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for the daring assault, Grant ordered a diversionary attack north of the James River, close to Richmond. The troops selected for the mission included Colonel L.D.H. Currie and the 133rd New York Volunteers, lately arrived from Louisiana. Grant wanted Lee to be caught between defending Richmond and Petersburg and, with luck, ruffled into making mistakes. But it was the Federals who ended up committing the errors by their failure to plan adequately for the assault. Colonel Currie, who had been appointed acting commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, discovered that many of his troops were new recruits. He became increasingly worried the more he witnessed their lethargic response to his orders. The men had been assigned to hold one of the creeks that fed the James, but at the first sign of trouble they broke cover and ran for their lives. “Colonel Currie is as much annoyed at the conduct of his troops as myself,” reported his commanding officer: “They had the most explicit instructions from Colonel Currie, who even went so far as to tell them if they broke, the troops in the rear had orders to fire on them.”29

Currie’s threats could not match the actual feel of gunfire for many of these men.30.2 General Godfrey Weitzel, the acting chief of staff of the XIX Corps, vigorously defended Currie’s conduct to his irate superiors. He “bears three honorable wounds,” Weitzel wrote indignantly, “and is promoted for gallantry. He was Major-General Smith’s adjutant-general all through the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac.” But Currie was denied the opportunity to correct the poor impression made by his raw troops. The next day, on July 27, he was ordered to take his brigade to Washington in anticipation of another attack by Jubal Early. Two days later, on July 29, the diversionary expedition was abandoned and the Federals recrossed the James River. The mine tunnel was scheduled to explode in a few hours’ time.

A hitch had been discovered, however. The troops especially trained for the mission happened to be from colored regiments, and all of a sudden it seemed politically hazardous to use them; white regiments were substituted. Notwithstanding Grant’s declaration that “they will make good soldiers,” there was still widespread resistance to the idea of blacks in uniform, as well as doubts about their abilities. “Can a Negro do our skirmishing and picket duty?” asked Sherman rhetorically. “Can they improvise bridges, sorties, flank movements, etc., like the white man? I say no.”31 The second-class status of the colored regiments was reflected in their pay for the first two years—which stayed at $7 a month, only just over half the $13 paid to whites—until Congress rectified the inequality. Yet the number of black volunteers was increasing, from none before 1862 to fifteen thousand in 1863 to more than a hundred thousand by the summer of 1864. Moreover, they were not only serving their country, they were dying for it, too, and at a higher rate than white soldiers. The Confederates rarely took black prisoners alive.30.3

At 4:45 A.M. on July 30, the fuse was lit and four tons of gunpowder exploded underneath two unsuspecting South Carolina regiments. Two hundred and fifty men were buried instantly; several hundred others were blown to fragments. The hole formed by the explosion was more than 150 feet long, 97 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. “Into this crater,” wrote Confederate general Edward Parker Alexander, “the leading [Federal] division literally swarmed, until it was packed about as full as it could hold.”32 The Federal soldiers were trapped as the Confederate regiments on either side of the crater formed a new defensive line and trained their guns into the crater. Alexander’s English staff officer, Stephen Winthrop, and three others ran to one of the artillery pieces that was still working and started firing. The Federal soldiers were slaughtered like animals in a pen. Almost four thousand were lost in the debacle, including most of the black troops who were sent in after the white regiments. “The effort was a stupendous failure,