Battle of the Crater: Park historian Emmanuel Dabney thinks you should know about these 5 men, three of whom fought with the USCT and two who wore gray

John Elder's painting of the Crater emphasizes the Confederate perspective 

The Battle of the Crater, which occurred 162 years ago today, wasn’t just a significant defeat for Union forces trying to break Confederate siege lines at Petersburg, Va. The debacle is remembered as much for the massacre of scores of U.S. Colored Troops who were surrendering.

Federal soldiers set off a mine on July 30, 1864, under a position held by South Carolinians. Troops rushed into the giant breach but became targets when they massed in an area with little room to maneuver. 

Among them were USCT units who had been encouraged by their white officers to use "Fort Pillow! No Quarter!" as their battle cry. Instead, they received “no quarter” from Rebels.

Petersburg National Battlefield this summer offers daily ranger programming that includes an 11 a.m. tour of the Crater.

I asked Emmanuel Dabney (right), chief of resource management at the park, to name a few soldiers whose actions or memories stand out from fighting at the Crater. He mentioned these five men:

Pvt. Peter Churchwell, 23^rd USCT

Churchwell had the unfortunate distinction of being returned to slavery after his capture at the Crater. He had escaped from Orange County, Va., in 1862. He worked in Washington, D.C., before he enlisted in the 23rd US Colored Troops.

After his capture at the Crater, Churchwell was put to work for several days burying the dead before he was sent to Danville, Va., according to the National Park Service. (At left, USCT soldier in action, Library of Congress)

Churchwell testified later in his life, “I was kept there until Major Reuben Gordon, my old Master, heard I was in prison, and he came there and claimed me as his slave [and] sold me to a Mr. Shedrick Lee, a slave dealer at Richmond, Va., and he sold me to Luke Powell a slave dealer who took me to Wilmington N.C. [and] I was there 8 days working in a shoe shop of Geo. French’s store, [and] then sold to Patrick Murphy who took me on his farm near Raleigh N.C., and worked at making boot [and] shoes for him, [and] he sold them.”

Churchwell escaped in early 1865 and fled to Wilmington, N.C., which had fallen to the Union troops. He lived in Washington, D.C., in his later years, according to the park.

Capt. Robert K. Beecham, 23^rd USCT

Like many other officers, Beecham served in white units early in the Civil War before they were assigned to lead USCT regiments.

Dabney describes the officer’s 1902 memoirs, “As If It Were Glory: Robert Beecham's Civil War from the Iron Brigade to the Black Regiments,” as “amazing.” (Photo, courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society, Unique ID W0139K4) 

Beecham was captured at Gettysburg and then exchanged before joining the 23^rd USCT. He was wounded and captured at the Crater and served eight months in captivity before he escaped and found his way to freedom just before war’s end.

The soldier wrote in this recollections: “The Afro-American came forward cheerfully and volunteered his strength, his brawn, his heart’s blood to save the honor of the flag that to him and his race had been the symbol of every dishonor.”

Pvt. Abraham Tuckson, 23^rd USCT

Abraham Tuckson, who escaped from slavery in Virginia in 1862, was killed at the Crater. His remains were never identified, said Dabney. Hester Tuckson, his widow and mother of their children, was left to remember her departed husband.

In 2011, Eric Mink with the NPS wrote about the couple, who were enslaved in Spotsylvania County.

Abraham, after he fled from enslaver Dr. John R. Taylor, returned to the plantation to retrieve what he felt was rightfully his, including clothing.

“Abraham’s confrontation with Dr. Taylor is an example of a former slave embracing his freedom and sense of independence,” Mink wrote. ”We also learn about a woman whose husband left to fight to maintain his freedom and secure hers, but she remained on the plantation and managed to keep the rest of her family together.”

 

Col. John Cheves Haskell, Confederate artillery battalion

Dabney said the officer commanded an artillery battalion and has a vivid account of stopping at least some of the massacre of surrendered USCTs at the Crater. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Haskell and several other Confederate officers tried to stem the slaughter, but they had little success.

“Our men, who were always made wild by having negroes sent against them … were utterly frenzied with rage. Nothing in the war could have exceeded the horrors that followed. No quarter was given, and for what seemed a long time, fearful butchery was carried on,” Haskell wrote years later in his memoirs.

William A. Day, 49^th North Carolina Infantry

Like Col. Haskell, Day recalled the fury Confederate defenders heaped on the USCT troops, Dabney says. The Black soldiers brought their own anger into the battle, seeking retribution for the massacre at Fort Pillow of African-American troops.

“(Confederates) dashed up to the brink of the ditch, halted a moment as if mapping out their work, fired a rolling volley into the ditch filled with Yankees, the most of them being negroes, at this feet; then turning the butts of their guns, they sprang into the ditch among them,” Day wrote in “Confederate Veteran” magazine.

“The slaughter was terrible. The soldiers were excited, they were reckless; they burst the negroes’ skulls with the butts of their guns like eggshells. The officers tried to prevent it, but they were powerless. It was ‘No quarter for the Rebels’ that morning, and it is no quarter for them now. The fight was soon ended.”

USS Cairo gets a much-needed deep cleaning at Vicksburg. The hope is one day the ironclad removed from the Yazoo River will be moved inside to safeguard its future

A conservator studies the white oak and yellow pine used in construction (NPS photo)

The first step in ensuring long-term protection of the remnants of USS Cairo, the first armored vessel sunk by an electrically detonated torpedo, has included the removal of 555 pounds of dirt and debris – and counting.

