Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

356
Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
Delavan Bates had just turned twenty-four
years old when he was appointed colonel
of the 30th U.S. Colored Infantry in March
1864.
the enemy trench and enable Union
troops to capture Petersburg. Their
colonel took the plan to Burnside,
who liked it and defended it against
all doubters, chief among them
Meade, while the Pennsylvanians
dug. Beginning on 25 June, they
took twenty-five days to complete
a tunnel more than five hundred
ten feet long from a ravine behind
the Union trenches to a point under
the Confederate line, which lay
about one hundred fifty yards from
the federal position. In the next few
days, they finished a lateral passage
seventy-five feet long across the
head of the longer tunnel, making
an underground T-shape with the
head of the T roughly following the
line of the Confederate trench above
it. Along the lateral were eight small
rooms, or magazines, each intended
to hold between twelve hundred and
fourteen hundred pounds of powder—some
six tons in all. Meade
had the entire charge reduced to
four tons, or three hundred twenty
kegs, citing the advice of his engineering
officer, who was unenthusi-
astic about the project. On 26 July, Burnside asked for eight thousand sandbags to
close the magazines and the lateral passage so that the full force of the blast would
travel upward to the Confederate trench. 41
On the same day, Burnside outlined for Meade the infantry advance that would
come immediately after the explosion. His plan called for Ferrero’s division to lead
the attack, with both of its brigades advancing in column. The two columns would
skirt the crater caused by the explosion, with the lead regiment of each stopping to
secure the ruins of the Confederate trenches on either side of the crater while the
regiments behind them moved on to seize a crest of ground that Union observers
believed to be weakly held, some five hundred yards beyond the severely damaged
Confederate front line. On the other side of this rise lay the city and its railroads.
If Ferrero’s division could gain the crest, Burnside thought, it could continue to
41 OR, ser. 1, vol. 40, pt. 1, pp. 46, 59–60, 131, 136–37, and pt. 3, p. 354. The Pennsylvanians’
commanding officer stated the dimensions in congressional testimony. Report of the Joint Committee
on the Conduct of the War, 9 vols. (Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot Publishing, 1998 [1863–1865]),
2: 15–17, 113.