On a trip to the Petersburg Battlefield Park we arrived at the site of the Crater just as a Park Ranger was giving his version of what happened there on that fateful day on July 30 1864.
I thought his knowledge was great as he talked about the building of the tunnel, the placing of the gunpowder and the explosion itself.
The problem came when he described to a group of people about 25 or 30 strong about what occurred during the battle that followed the explosion. He stated that the Confederate Soldiers killed all the Black Union Soldiers who took part in that battle!
That is simply not true, as many Blacks as well as White Union soldiers were taken prisoner that day. In his book, "The Last Citadel" Noah Andre Trudeau writes: Federals captured in the Crater fighting were marched through Petersburg on July 31. Southern soldiers, still angry over the use of black troops in the attack, lined the Union POWs up in alternate rows of black and white. "In this manner we were marched through the principal streets of Petersburg," one Vermont soldier recalled "and received many taunts and scoffs as we journeyed along."
In his book "Petersburg in the Civil War" (War at the Door), William D. Henderson writes: Many Union wounded from the Crater, black and white, fell into Confederate hands. These were taken to the Pavilion Hospital at Poplar Lawn Park. Dr. John H. Claiborne had been emptying this facility for a month in response to General Lee's directive on removing patients from any hospital under even occasional shelling. Quickly the Pavilion, a large building, became filled beyond capacity with Union wounded, Black and White. Men lay outside on the park grounds.
Claiborne, overwhelmed with work, asked five Federal surgeons attached to Wilson's and Kautz's Cavalry and captured on June 29, at the first Battle of Reams Station to help with the operations at the Pavilion Hospital. This they agreed to do.
The next day Petersburg attorney George Bolling who lived across the street from the park, sent a message to Dr. Claiborne indicating that he had better look into matters at Poplar Lawn Park. When Claiborne arrived he found around a hundred and fifty Black soldiers still lying on the ground, unattended, screaming and moaning. It was only after Dr. Claiborne threatened to send these Union surgeons to Andersonville prison instead of Libby, a prison with a much lower death rate, that they were convinced to go back to work.
So, what is the price of a lie? Is this just another attempt to discredit the South of having any humanitarian sympathies for Blacks during the Civil War or just a government paid employee not well versed on his subject matter?
"War is Hell."
Ron Roller
Petersburg
"THE PRICE OF A LIE!"
I know, I've been there!
"...As usual with the [Northerrn] enemy, they posted their Negro regiments on their left and in front, where they were slain by hundreds, and upon retiring left their dead and wounded Negroes uncared for, carrying off only the whites, which accounts for the fact that upon the first part of the battle-field nearly all the dead found were Negroes." - Federal Official Records, Vol. XXXV, Chapter XLVII, pg. 341 - Report of Lieutenant M. B. Grant, C. S. Engineers, Savannah, April 27, 1864 - Battle of Ocean Pond (Olustee)
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