12 Sept 03

Hard Luck Ambrose, July 1864

Irwin McDowell had made a hash of things at the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) in July of 1861, sending the signal to everyone that what would eventually become known as the War Between the States would well and truly be a bona fide war, and that it would last longer and claim far more lives than anyone thought it possibly could. President Lincoln immediately sacked McDowell for McClelland.

Sarcastically called "the Virginia creeper," McCelland appeared to Lincoln and the rest of the nation to be moving too slow against the rapidly organizing Confederates. Lincoln finally lost patience with McCelland's slow progress and sacked him in favor of affable and well liked Ambrose Burnside. Burnside himself warned Lincoln that he "was not competent to lead such a large army," but he got the job anyway. Lincoln would live to regret not taking Burnside's own advice- twice!

Burnside's signature beard/mustache combination gave him instant recognition, as the increasingly desperate future of the Union fell unceremoniously upon his shoulders. The modern term, "sideburns," comes directly from Burnside's name.

Burnside promptly lived up to his own low expectations of himself at the Battle of Fredericksburg, VA in December of 1862, where he directed one pointless charge after another against entrenched Rebels on Marye's Heights. His foolish charges all failed, and Burnside himself became so despondent upon seeing the purposeless slaughter that he decided to lead the last charge himself, which amounted to a death wish. He was ultimately talked out of it by his staff, because they would have all been killed too!

With his virtually leaderless army now on the verge of mutiny, an exasperated Lincoln sacked Burnside for Joe Hooker (who would, in turn, be outwitted by Robert E Lee and Tom Jackson at Chancellorsville and then himself be superseded by John Pope). Burnside, thoroughly embarrassed and discredited, was subsequently shuffled to the rear and should have been shuffled out of the army altogether, but he kept his rank and stayed in the fight. Two years later, he would, one last time, lend his own special brand of blundering incompetence to the Union war effort.

The twin (and nearly simultaneous) disasters at Vicksburg, MS and Gettysburg, PA in July of 1863 had marked the beginning of the end for the Rebellion. There was now no chance of foreign intervention by the British, and Lee was fighting what amounted to a spirited retreat, but he had lost none of his tactical genius and still had some surprises up his sleeve!

The assault on Richmond, VA in July of 1864 (part of Ulysses S Grant's "Overland Campaign") lead by George Meade (now a subordinate, under Grant), featured a resurrected Ambrose Burnside in command of the Union IX Corps. Directly in Burnside's path of advance was an entrenched Confederate position at Petersburg. Colonel Henry Pleasants, one of Burnside's subordinates and a former mining engineer, told Burnside that he could tunnel under the Confederate positions, emplace explosives there, and then blast a gaping hole in their line. Burnside's men could then rush to the rear, and all the way to Richmond, in a stunning breakthrough. The end of this terrible War would finally be at hand.

Burnside was skeptical at first, but Pleasants was an excellent salesman as well as a gifted engineer, and Burnside was finally persuaded to give the plan a try. Even Grant, fresh from his own disaster at Cold Harbor, gave the go-ahead, although his staff remained skeptical. Pleasants and his men dug the tunnel with enthusiasm and expertise, overcoming all obstacles. When it was completed, they packed it with several tons of black powder, more black powder than Pleasants, or any of his men, had ever seen before in one place. Pleasants didn't know how big a bang it would make, but he was confident it would be adequate. It was far more than "adequate!" In fact, the explosion was so big that it made an enormous. asteroid-like, crater. A gap was blown in the line of the astonished rebels to be sure, but the blast was so stunning, many of Burnside's own troops fled to the rear in terror!

The follow-up infantry charge was slow and disorganized, because Burnside himself was far to the rear hiding in a bunker, afraid and having apparently lost interest in the whole operation. The commander of the assault troops, General Ledlie (a train engineer by profession), a pathetic alcoholic, was drunk and incoherent! As soon as the charge commenced, he also fled to the rear.

As a result, Union assault troops quickly disintegrated into little more that a hoard of tourists. They should have simply gone around the crater and brushed aside the remaining confederate defenders, but, without leadership, they charged, pell mell, into the crater itself. The crater seemed to have a mesmerizing effect, as wave after wave of leaderless Union troops, nonchalantly sent forward by a detached Burnside, were attracted into it. Most of them died there in a slaughter worse than Fredericsburg!

Confederate defenders, stunned but still expertly led, immediately assembled on the far ridge of the crater and began firing down into the hapless and utterly disorganized Union throng, who were by now milling about aimlessly. Confederate reinforcements, under General Mahone, soon arrived and turned the defeat into a complete rout. A Confederate commander, struck by the pitiful and lopsided slaughter, finally shouted at the few Union troopers who remained alive and said, "Why don't you surrender?" A lone Union trooper replied, "Why don't you let us?" Then, in their first and only display of coordinated action that day, Union troops all simultaneously dropped their weapons and put their hands up. Shooting stopped. Union troops were marched off as prisoners, although many black soldiers (several black units were involved in the assault) were shot on the spot by enraged Southerners.

Meade finally got through to Burnside and ordered him to stop the "advance," salvage as much as he could, and retreat. Grant described the fiasco as, "the saddest affair I have ever witnessed." The War, which could have effectively ended that day, would now go on for another nine months.

Burnside was fired, for good this time. He would never command troops again. He went back to his native Maryland where he eventually became governor and later a US senator. With his trademark beard now white, he tried until the day he died (in vane) to resurrect his well known reputation as the incompetent bungler who was directly responsible for countless unnecessary casualties.

After the War, Pleasants went back to the mining industry. Ledlie was court-martialed, slapped on the wrist, and went back to the railroad.

Lesson: It takes a special species of incompetent to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Pleasants was a genius and a hero, but, teamed with ditherers, atta-boys, and drunks, his brilliant plan still failed. Ultimately, the blame for putting unqualified people, people who had painfully proven their incompetence, into important positions, falls on Lincoln. He should have known better. Thousands paid the price for his poor decision- twice!

/John