack early on June 16 or Grant’s hesitation in the face of his opportunity to seize the abandoned Howlett Line opposite Bermuda Hundred on the same day.

            He is perceptive about General Hancock’s failure to improve the works at Second Reams Station, but the shooting of the battery horses there happened after Hancock decided to stay.  General Heth arranged the Confederate artillery, General Wilcox the infantry. 

            Dr. Hess mentions only in passing the Secessionist naval foray aimed at City Point January 23-24, 1865.  He appears unaware of the seemingly connected march of Mahone’s Division toward Hicksford and Weldon.

            Dr. Hess seems to think Petersburg was not besieged because the investment was incomplete, but history’s most famous siege (Troy) did not involve a complete investment.  He wonders why fortifications were not employed more often; the answer is that they tended to arise when a fixed point was threatened or had to be protected—such as Washington, Richmond, Petersburg, or Atlanta.  Where there was room for maneuver, field works tended to be left behind before they were upgraded to fortifications.

            Mistakenly, Dr. Hess thinks Grant’s advances of August and September a winning tactic.  Had there been world enough and time, such a tactic would have been winning.  But there were not world enough and time and therefore it was not a winning tactic.  Grant had only until November 8, 1864, the election, to capture Richmond.  He failed to do this and thus lost the Petersburg Campaign of 1864 and the Virginia Campaign of 1864, though on the national plane he won the Campaign of 1864 because his subordinate, General Sherman, captured Atlanta.

            General Humphreys, whom Dr. Hess disparages as a historian but whom I value very highly, cleverly named his book The Virginia Campaign of ‘64 and ’65.  By doing so, he did not have to admit that the Federals lost the Virginia Campaign of 1864.  It looks like one campaign, but the election formed a hurdle that divided it in two.

            As I said, however, these shortcomings are minor.  This unique book is invaluable.  Nobody treats the fortifications around Petersburg and Richmond so thoroughly.

  

Faded Coat of Blue

Congratulations to Ralph Peters on his achievement (under the pen name of Owen Parry) in Faded Coat of Blue.  He can't write a bad sentence.  The only atmosphere in another mystery this thick is Raymond Chandler's.  I usually skim along, guessing (not always correctly) the end of sentences I've begun.  I couldn't do that with Faded Coat of Blue, where there's usually an unusual turn of phrase in each sentence as Peters gives his narrator a unique voice.  I enjoyed it very much and found it inspiring.  Peters has a real gift for language. 

"The Battle of the Crater: The Horrid Pit"

I just finished reading William Marvel's and Mike Cavanaugh's "The Battle of the Crater:  The Horrid Pit."  It reads very well, with a lively stile that moves along briskly.  The book covers all the bases of the Crater affair, not all of them very deeply, but at least it mentions them.  I would like to have seen more about the relationship between the Vicksburg mines and the Petersburg mine.  IX Corps, which dug the Petersburg mine, had been present at Vicksburg at the time of the mines there.  How did General Burnside decide that his troops must push outward from the Crater to clear the trenches on either side before pushing forward to the crest beyond the Crater?  Was that simply reasoning or was it based on observations made of the mine attacks at Vicksburg the previous year, where the advances bogged down as soldiers crowded into the craters and dug out buried foemen?  And was there any communication at all on this subject between General Grant and Burnside?  I would also have liked to see more about First Deep Bottom and its relationship to the Crater.  The authors appear to think that Grant planned rather than merely improvised a one-two punch, advancing first north of James River, and then, after drawing a significant number of enemy troops there, pushing forward on the south side of the James.  The only factual error of any significance I found was that a map has the Georgia Brigade of Mahone's Division on the left of the Virginia Brigade at the beginning of its charge, when the text (correctly) has part of the Georgia brigade on the right of the Virginia Brigade.  I agree that Grant and General Meade bear much of the responsibility for the Crater fiasco for interfering with Burnside's arrangements.  The authors go a little easy on Burnside, though.  The use of lots to select which of Burnside's white divisions would lead the charge was an admission that Burnside did not care who was his best division commander.  That was General Potter, who had performed so well on June 17 in the initial assaults on Petersburg.  Burnside knew or ought to have known that the best division commander in IX Corps was Potter, and Potter's division ought to have led the way.  I'll be reading some more recent and expansive books on the Crater and "The Battle of the Crater:  The Horrid Pit" will furnish a standard for comparing them.  This book remains an excellent introduction to the Crater disaster.

"Hell or Richmond"

Lately I have been reading the novels of Ralph Peters.  They include "Cain at Gettysburg," "Valley of the Shadow," and "Hell or Richmond."  Every one is difficult to set down.  The writing is riveting.  Peters brings the battles to life.  The one I have read most recently is "Hell or Richmond," which covers the Overland Campaign of 1864 in as vivid a fashion as the first two mentioned above.  Now he is about to publish another novel, "The Damned of Petersburg," which I can hardly wait to read.  I'm taking with me on vacation one of the mysteries set in the Civil War that Peters has written under the pen name of Owen Parry, "Faded Coat of Blue." 

I had a very pleasant time at the Northern Illinois Civil War Round Table last night.  I will be speaking at the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Round Table in Alsip, Illinois, November 16, 2016, and at the South Suburban Civil War Round Table in Frankfort, Illinois, November 18, 2016. 

Zack Waters and The Florida Brigade

Often, when studying a battle, I pick up a unit history to see if the author can help me understand what took place.  Zack Waters' book on the Florida Brigade of the Huger-Anderson-Mahone Division of the Army of Northern Virginia, A Small But Spartan Band, surpassed all my expectations when I bought it to see what information it could provide about the events of late June 1864.  The book draws upon original sources from not only Florida soldiers bur from other troops belonging to the division.  I intend to write more about this book, which I plan to read from cover to cover.