Editing Battle of the Crater (section)

==Battle==
[[File:Waud-Petersburg-Crater.jpeg|thumb|Sketch of the explosion, as seen from the Union line, by [[Alfred Waud]] ]]

[[File:Battle of the Crater art detail, from- Virginia Tech Bugle 1899 (page 181 crop).jpg|thumb|Battle of the Crater art from the [[Virginia Tech]] Bugle 1899 yearbook|alt=]]
The plan called for the mine to be detonated between 3:30 and 3:45&nbsp;a.m. on the morning of July 30. Pleasants lit the fuse accordingly, but as with the rest of the mine's provisions, they had been given poor-quality fuses, which his men were forced to splice themselves. After more and more time passed and no explosion occurred (the impending dawn creating a threat to the men at the staging points, who were in view of the Confederate lines), two volunteers from the 48th Regiment (Lt. Jacob Douty and Sgt. Harry Reese) crawled into the tunnel. After discovering the fuse had burned out at a splice, they spliced on a length of new fuse and lit it again.<ref>Davis, p. 75.</ref> Finally, at 4:44&nbsp;a.m., the charges exploded in a massive shower of earth, men, and guns. A crater (still visible today) was created, {{convert|170|ft|m}} long, {{convert|100|to|120|ft|m}} wide, and at least {{convert|30|ft|m|sigfig=1}} deep.<ref>{{harvnb|Chernow|2017|p=429}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Blake|1935|p=55}}</ref>

The explosion immediately killed 278 Confederate soldiers of the 18th and 22nd South Carolina<ref>Slotkin p. 185.</ref> and the stunned Confederate troops did not direct any significant rifle or artillery fire at the enemy for at least 15 minutes.<ref>James, p. 21.</ref> However, Ledlie's untrained division was not prepared for the explosion, and reports indicate they waited 10 minutes before leaving their own entrenchments. Footbridges were supposed to have been placed to allow them to cross their own trenches quickly. Because they were missing, however, the men had to climb into and out of their own trenches just to reach no-man's land.<ref>Catton, ''Stillness at Appomattox'', pp. 243–44.</ref> Once they had wandered to the crater, instead of moving around it, as the USCT troops had been trained, they thought that it would make an excellent rifle pit in which to take cover. They therefore moved down into the crater itself, wasting valuable time and realizing too late that the crater was much too deep and exposed to function as a rifle pit and quickly becoming overcrowded while the Confederates, under Brigadier General [[William Mahone]], gathered as many troops together as they could for a counterattack. In about an hour, they had formed up around the crater and began firing rifles and artillery down into it in what Mahone later described as a "[[turkey shoot]]."

Sensing that the plan had failed, Grant sent Meade an order to terminate the attack. Meade passed this order on to Burnside but the latter believed it could still work and ignored the order, so he sent in Ferrero's division. Burnside preferred to work from his headquarters so he had only a vague idea of what was going on at the front lines as disaster was unfolding. Now faced with considerable flanking fire, the USCT also descended into the crater, and for the next few hours, Mahone's soldiers, along with those of Major General [[Bushrod Johnson]] and artillery, slaughtered the IX Corps as Union soldiers attempted to escape from the crater or [[Surrender (military)|surrender]]. Confederates along the rim of the crater could be heard to yell "Take the white man prisoner! Kill the nigger!" The [[United States Colored Troops|black Union soldiers]] who attempted to surrender were specifically targeted for [[Summary execution#Military jurisdiction|battlefield execution]] or, if they were taken as prisoners, executed in the [[Rear (military)|rear]]. Some of the officers in Ferrero's division removed their USCT badges, fearing the Confederates would also kill them on-site if they were captured and accounts by survivors of the battle report that some bayoneted black soldiers in the hope that the Confederates would be more lenient to them if they were captured. Ferrero himself was AWOL, having joined Ledlie in the rear to drink alcohol together.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Suderow |first=Bryce |date=September 1997 |title=The battle of the crater: The Civil War's worst massacre |url=https://goordnance.army.mil/history/Staff%20Ride/ADDITIONAL%20READING/BATTLE%20OF%20THE%20CRATER/botc_Alleged_Massacre.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160805003728/http://www.goordnance.army.mil/history/Staff%20Ride/ADDITIONAL%20READING/BATTLE%20OF%20THE%20CRATER/botc_Alleged_Massacre.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 5, 2016 |journal=Civil War History |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=219–224 |doi=10.1353/cwh.1997.0023 |via=United States Army}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Slotkin |first=Richard |date=2014-07-29 |title=The Battle of the Crater |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/the-battle-of-the-crater/ |access-date=2023-07-16 |website=[[The New York Times]] |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Brendan |title=Crater, Battle of the |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/crater-battle-of-the/ |access-date=2023-07-16 |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |language=en-US}}</ref> Some Union troops eventually advanced and flanked to the right beyond the crater to the earthworks and assaulted the Confederate lines, driving the Confederates back for several hours in hand-to-hand combat. Mahone's Confederates conducted a sweep out of a sunken gully area about {{convert|200|yd|m}} from the right side of the Union advance. The charge reclaimed the earthworks and drove the Union force back towards the east. The Confederates rained mortar shells into the crater, killing scores of men in the process. The weather was also very hot as it neared noon the sun was beating down on the crater relentlessly. Soldiers who were not killed outright by the Confederates dropped by the dozens from dehydration and heat stroke, worsened by the frantic mob of men jammed into a small area. Survivors could remember little due to the chaos in the crater, the shell fire, and the extreme heat. Some details were organized to pick up cartridges from the dead or run back to the Union lines to fetch water.