Black troops attempt to break out of the Crater.
"Some colored men came into the Crater
and there they found a fate worse than death in the charge . . . It has
been positively asserted, that White men [Union] bayoneted Blacks who
fell back into the Crater."
Twisted Facts and The Crater
Five hundred Union prisoners were taken, and 150
of these prisoners were USCT. Both the black and white wounded prisoners
were taken to the Confederate hospital at Poplar Lawn in Petersburg.
"The charge of three brigades of Mahone’s Division is a record of triumph unsurpassed in warfare.”
(*Major William S. Grady, Henry's Grady's father) Never Sparta had braver representatives or
Thermopylae more courageous defense, yet North Carolina does not note
how he died in her cause, or Virginia in her defense.
*Henry W. Grady
was born in Athens in 1850. His father, Major William S. Grady, bought
this house from the Taylor family in 1863 while on furlough from the
Confederate Army. Because renters were living in the house at the time,
Major Grady went back to the war without moving his family and was
later killed at the Battle of Petersburg in Virginia. Henry Grady lived
here from 1865, while he attended the University of Georgia, until 1868
when he graduated. He once referred to the house as "an old southern
home, with its lofty pillars, and its white pigeons fluttering down
through the golden air." Grady eventually became managing editor of the
Atlanta Constitution and was known as an impressive orator. In
December, 1886, he delivered his " New South"
(My mother had me
memorize the short part of his speech above to recite in front of the
UDC at the Marshall, Salem during the War, Baptist church in Virginia.)
speech at the New England
Club in New York City, whose members included prominent financial
figures J. P. Morgan and Charles Tiffany. He began his speech with a
quote from fellow Georgian, Benjamin H. Hill, "There was a South of
slavery and secession; that South is dead . . . a South of union and
freedom; that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every
hour," and his listeners responded with wild applause. He became a
national figure overnight, stressing in his speeches and writings the
need for reconciliation and economic development. At the age of 39,
Henry Grady died of pneumonia in Atlanta.
*******************************
On the warm morning
of 30 July 1864 an enemy artillery barrage accompanied the massive
explosion of a mine under Southern lines, followed by a subsequent
assault. The author below relates that “On the Confederate side men
quietly sleeping were hurled into eternity, no moment of waking,
reflection, or preparation, while their places were filled by the
legions of invading [Northern] soldiery.” The surviving American
soldiers repelled the enemy, though with heavy losses.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Impressed Sable Soldiers at the Crater
“Many
an old Confederate, who had drawn a nice bead on a Yankee in more than a
score of battles and skirmishes, could then swear to his man, and could
swear to a bayonet crimsoned when before it had served only to glitter
on dress parade. The victory was with us, but dearly had we paid for
it, for every company left more than half of its numbers among the dead
or wounded.
Among the Negroes captured and sent back to the lines on Monday
morning to assist in burying the dead was one who could scarcely speak
English. But in a conversation with the writer, in broken English, he
told me that he was born in the West Indies, came to New York on a
Spanish ship, got leave of absence to go on shore, got drunk, and when
he recovered consciousness he was well on his way to Virginia, snugly
buttoned up in a blue uniform and cooped up with a number of his race
similarly conditioned.
He
lamented his fate in piteous tones, mingling English and Spanish in due
proportion, and with the most emphatic language he declared that if he
ever got out of this scrape the American Negro could work out his
freedom without hope or expectation of further help from him.”
(Sgt. Thomas H. Cross, 16th
Virginia Regiment; Philadelphia Weekly Times 5, No. 29, September 10,
1881; New Annals of the Civil War, Cozzins/Girardi, editors, Stackpole
Books, 2004, pp. 392-393)
