Petersburg/Richmond The Crater assault at Petersburg

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I spoke with a CW author. One point that I pressed him on was that I had read that Grant had come forward to observe the battle and had declined to intervene and avoid the developing disaster because of "chain of command". He corrected me and said that Meade had been there, not Grant and that he did take the opportunity to intervene and turn defeat into victory.
 
There's a first hand account of the battle from the memoirs of a private in the NC 49th, Company I. It's an uncomfortable read.


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We know the operation was botched with horrible result for the soldiers engaged. My question is was the op a good idea or a bad idea . Didn't success depend on the confederate not detecting the mining and then counter mining.
From my personal collection…..

Book of Common Prayer belonging to, and image of William J. Reynolds, Captain of Company E, 4th Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. He was captured during the Battle of the Crater at the covered way. He and a few other men of his unit had crossed the Crater and took refuge in the covered way to escape the tremendous enemy fire. Once there, they could not advance nor could they retreat. Reynolds became a prisoner of war and was confined at Columbia South Carolina until paroled on March 1, 1865.

It is quite possible that the prayer book was with him at the Crater and during his confinement as a prisoner.

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We know the operation was botched with horrible result for the soldiers engaged. My question is was the op a good idea or a bad idea . Didn't success depend on the confederate not detecting the mining and then counter mining.
From my personal collection……

Circa 1862 military postal cover from George W. Field, 1st Lt, 1st Rhode Island Artillery. At the Battle of the Crater, Field was a Lieutenant in Company B of the 4th Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. He made it into the Crater but during the withdrawal he stopped to help a wounded comrade on the way back to Federal lines and was shot through the heart, dying instantly.

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Several years back I did a post collecting first person accounts of the Crater.

I tried to collect a sampling from the various units which were there on both sides. It was a brutal struggle.

Click on the link above if you want to see my background and short synopses of these accounts. If you'd rather jump right in here's a list of links. CENTURY is Century Magazine, from which the Battles and Leaders series was taken. CV is Confederate Veteran. LT is a letter. And NP are postwar reminiscences published in Newspapers.
 
I just finished reading a review copy of Greg Acken's EXCELLENT new book Through Blood and Fire: The Civil War Letters of Charles J. Mills. Mills was on James Ledlie's staff from the beginning of the Siege of Petersburg until Ledlie was sacked after the Crater. Here's what Mills, and man who was in close company with Ledlie for months, thought of him when he left (taken from a letter home to his Mother in early August 1864, page 167):
Now see that I write in much better spirits. I have reason. Ledlie is gone! Hurrah! On the 5th he departed on twenty days sick leave, which will practically get rid of him entirely. Now that he is gone, I will go so far as to say that I never met anyone more thorough blackguard, in a responsible place, or one who had less sense of his duty. More I will not put on paper, but if we ever meet again I shall tell you of him.
 
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