Terra Mare Conservation has been at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi since September, conducting dry and wet cleaning of the canopy-covered Union vessel. Park officials say it’s the first time in more than a decade the vessel has undergone “critically needed cleaning and conservation work.”

Superintendent Carrie A. Mardorf told the Picket in an email that nothing is being rebuilt or replaced. “The NPS is taking a strictly preservation approach to the gunboat.”

Terra Mare also is repairing and stabilizing any damaged areas of the white oak and yellow pine used in construction. Corrosion on the bow and cannons is being treated and paint is being touched up.

The Cairo and accompanying museum officially opened in 1980 (NPS)

The ironclad sank in the Yazoo River on Dec. 12, 1862, after it struck a floating Confederate mine. It went down in 12 minutes. Recovered in the 1960s, the Cairo has been a popular draw at the Civil War park since the late 1970s.

The park has posted a couple updates on Facebook, prompting some commenters to ask why the famed wreck is not in a building, away from the elements..

“Enclosing the USS Cairo in an interior setting with climate control is ultimately the best way to preserve the boat for future generations,” Mardorf told the Picket. “All of the recent science and studies that the park has completed in the past year recommend protecting the gunboat with an interior enclosure; however, doing so would require specialized construction funding.”

Congress is currently considering reauthorization of the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), she said. “If renewed, GAOA may provide some funding for the long-term preservation of the USS Cairo.”

Recent work on the site and vacuum bags containing dirt and debris (NPS)

For now, conservators are giving the warship TLC and a top-to-bottom cleaning, removing dirt, dust, pollen, rodent and bird nests, bird guano and trash.

“The biggest surprise thus far has been the amount of dirt removed. As Terra Mare cleans, they are learning a lot more about the condition of the wood and metals, which will be summarized in a final report for the park,” said Mardorf.

The team this week is cleaning the metal pilot house and boilers.

Work is expected to conclude in mid-November. Further temporary closures of the exhibit are possible to protect the public from airborne particles.

The USS Cairo has been treated with a variety of chemical sprays and coatings since the 1970s. Additional studies will be carried out to determine if fungal and insect infestations are present, according to a park summary of the project. “Long-term, the park will embark on a regular, cyclic cleaning and conservation schedule for the ship.”

Mardorf says all of what the public sees is original, with the exception of the 1980s Glulam structure that holds the boat in place.  

The end comes in the Yazoo River above Vicksburg

The USS Cairo’s fame has far exceeded its brief history. Built in a hurry in Mound City, Ill., and commissioned in January 1862, the ironclad sank only 11 months later.

The USS Cairo at anchor in 1862 (Library of Congress)

At 175 feet long and with a top speed of six knots, the vessel carried 13 guns and 251 officers and men. Seven shallow-draft City Class river ironclads prowled the Mississippi River and connecting shallow waterways, menacing Confederate supply lines and shore batteries, the National Park Service says.

The Cairo saw limited action at Plum Point (Fort Pillow), Tenn., in May 1862 and Memphis the following month. Before the Federal attack on Haynes Bluff, Cairo skipper Lt. Cmdr. Thomas O. Selfridge Jr. (below) led a small flotilla of gunboats into the hazardous confines of the Yazoo River on Dec. 12, 1862.

“Tasked with destroying Confederate batteries and clearing the river of torpedoes (underwater mines) the flotilla inched its way up the murky waters. As the Cairo reached a point seven miles north of Vicksburg the flotilla came under fire and the aggressive Selfridge ordered his guns to the ready and called for full steam, bringing the ironclad into action,” the NPS says.

“Seconds later, disaster struck. Cairo was rocked by two explosions in quick succession. The first tore and gaping hole into the port (left) bow of the wooden hulled ironclad. The second detonated a moment later near the armored belt amidships on the starboard side. The hole on the bow proved to be catastrophic.”

Selfridge ordered the Cairo to be beached and the crew to abandon ship. The Cairo slid from the river bank into 36 feet of water with no loss of life. About a half dozen sailors were injured.

Mud protected the ironclad for almost 100 years

The ill-fated ironclad disappeared into history for nearly a century.

Using maps and an old military compass, the legendary Ed Bearss, a historian at Vicksburg National Military Park at the time, and two comrades found the mud-encased ironclad in 1956.

Despite financial shortfalls, barge problems and a zero-visibility river that deposited silt at an alarming rate, the vessel was eventually raised in 1960 and 1964-65.

A portion of the casemate rests on a barge in the Yazoo River (NPS)

Hopes of lifting the ironclad and her cargo of artifacts intact were crushed in October 1964 when the three-inch cables being used to lift the Cairo cut deeply into its wooden hull. It then became a question of saving as much of the vessel as possible. The decision was made to recover the USS Cairo in three sections.

Barges carried the remnants to Pascagoula, Ms. The wreck was moved in 1977 to the Vicksburg park, where it was partially reconstructed and placed on a concrete foundation.

The recovery of artifacts revealed a trove of weapons, munitions, naval stores, and personal property that help tell the story of the sailors that once called the ship home, according to the NPS.

Not a land mine, but maybe a cannonball?

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View artifacts from ship sunk by Rebel mine

About 800 people visited the Mandarin Museum in Jacksonville, Fla., for the grand opening of an exhibit of rarely-seen artifacts. The steamship Maple Leaf was brought down on April 4, 1864, by a Confederate mine. Artifacts include a sailor's pipe, canteen, skillet, a rain hat and a shoe. The exhibit will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday through the end of the year. • Article