Courage on Deadly Ground United State Colored Troops and Landmines in the C By Dr. Kenneth R. Rutherford following The issuance of Banks’s Army of the Gulf. Banks’s had connected by wires running back to Fort The Emancipation Proclamation on been ordered to attack Port Hudson Desperate, by merely pulling on the September 22, 1862, in support of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s wires.4 Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.) were created campaign to seize control of the As the U.S.C.T. men courageously throughout the country. Eventually Mississippi River. charged through the abyss, heavy fire comprising 163 U.S.C.T. units, an The U.S.C.T. soldiers charged over from within the , coupled estimated 40,000 Black soldiers died deadly ground infested with landmines with pulls on the landmine wires, during the war.1 Many were injured to attack the enemy-held Fort Desperate inflicted significant casualties. Attacks or killed by landmines, an innovative position at Port Hudson. Although against other points in the line were explosive weapon that was used for the relatively isolated and rather small, the also launched, and the fighting lasted first time on a widespread basis in the Confederate garrison augmented the throughout the day, to little effect. At world’s history.2 natural features with extensive field 3:30 am the following morning, another Composed mostly of men that had works including earthen parapets, Union assault struck Fort Desperate. escaped from slavery, the 1st and 3rd breastworks, and landmines.3 The Over the course of four hours, the Louisiana Native Guard were some landmines were constructed from repeated assaults were turned back with of the earliest U.S.C.T. units formed. repurposed Union shells – unexploded heavy losses. They had their first chance at combat 8-, 10-, and 13-inch mortar shells. The U.S.C.T. troops’ bloody experience at Port Hudson, Louisiana, on May 27, Confederate engineer officers could with landmines was to be replicated 1863, as part of Union Gen. Nathaniel detonate the mines, which were

Attack of the 2nd Louisiana U.S.C.T. at Port Hudson. 24 Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District round oops and Landmines in the Civil War

several months later on a sandy island southwest of Charleston, South Carolina. Located on the southern side of the Charleston harbor, Battery Wagner on Morris Island was central to the defense of both the harbor and the city. It was a stronghold defended by the largest formal landmine field in the world up to that time.5 Its location was ideal. The beach sand easily concealed the landmines, including converted water keg Naval mines, and because each end of the defensive position terminated at seawater, the Federals had no openings to use in order to skirt the . Moreover, the landmines provided an ideal substitute for a lack of material fortifications.6

The attack on Battery Wagner. Map by Hal Jespersen.

At dusk, on July 18, 1863, Union Battery Wagner – and they broke into a Brig. Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore, full run. commander of the , ordered the 54th Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom! of the U.S.C.T. to lead the assault, The buried landmines delivered their backed by brigades of white soldiers. intended lethal effects. Soldiers flew About 7:45 pm, the 54th Massachusetts into the air, some suffering gruesome marched at “quick time” until it neared wounds. Combined with Confederate the —the gently sloping bank near small arms, and artillery firing canister,

Winter 2020-2021 25 the Black troops were mowed down in one of his arms was resting minutes. “More than half their number on the plunger of another lay dead upon the ground,” an account landmine. The soldier’s noted, with “their bodies ghastly death fed rumors that he was mutilated & torn to pieces piled upon tied to the landmine by the the glacis.”7 enemy. The outnumbered 54th Massachusetts On April 9, 1865, the same and other Union soldiers climbed day that Gen. Robert E. Wagner’s parapet, where intense hand- Lee’s Army of Northern to-hand fighting erupted. The defenders was surrendering beat back the attackers and held Wagner. at Appomattox, the 47th, Of the 600 black troops who charged 20th and 51st U.S.C.T. the fort, 272 were killed, wounded, or regiments attacked Fort captured. In an account that expressed Blakeley (Alabama) as the sentiments of many on the Union part of a sixteen-thousand side, Tribune reporter Edward Federal troop surge. With L. Pierce wrote, “The Fifty-fourth did red cloths tied to their well and nobly. . . . They moved up as muskets as a symbol of gallantly as any troops could, and with revenge, the U.S.C.T. men their enthusiasm they deserved a better shouted “Fort Pillow!” fate.” , the colonel of during their advance—a the 54th Massachusetts, was among the reference to what many dead and was buried in a common grave believed had been a massacre with his men.8 of surrendered black troops at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on A few weeks after the failed assault, the April 12, 1864. U.S.C.T. soldiers again were on the front lines to capture Battery Wagner. Confederate defenders had As Federal sappers advanced toward, a strengthened their positions Sergeant William Harvey Carney of the 54th U.S.C.T. corporal on fatigue duty was by deploying hundreds of Massachusetts was awarded the Congressional killed by a landmine. The blast had landmines, made from 10-, for saving the regimental colors torn his clothes from his body, and 12-, or 24-pound artillery during the attack on Battery Wagner.

