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The Human Spectacle
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11679 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
1,264 Words |
| Author
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Paul Escott
Paul Escott is Reynolds Professor of History at Wake Forest
University. He served on the editorial board of the just-
published Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (Simon & Schuster)
and is the author of After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the
Failure of Confederate Nationalism (Louisiana State University
Press, 1978) and other books and articles on Southern history. |
GLORY ENOUGH FOR ALL
The Battle of the Crater
Duane Schultz
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993
368 pp., $21.95
Duane Schultz has written an engaging historical novel that plunges the reader into the grim atmosphere and tragic events of the summer of 1864. The human drama of the Civil War and its emotions of fear and hope, elation and depression come alive as Schultz weaves an engrossing tale based closely on the events of the Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg, Virginia.
In June 1864, Northern morale was sinking, and the survival of the Union seemed more uncertain than ever before. Three years of bloodshed had produced appalling casualties but no prospect of a decisive outcome. William Tecumseh Sherman's forces appeared to be stalled in northern Georgia; Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac had lost a shocking number of men at the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor before digging into trenches north of Petersburg. There Grant's army sat, while the mood of the Northern public soured and peace Democrats worked to take over their party. Abraham Lincoln, like many other Republicans, doubted that he could be reelected and regarded the election of a Democrat who might end the war without preserving the Union as increasingly likely.
In the trenches around Petersburg, the realities of daily life for Union soldiers were even more oppressive. For weeks a merciless sun beat down on men who already lived with dirt, lice, and weevil-infested rations.
Close confinement produced a powerful stench in the trenches, but soldiers had to stay under cover or risk death from sharpshooters and steady artillery fire. Only 130 yards separated Union and Confederate lines, and less than a mile away was Cemetery Hill, overlooking Petersburg. Victory seemed close at hand just over that hill--yet impossible to reach. Demoralization grew among the troops as feelings of desperation assailed many of their leaders.
A bold idea
Out of this depressing situation came one of those sparks of incongruity and inspiration that compel respect for the human race. Experienced coal miners in the Fortieth Pennsylvania Volunteers, commanded by Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants, conceived
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