Unparalleled Horror

Grant presses a desperate push against Petersburg, mixing strategic maneuver with faltering hopes for victory.

After the first attempt to storm Petersburg failed on June 15–18, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant decided to try again. War weariness grew in the North. Gold shot up in price. Radical Republicans schemed to replace Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats delayed their nominating convention, confident that Grant would be no nearer to victory. With Atlanta still in Confederate hands, the pressure on Grant was immense.

On June 20, Grant ordered George Meade to swing out to the west and cut off the railroads leading to Petersburg, while he unleashed his cavalry on Robert E. Lee’s communications. The Federals suffered a stunning defeat at Jerusalem Plank Road, and Confederate horsemen ravaged Grant’s cavalry. Grant settled for a siege while still searching for a chance to strike.

Grant saw that chance in Ambrose Burnside’s mine.

For weeks, IX Corps dug a mine under P. G. T. Beauregard’s front, planning to blow a literal hole in the Confederate works. Despite mockery from George Meade and others, Burnside’s men had the mine ready by July 30. By then, Lee had much of his army at Deep Bottom, opposing Grant’s latest offensive. It seemed Petersburg would fall, and with it, Lincoln’s reelection all but decided. Instead, the attack failed. Warren Wilkinson of the 57th Massachusetts called the Crater “a scene of unparalleled horror—in places, the panic-stricken soldiers were so tightly packed together that they could not move or even raise their arms to defend themselves.” When it was over, one of the most horrific battles of the Civil War had ended, and Grant was no closer to Petersburg.

Sean Michael Chick and John F. Schmutz portray the weeks after the June 18 attack in Unparalleled Horror: The Battles of Jerusalem Plank Road and the Crater, June 19–July 31, 1864. The narrative considers Grant’s and Lee’s evolving reactions to a situation neither man wanted. Lee saw Grant’s eventual victory as a “mere question of time,” while Grant was under tremendous pressure to deliver a victory that would secure Lincoln another term. The result was a series of Federal disasters, although Lee lacked the strength to pry Grant away from Petersburg, thereby leaving both sides in a stalemate as the summer of 1864 wore on and the presidential election loomed.