This is my favorite Civil War story. Picture this one in your head as you read.
The setting is just outside of Petersburg, VA in the Summer of 1864. For months, Union and Confederate forces have been stationed in trenches only 150 yards apart. Everyone was hungry and tired so some Pennsylvanians got creative. A few of the Keystone staters were coal miners by trade and decided they could dig a tunnel under the battlefield leading directly to the Confederate fort on the other side. It took four weeks but the soldiers managed to dig a 511 foot tunnel ending 20 feet below the Confederate fort. At the end of the tunnel was a huge room that they filled with 320 barrels of gunpowder.
In the middle of the night on July 30th, the fuse was lit. Nothing happened. Two brave soldiers ventured into the tunnel to see what happened. The fuse burned out. One relit the fuse and both ran out of the tunnel. In true Hollywood fashion, the bomb went off just as they exited the tunnel. Flames shot out of the cracks in the ground. A huge chunk of Earth was flung into the air. Confederate soldiers received quite the rude awakening. This was the of a lifetime opportunity for the Union army. Unfortunately, the enormity of the situation didn't only affect the Confederates. Many Union soldiers were so stunned by the explosion that they froze in place. It has even been said that the general in charge of the invasion got scared, hightailed it for a bunker, and began drinking rum as quickly as he could. The Confederates got their act together about the same time as the Union and delivered yet another Union loss on Virginia soil.
For more info, I suggest:
Steve Sheinkin's, Two Miserable Presidents
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