Battlefield historian and tour guide Jimmy Blankenship stands on a lip of what is left of the crater on the site of the Battle of the Crater at the Petersburg National Battlefield in Petersburg, Va. There were 5,600 casualties during the bloody eight-hour siege, which is relived in Cold Mountain.
ABOVE: Petersburg National Battlefield historian Jimmy Blankenship. “It was a mass of humanity in the hole,” Blankenship said. “But that was the safest place to be.
PETERSBURG, Va. - In a war known for bloodshed, the Battle of the Crater was especially ferocious.
After Union soldiers set off explosives that created a huge crater beneath a Confederate camp outside Petersburg in July 1864, hundreds of Union troops rushed unwittingly into the hole to their eventual slaughter.
There were 5,600 casualties during the bloody eight-hour siege, which is graphically relived in the opening scenes of the film Cold Mountain.
The crater today is a grassy divot on a quiet hillside that belies what Petersburg National Battlefield historian Jimmy Blankenship calls the "worst human behavior of the war."
Like other battle sites of the nine-month Petersburg Campaign, its story is one largely relegated to history, mainly, Blankenship says, because those who fought in it wanted to forget.
But park officials took advantage of Cold Mountain buzz to offer guided tours of the site for about two weeks after the film's release in December. The tours will resume in June, and visitors can take a self-guided tour of the crater any time before then.
The guided tour starts with a brief explanation of the Union's battle plan, such as it was. With thousands of troops camped for weeks behind fortifications on opposite sides of a field near Petersburg, a regiment of Union soldiers from Pennsylvania was directed to dig a tunnel under the Confederate army's main battery and blow it up.
The Union troops would then advance around the hole and capture the Confederate line on top of the hill.
The 5-foot-tall tunnel took four weeks to dig, and it was nearly discovered by Confederate soldiers digging a tunnel of their own just above it. On the morning of July 30, 1864, Union troops lit the fuse and exploded about 8,000 pounds of gunpowder beneath what they hoped was the main battery.
Chaos ensued. The explosion sent body parts, cannons and building-sized chunks of earth an estimated 200 feet into the sky, Blankenship said. The resultant crater measured 170 feet long, 60 feet wide and 30 feet deep.
Union troops charged the hill, but they hadn't counted on resistance from Gen. Robert E. Lee's four remaining batteries behind the crater. Only one in five Union soldiers survived the dash across the field; those who made it dove into the crater for cover.
"It was a mass of humanity in the hole," Blankenship said. "But that was the safest place to be."
Panic spread among the Union regiments, which included black troops for the first time in a major Civil War battle. Though outnumbered, the Confederate troops were galvanized by the North's disorganization and the sight of the black enemy troops, and managed to capture half of the crater by noon.
The artillery fire was awesome, Blankenship said. Confederate soldiers stood on the edge of the crater and shot the Union troops at will. Bayonets were tossed into the hole like harpoons, mortar rounds were lobbed in.
With blood running ankle-deep, the remaining Union troops surrendered around 1 p.m. In all, 4,000 Union soldiers were either killed or wounded, compared with 1,600 for the South, Blankenship said.
The crater today is about half its original size, because erosion has washed in dirt.
Blankenship said that at one point after the war, the U.S. Army turned the battlefield into a golf course and the crater became one of the holes.
Other interesting facts emerge on the tour, such as the discovery of a woman's remains among those of the Union troops, suggesting some women did fight alongside the men. People on tours of the site immediately after the war were told to bring bags for all the relics they would collect.
There was a congressional inquiry after the war. Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, whose ranks had previously suffered heavy casualties at Fredericksburg and Antietam, received the brunt of the blame. He was forced to take an extended leave from the Army and was never recalled.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant later wrote that the Battle of the Crater was a stupendous failure considering the federals could have captured Petersburg. The Civil War dragged on for another eight months until the North was finally able to break through Southern lines in April 1865 and drive Lee from Richmond.
The crater is one of many battlefield sites at the Petersburg National Battlefield. There are two driving tours of the park, as well as several other guided walking tours during the summer.
If You Go
GETTING THERE
From Interstate 95 in Petersburg, take the Wythe Street exit and follow Route 36 east about 2.5 miles to the park entrance on the right.
HOURS
Petersburg National Battlefield is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, except Christmas and New Year's Day.
ADMISSION
$10 per car from June to August; $5 per car from September to May.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Contact the battlefield office at 804 732-3531 or go to www.nps.gov/pete/
ABOVE: Petersburg National Battlefield historian Jimmy Blankenship. “It was a mass of humanity in the hole,” Blankenship said. “But that was the safest place to be.