381:, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, ordered a column of white troops to make the lead assault on the crater instead of Ferrero's division of African American troops, who were trained specifically for the task. General Ulysses S. Grant approved the change in battle formation. In his later testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Meade claimed that he changed the order because the white troops were more experienced, not because he lacked faith in the capabilities of the African-American troops. Burnside, despondent at the change in plans, resorted to a lottery to select a replacement division. Ledlie drew the short straw, and disaster resulted. His division was the smallest and weakest in the IX Corps, and he did not brief his troops beforehand. They entered the crater out of curiosity instead of moving safely around its rim, as Ferrero's division had been trained to do. Unable to exit the steep sides of the crater, they were slaughtered by Confederates firing down on them. 3,798 Union troops were casualties in the ill-fated battle that achieved none of its objectives. Most damning for Ledlie's reputation was the fact that he did not lead, or even accompany, his men into battle, and a few weeks earlier, during the attacks on Confederate entrenchments at Cold Harbor, he had run and hidden for cover, an event that the enlisted men did not forget, but which managed to escape Burnside's attention. During the Battle of the Crater, Ledlie and Ferrero were observed behind the lines in a bunker, drinking liquor.
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in command of the
Artillery Brigade of the Department of North Carolina in December 1862. (His appointment expired in March 1863 for lack of Senate confirmation, but he was reappointed in October 1863 and later confirmed.) For the next year and a half, he served primarily in garrison positions with
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Ledlie was criticized by a court of inquiry into his conduct that
September. On orders from Gen. Grant, Maj. Gen. Meade effectively dismissed Ledlie from the service in December. He formally resigned his commission on January 23, 1865.
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of the 19th New York
Infantry, which was subsequently renamed the 3rd New York Artillery regiment. The history of this regiment was marred by a mutiny at the expiration of its original term of service. Ledlie was promoted to
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some 135 feet in diameter that remains visible today. Some 250 to 350 Confederate soldiers were instantly killed in the blast. The Union plan was to exploit the explosion by sending well-rehearsed
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lines and filling the end of the tunnel with four tons of gunpowder. On July 30, 1864, they detonated the explosives, creating a
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Ledlie resumed his career as a railroad civil engineer in the West and South. He participated in the construction of the
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James McPherson, Battle Cry of
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emplacements and the
Department of Virginia and North Carolina.
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Shortly after the start of the Civil War, Ledlie was appointed
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The Last
Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864 – April 1865
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http://localhistory.morrisville.edu/sites/gar_post/ledlie.html
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243:(April 14, 1832 – August 15, 1882) was a civil engineer for
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People of New York (state) in the
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482:. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
495:Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders
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450:List of American Civil War generals (Union)
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401:. He also worked on constructing the
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241:James Hewett Ledlie
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