Virginia Vignettes

It was hellish inside the Crater during the 1864 battle. The day was a scorcher, and a mist of humidity and smoke hung over the hole. One New Yorker tripped over the naked bodies of Virginians originally blown up by the explosion on his way to what appeared to be “a large body of Union [...]

How did the explosion at the Battle of the Crater come off? The Union colonel Henry Pleasants lit the fuse at 3:15 on the morning of July 30, 1864. The blast was scheduled for 3:30, but that time came and went before two volunteers took lanterns into the mine shaft to check on the fuse. [...]

The idea for the explosion at the Battle of the Crater came from Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania, a regiment of anthracite miners. One of his men looked out at the Confederate position and declared, “We could blow that … fort out of existence if we could run a mine shaft under it.” The [...]

The Battle of the Crater was the result of an unusual attempt, on the part of Union forces, at breaking Confederate defenses in front of Petersburg, Virginia, during the Civil War. For several weeks, Pennsylvania miners in Union general Ambrose E. Burnside’s Ninth Corps worked at digging a long tunnel, packed the terminus with explosives, [...]