Black History Month (Battle of the Crater)

Continuing with key points of history that get pigeonholed into “Black History Month”, this is from the Civil War.  There’s a catch–this doesn’t actively involve anyone black and believe it or not, that is a big part of the story.

On July 30, 1864, the Union Army of the Potomac and Confederate Army of North Virginia were faced off at Petersburg, what was proving a precursor to the trench warfare of World War One.  Stalemated, the two sides sought a way to achieve a decisive victory.  The Union attempt at this becomes known as “The Battle of the Crater.”  An officer from the 48th Pennsylvania commanded miners.  They said they could dig under Confederate lines, plant explosives, and blow a hole for troops to move through.  His commander, Burnside, liked the idea.  Meade and Grant didn’t object.  This was a “way to keep the troops occupied.”

By mid-July, the mine was progressing nicely.  It was going to work.  The IX Corps’ commander, Burnside, was an abolitionist and believed colored soldiers could fight as well as whites.  For this mission, he put an entire division of colored infantry into training.  They practiced over and over how the assault would go.  They were trained what to expect, every possible aspect of the assault.

In the end, the white soldiers of Ledlie’s 1st Division were used.  Those men had no preparation and Ledlie was drunk during the battle.  The initial surprise and success–what could have ended the war nine months earlier than reality–turned into a Confederate victory instead.

So what the heck happened?

Burnside trained the colored soldiers without telling Meade (the Potomac’s commander) he intended to use them.  When he did inform Meade, Meade ordered the switch.  Burnside went to Grant and Grant agreed with Burnside.  History suggests Grant discussed this with Lincoln who concurred that colored troops should not be used.

Why would they interfere in what is clearly a lower-level combat command decision?  As usual when changes come from above, there was an issue of politics.  The tragedy is the switch was made for good reasons–but that by making those changes, effectively guaranteed a bad result.

You see, the senior commanders didn’t believe the attack would work.  If colored troops were used and it failed, their failure would become fodder for political opponents and a propaganda coup for the South—see, black soldiers aren’t equal to whites, so why is the North fighting for equality?  The dangers weren’t just from the South and Northern Democrats, but also from abolitionists.  If the attack failed (which Meade/Grant expected) and black troops were slaughtered, they would be excorciated–accused of using colored infantry because they knew it would fail so they chose lives they valued less.

See the downside of using the black soldiers?  If the assault failed, there would be significant political fallout and with war weariness as well as a presidential election coming in November, the political risk was too great to permit colored infantry to be used given the unlikely chance that the explosion and surprise attack would work…and given Burnside’s performance as a commander previously in planning important operations, there was skepticism that way as well.

The tragedy is–it all went as the experts (the miners) said it would.  The explosion ripped a hole in the Confederate defenses, stunned survivors in a wide area.  Troops trained for this could have even reached Robert E. Lee himself possibly before the defense reacted.  If the colored infantry was used, the Civil War would have been over hours later.  Instead, the 1st Division was used, its soldiers were shocked by the size of the crater, climbed into it, did not advance, and the Confederates counter-attacked, slaughtering the 1st’s soldiers who dilly-dallied in the crater.

If permitted to succeed, it would have been blacks who won the ultimate battle in ending slavery.  A great deal of the history written afterwards by Southerners would be shown for what it actually was–racist and meant to restrict the freedom of blacks that came with the destruction of the Confederacy.

Meade, Grant, and Lincoln though don’t get to make decisions with history’s infinite hindsight.  If you are in their position and have to make the final go-ahead call on the use of colored infantry, do you do it?    Think of the consequences for the wrong decision if you take the risk and it fails.  Should you go for the early victory at all?  If they didn’t believe in the attack’s chances, is the mistake authorizing it at all?  Why not wait for starvation to wear out the Army of North Virginia?

I was trying to think of a historical parallel of any sort.  The only one that came to my mind was Eisenhower’s decision to authorize Operation Market-Garden, a risky airborne assault to capture three bridges, breach the Rhein River, and end World War Two in Western Europe in September, 1944.  The attack failed and the war lasted eight more months.  Eisenhower has been criticized ever since for the failed operation; how much worse would that criticism have been if it resulted in a different presidential election result or caused a ‘no-confidence’ vote on Churchill?

In any event, it’s important we critically think about things like this.  It is a tragedy that the colored infantry were not permitted to carry out the assault they were trained for, not just because the assault wound up failing, but because Meade/Grant/Lincoln were making a decision with the Big Prize (the end of slavery) in mind and wanting to make sure that came about.