After the blast, nothing went according to plan. By the time Company K entered the pit, it encountered a leaderless, roiling mass of humanity, some wounded, some dazed, all unsure of what to do or where to go. Those who managed to reach the Rebel lines found a bewildering labyrinth of pits, trenches, dugouts and covered walkways. Worst of all, the Confederates were regrouping and fighting back.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Civil War Times magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

The sharpshooters, on the far left of the disorganized Union forces, were joined by the 2nd and 20th Michigan. They had gained a foothold on the Rebel works, and it is uncertain whether they could see the gallant but ineffectual charge made by the untested black troops on the right. Unit cohesion was impossible, and it is doubtful orders could have been heard, much less followed. Men clawed into the sides of the crater in a vain attempt to evade Confederate fire raining down on them. Under a pitiless sun, the corpses soon bloated and became breastworks for those who were still alive.

Through it all, the Indians kept their composure. Lieutenant William H. Randall of Company I, captured during the fight, remembered that “the Indians showed great coolness. They would fire at a Johnny and then drop down. Would then peek over the works and try to see the effect of their shot.” Lieutenant Bowley claimed to have seen that “some of them were mortally wounded, and clustering together, covered their heads with their blouses, chanted a death song, and died—four of them in a group.”

Official reports describing the actions of the 1st Michigan in the Crater are scant. Colonel DeLand was stunned by an exploding shell almost immediately upon entering the fight and went to the rear. Captain Elmer C. Dicey, who assumed command, was captured and did not file an after-action report.

Nevertheless, Raymond Herek, the regiment’s modern-day historian, has pieced together an account of their last moments in the Crater. “Some of the Sharpshooters,” Herek wrote, “among them Pvts. Sidney Haight, Antoine Scott, and Charles Thatcher, covered the retreat as best they could before they pulled out. Scott (Co. K) was one of the last to leave the fort….Thatcher, Haight, Scott and [Charles H.] DePuy all were cited for the Medal of Honor for their exploits that day.” Thatcher, Haight and DePuy, all white, received their medals in 1896. Scott, the Pentwater Chippewa, died in 1878—probably never knowing that his exceptional bravery had been recognized.

Herek lists only three men of Company K as killed, one wounded and six captured in the Crater. All the captured sharpshooters were sent to an old tobacco warehouse in Danville, Va. Overall, the 1st Michigan lost 62 men in the ill-fated assault.

The Crater was the last major action for the Indian sharpshooters, though Company K did some fighting at Ream’s Station, Peebles Farm, Hatcher’s Run and the final assault on Petersburg in April 1865. The 1st Michigan was the first Union regiment to enter the evacuated city. The men marched in the Grand Review of the armies in Washington, D.C., on May 23, 1865, and were mustered out of service on July 28.

Of the 1,300 men who served in the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters, only 23 officers and 386 enlisted men were on the steamer that brought the regiment home. For the widows and mothers of those who were disabled or had died, meager pensions were all the government offered as consolation. Sophie Graveraet, who lost both her husband and only son fighting in another man’s war, received $15 per month until she died.

For additional reading, see Laurence Hauptman’s Between Two Fires and These Men Have Seen Hard Service: The First Michigan Sharpshooters in the Civil War, by Raymond J. Herek.

This article by Gordon Berg was originally published in the June 2007 issue of Civil War Times Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to Civil War Times magazine today!

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to