Civil War-dated ALS from Union soldier George A. Spencer of Co. I, 7th Rhode Island Infantry, three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7.5, July 29, 1864. Addressed from “Comp 7th R. I. Vols., near Petersburg, Va.,” a handwritten letter to his parents, offering his thoughts and events leading up to the Battle of the Crater, which occurred the next day. In part: “They put the powder under the rebel fort last night 7 tons of it. there will be a mess here in a few days…The rebel sharpshooters have been picking off our gunners from a big yellow house. Yesterday we got a new battery into position and opened on the house with Greek fire. You ought to have seen the sharpshooters come out of that house some out the windows and some out the door…and then the pickets set up a yelling and crowing and that mad the Johnnys mad and they began to throw mortar shells by the cart load and then our 32 pound battery opened on the city and that soon stopped their mortars and all was quiet again and then the band played.” In fine condition.
The Battle of the Crater took place as part of the Siege of Petersburg on Saturday, July 30, 1864, when Union forces exploded a mine under Confederate position that immediately killed 278 Confederate soldiers of the 18th and 22nd South Carolina and left an enormous crater that is still visible today. Instead of being a decisive advantage to the Union, the explosion precipitated a rapid deterioration in Union position as unit after unit charged into and around the crater. Once recovered from the blast, Confederate soldiers wrapped around the crater and began firing rifles and artillery down into it in what Brigadier General William Mahone later described as a ‘turkey shoot.’ U. S. Grant considered this failed assault as ‘the saddest affair I have witnessed in this war.’
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