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      PERSONAL NARRATIVES

       OF EVENTS IN THE

      War of the Rebellion,

   BEING PAPERS READ BEFORE THE

 RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
       HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

      Fifth Series.--No. 8.


          PROVIDENCE:
   PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.
             1898.


   SNOW & FARNHAM, PRINTERS.




    BATTLE OF THE CRATER

              AND

 Experiences of Prison Life.

              BY
     SUMNER U. SHEARMAN,
 [Late Captain, Fourth Rhode Island Volunteers.]


         PROVIDENCE:
   PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.
            1898.

[Edition limited to two hundred and fifty copies.]




Battle of the Crater; and Experiences of Prison Life.


I have been asked by the Society under whose auspices we are gathered
to-night to tell you something of my personal experiences in the Battle
of the Mine, or of the Crater, as it is sometimes called, and to
supplement those experiences with some account of my life in a Southern
prison.

At the time of the battle I was captain of Company A, Fourth Rhode
Island Volunteers Infantry. The regiment to which I belonged was a
portion of the Ninth Army Corps, under the command of General Burnside.
The battle was fought on the 30th of July, 1864. But some months
previous, as far back as January, 1863, the regiment, as also the
corps, had been detached from the Army of the Potomac. Burnside, as you
know, succeeded McClellan after the battle of Antietam in command of
the Army of the Potomac; but he himself was removed from that command
in January, 1863, and taken away from the Army of the Potomac. But
the regiment to which I belonged ultimately became separated from the
corps, and was on detached duty in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, and
afterwards at Point Lookout, Maryland, where we were when the order
came for us to rejoin the Ninth Corps, which had been brought back to
the Army of the Potomac.

We arrived in front of Petersburg, at a point on the line where the
Ninth Army Corps was stationed, on the Fourth of July, 1864. The two
lines, our line and the enemy's, were at this point very near each
other, from one hundred and fifty to three hundred yards apart, the
distance varying according to the line of the works. We were ordered to
encamp in some woods in the rear of our line of rifle-pits, and not far
from them.

Shots from the enemy were continually coming into our camp, being fired
at the men in the breastworks in front. We had to erect a barricade in
the camp to protect ourselves, behind which we lived. Men of course
strayed more or less away from the barricade, and every now and then
some one would be wounded. Every three or four days it became our turn
to take our places in the rifle-pits, where we had to stay forty-eight
hours, and sometimes longer. We never went into the rifle-pits without
some one being killed or wounded.

While we were encamped in this way, we heard of the plan of
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants, of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania
Infantry, who was a practical miner, and his men were largely men who
had worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. He conceived the idea of
building a mine under a certain portion of the enemy's works, with the
purpose of blowing them up. At a certain point in the enemy's line,
opposite the point where we were located, was a very strong earthwork,
mounting several guns of large calibre, which did very much damage
to our fortifications and troops. It was but one hundred and fifty
yards from our line to that point. Back of it, on higher ground, was a
hill called Cemetery Hill, regarded as a strategic point. If we could
capture that hill, it was believed that much would be done to force
General Lee out of Richmond. This fort stood in the way. Colonel
Pleasants believed that he could remove it by his plan of blowing it
up. The idea was that, if the fort could be removed by the explosion,
the enemy being taken by surprise, opportunity would be afforded for
our troops, already in position, to charge in through the open space
thus made, and, taking advantage of the surprise on the part of the
enemy, to push on to the crest of Cemetery Hill.

Colonel Pleasants met with no encouragement on the part of General
Meade, in command of the Army of the Potomac; nevertheless, as General
Burnside, his corps commander, approved of it, he was allowed to
undertake it. No assistance whatever was afforded him by the Engineer
Corps of the Army. He had to devise such methods as he could to
accomplish his purpose, working at a great disadvantage all the time,
but he finally accomplished the task. He began the work inside of our
lines, under cover of a hill, at a point where the enemy could not
perceive what was being done, and carried his tunnel through the earth
the whole distance of one hundred and fifty yards, until he reached the
fort. It was twenty feet beneath the surface of the ground at the point
he reached. From thence he made a branch at right angles on either
side, making it in the form of a letter T, as it were, at that point.
In these branches he placed large wooden tanks in which powder was to
be put. Four tons of powder were placed in these wooden boxes, and
connected by a fuse at the entrance of the mine.

