Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Virginia, May–October 1864 367
any adverse consequences for the defeat. Meade remained at the head of the Army
of the Potomac, which he led until the end of the war; Ledlie resigned in January
1865; Ferrero, Potter, and Willcox all received the brevet rank of major general at
different times for their roles in the Overland Campaign and the siege. Potter’s and
Willcox’s brevets were dated 1 August and had been in the works long before the
failed attack; that Ferrero’s did not come until December suggests that Grant still
retained some confidence in his abilities. 64
Yet another investigation remained, called for by Congress and conducted
by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Radical Republicans had
founded the committee in the fall of 1861 in response to early Union reversals.
Four months after the Petersburg mine disaster, committee members traveled by
boat from Washington to the Union base at City Point to gather testimony. A large
part of their final report consisted of reprinting the proceedings of the Army’s
own court of inquiry, but the committee’s conclusion held General Meade alone
responsible for “the disastrous result.” Republicans had been finding fault with
Meade ever since his failure, as they saw it, to launch a vigorous pursuit of
the retreating Confederate army after the battle of Gettysburg. The committee’s
conclusion was to be expected but, as with the earlier court of inquiry, it had no
practical result. 65
No one canvassed the opinions of General Hinks’ officers and men about
what their less-experienced comrades in Ferrero’s division had done. Sergeant
Major Fleetwood expressed disgust in his usual terse way: “Col[ore]d Div of 9th
Corps charged or attempted [to,] broke and run!” In the 5th USCI, Lieutenant
Grabill dismissed the entire operation as “a splendid fizzle.” Colonel Shurtleff
worried “that the blame will be laid upon the colored division of Burnside’s
corps. The truth is that the hardest part of the programme was assigned to them
though they are comparatively inexperienced, many of them never before under
fire. They went farther to the front than any white troops and were not routed
until one brigade of white troops had first been driven back in panic.” Members
of Hinks’ divisional staff were well informed, or claimed to be; Captain Carter
knew that the mine contained four tons of powder, and Lieutenant Verplanck
blamed the 112th New York specifically for causing the panic. Verplanck went
on: “I saw many cases of bad management or rather want of interest on the part
of division commanders in the 9th Corps. I know not if [it] was cowardice but
they were not to be seen in the front where their brigades were fighting. . . . I
believe faithfully that if corps & division commanders . . . had done their duty
that day we would have gained a great victory.” Disappointment in the result of
the operation mingled with dread that the failure would cast all black soldiers in
a bad light. Lieutenant Grabill wrote: “The selection of troops for the most difficult
part was most blunderous. Ferrero’s Colored Division, undisciplined, raw
and unused to fighting were chosen to accomplish what should be expected only
64 Ibid., p. 129 (quotation). The entire record of the court is on pp. 42–163. Generals’ records
in Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 2 vols.
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903), 1: 417, 622, 802, 1038.
65 Report of the Joint Committee, 2: 11 (quotation); Bruce Tap, Over Lincoln’s Shoulder: The
Committee on the Conduct of the War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 18–19, 24,
187–92.