Battle of The Crater - Battle

Battle

Further information: Confederate order of battle and Union order of battle

The plan called for the mine to be detonated between 3:30 and 3:45am on the morning of July 30. Pleasants lit the fuse accordingly, but as with the rest of the mine's provisions, they had been given poor quality fuse, which his men had had to splice themselves. After more and more time passed and no explosion occurred (the impending dawn creating a threat to the men at the staging points, who were in view of the Confederate lines), two volunteers from the 48th Regiment (Lt. Jacob Douty and Sgt. Harry Reese) crawled into the tunnel. After discovering the fuse had burned out at a splice, they spliced on a length of new fuse and relit it. Finally, at 4:44 a.m., the charges exploded in a massive shower of earth, men, and guns. A crater (still visible today) was created, 170 feet (52 m) long, 100 to 120 feet (30 to 37 m) wide, and at least 30 feet (9 m) deep.

The explosion immediately killed 278 Confederate soldiers, and stunned Confederate troops did not direct any significant musket or artillery fire at the enemy for at least 15 minutes. However, Ledlie's untrained division was not prepared for the explosion, and reports indicate they waited ten minutes before leaving their own entrenchments. Footbridges were supposed to have been placed to allow them to quickly cross their own trenches, but these were missing, meaning the men had to climb in and out of their own trenches just to reach no-man's land. Once they had wandered to the crater, instead of moving around it as the black troops had been trained to do, they thought it would make an excellent rifle pit and it would be well to take cover. Therefore, they moved down into the crater itself, wasting valuable time while the Confederates, under Brig. Gen. William Mahone, gathered as many troops together as they could for a counterattack. In about an hour's time, they had formed up around the crater and began firing rifles and artillery down into it, in what Mahone later described as a "turkey shoot". The plan had failed, but Burnside, instead of cutting his losses, sent in Ferrero's men. Now faced with considerable flanking fire, they also went down into the crater, and for the next few hours, Mahone's soldiers, along with those of Maj. Gen. Bushrod Johnson and artillery, slaughtered the IX Corps as it attempted to escape from the crater. Some Union troops eventually advanced and flanked to the right beyond the Crater to the earthworks and assaulted the Confederate lines, driving the Confederates back for several hours in hand-to-hand combat. Mahone's Confederates conducted a sweep out of a sunken gully area about 200 yards (180 m) from the right side of the Union advance. This charge reclaimed the earthworks and drove the Union force back towards the east.

In later stages of the battle, many Union casualties were black soldiers killed by Confederate bayonets and musket fire even after surrendering – a direct violation of the rules of war prevalent at the time (the Lieber Code). At the same time, black soldiers were also bayoneted by white Union soldiers who feared reprisal from victorious CSA troops.