A water keg torpedo. 26 Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District shells, within rows of abatis and attached Black men that would eventually fight as to sharpened branches woven together U.S.C.T. soldiers for the Union during America’s Buried History: with wire that was attached to the plugs the Civil War. They verified their valor, of the landmines. It was as ingenious as surged forward, and declined to give up Landmines in the Civil War it was deadly. Simply moving through even as landmines exploded underfoot the obstructions was likely to detonate and musket volleys smashed their the shells.9 ranks. The deadly legacy of landmines continues today. They are the leading As the U.S.C.T. and other Federal troops cause of American combat casualties, crossed a huge ravine, soldiers also began and continue to kill and main thousands “calling out warnings of ‘torpedo!’ as every year. they ran.” A ’s leg was blown off below the knee, sending a portion of the Kenneth R. Rutherford is author of America’s appendage 50 feet in the air, recalled one Buried History: Landmines in the Civil War of the attackers.10 (Savas Beatie, April 2020). He is a trustee of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation and U.S.C.T. Colonel Hiram Schofield a Professor of Political Science at James Madison described the high spirits of the troops University. After losing his legs to a landmine in Somalia, he became a leader in the International as they charged across the minefields Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was awarded toward the Confederate positions. The the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. ground over which they advanced was flat, wet, and “very unfavorable for ______the health and comfort of the men,” 1 https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/ civil-war-facts#Were%20there%20black%20 explained the colonel. Schofield wrote, Confederate%20soldiers? American Battlefield “the spirit and enthusiasm of the troops Trust. Accessed September 5, 2020 could not be excelled. Men actually 2 During the Civil War landmines were labeled wept that they were placed in reserve as torpedoes, infernal devices, or sub-terras. Today many types of landmines are referred to as Despite the thousands of books and could not go with their comrades improvised explosive devices (IEDs). published on the American Civil into the thickest of the fight.” According 3 Association of Defenders of Port Hudson, War, one aspect that has never to Schofield, “quite a number of men “Fortification and of Port Hudson,” Southern Historical Society Papers (January-December received the in-depth attention it were killed or wounded by the explosion 1886), vol. 14, 334. deserves is the use of landmines and of torpedoes, which were exploded by 4 Ibid. their effect on the war and beyond. stepping upon them.” A landmine killed 5 P. G. T. Beauregard, General, Commanding, to one man and wounded 13, and another General Ripley, July 10, 1863, OR vol. 28, pt. 2, Kenneth R. Rutherford rectifies this severely wounded six men in the 51st 186. oversight with America’s Buried regiment.11 6 Major Thomas Benton Brooks, Journal of Engineer History: Landmines in the Civil Operations Executed Under His Direction on Morris Island, Between July 12 and September 7, War, the first book devoted to a The attack on Fort Blakeley succeeded 1863, as reported by Brig. Gen. Q. A. Gillmore, comprehensive analysis and history in less than 30 minutes. After the fort’s Commanding Department of the South, Headquarters Department of the South, Engineer’s of the fascinating and important capture, Confederate prisoners led the Office, Morris Island, South Carolina, September way through landmine fields as they 27, 1863, OR vol. 28, pt. 1, 296. topic of landmines. Dr. Rutherford were taken to a U.S.C.T. camp. One 7 W. Davis Waters, “Deception is the Art of brings together primary and other War: Gabriel J. Rains, Torpedo Specialist of the research from archives, museums, of their guards, Pvt. Josias Lewis of the Confederacy,” North Carolina Historical Review 47th U.S.C.T., lost his leg to a landmine (1989), vol. 66, no. 1, 130-131. and battlefields to demonstrate that 12 explosion near the camp. 8 Garry Deal, “54th Massachusetts Ring,” North the Civil War was the first military South Trader’s Civil War, vol. 27, no. 6. conflict in world history to see the Despite their horrific casualties and 9 W. R. Eddington, Memoir, 46, unpublished deaths, the U.S.C.T. forces at Port manuscript at http://macoupinctygenealogy. org/ widespread use of such weapons. war/edding/html, copy at Fort Blakeley State Park America’s Buried History: Landmines Hudson, Battery Wagner and Fort archives. Eddington served in the 97th Illinois, 2nd Blakeley fought bravely. They had Brigade, 2nd Division, 13th Corps. in the Civil War can be purchased at courageously charged across deadly 10 Paul Brueske, The Last Siege: The Mobile Campaign, the SVBF’s online store at shopsvbf. ground seeded with landmines knowing Alabama 1865 (, 2018). 21. square.site. For more information that each step could be their last. 11 Report of Col. Hiram Schofield, Forty-Seventh, U.S. Colored Infantry, Commanding Second on the book, go to https://www. Brigade, of Operations, HDQRS, Second Brigade, savasbeatie.com/americas-buried- The charge of the 1st and 3rd Louisiana First Div., U.S. Colored Troops, Blakely, Alabama, Native Guards at Port Hudson broke April 11, 1865, OR 45, pt. 1, 291-292. history-landmines-in-the-civil-war/ new ground for the estimated 180,000 12 Ibid. Winter 2020-2021 27