The 30th of July, 1864, was fixed upon as the time for the explosion to
take place. It was intended to have it take place somewhere about three
o'clock in the morning. Troops were gotten into position the night
before under cover of the darkness, ready to charge as soon as the mine
should be exploded.

I had been engaged for some days previous at the headquarters of the
Third Division of the Ninth Army Corps, General Potter commanding,
as judge advocate in connection with a court-martial. On the evening
before the battle, the evening of the 29th, an order came to me to
report to my regiment. I did so, and found that it was about to take
its place in line of battle, ready to join in the charge on the morning
of the next day. I had my supper in camp as usual, and we started to
take up our position, carrying with us no food, nor anything in the
way of clothing, except the clothes we had on.

The time arrived when the explosion was expected to take place, but
no explosion occurred. It was learned that the fuse had gone out. An
officer of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania volunteered to go in and
relight the fuse; and, as I remember, it went out a second time,
and was relighted. Shortly before five o'clock, just as the sun was
rising, a sound as of thunder was distinctly heard, and in a moment
the earth at the point where the mine had been constructed was thrown
upward, slowly mounting into the air to a height of some two hundred
feet, and then, spreading out like a fan, fell back again into the
excavation made by the explosion. The soil was of a clayey character,
and enormous boulders of clay were thrown up and fell back around the
opening, resembling in some respects the crater of a volcano; hence the
battle has sometimes been called the Battle of the Crater. The men who
were in this fort, and the artillery, and everything pertaining to the
fortifications, huge timbers, ammunition, tents, and everything that
would be naturally located there, were all thrown heavenward. The men,
of course, were either killed or wounded, with hardly an exception. A
large number of men were in the fort. It has been estimated by some
that there were a thousand.

As soon as the explosion took place, the artillery all along the line
on our side, some one hundred and twenty pieces or more, began firing
at that point. The firing lasted some moments, and then the troops were
directed to charge. It had been the plan of General Burnside to have
his division of <DW52> troops lead the advance. There was in the Ninth
Corps at that time a division of <DW52> troops. They had been drilled
with the idea of taking the advance, but General Meade overruled
Burnside's plan, and thought it best that the <DW52> troops should
not be put in that position. So General Burnside called together his
division commanders, and told them of the change of plan on the very
night before the battle, and allowed them to draw lots to see which
one should take the lead. The lot fell to General Ledlie, the least
efficient of the division commanders in the Ninth Corps.

When the Third Division, to which my regiment belonged, charged
over our breastworks and across the space between our line and the
enemy's line, they came upon the enemy's works to the right of the
crater; but by that time the enemy had recovered from his surprise,
and was concentrating a terrible fire upon all that region. The men
instinctively sought shelter in the excavation made by the explosion,
but when we arrived at that point we found the crater filled with
troops of General Ledlie's division. There seemed to be complete chaos
reigning there. The lieutenant-colonel of our regiment, who was in
command, Colonel Buffum, tried to rally the men, as did officers of
other regiments, and to push on to Cemetery Hill; but General Ledlie,
who should have been with his command, remained behind in a bomb-proof.
I remember seeing him, as we passed the front, secure in a bomb-proof.
His troops had fallen into confusion in the way I have explained, and
he was not there to remedy the situation. It seemed impossible for the
officers to accomplish anything in the midst of the reigning confusion.

The Fourth Rhode Island, the few of us that were together at that time,
followed the colonel and the color bearer out beyond the enemy's
works towards Cemetery Hill, but we encountered such a hurricane of
shot and shell that it was impossible to face it, and we were driven
back again into the shelter of the enemy's works, where we remained.
The attempt to capture Cemetery Hill had proved a failure. Many of the
men and officers tried to get back to our own line, but the enemy by
that time had a raking fire over the space