The historiography of the Civil War – the how and why we remember and interpret it the way we do – has always taken a back seat to the military, biographical, and political studies of it. Historians depend upon the accounts of those who were there and actually took part in the events they describe to piece together the historical “truth” of what occurred on a particular battlefield. But are those accounts always accurate? Was there some underlying reason, be it conscious or not, for the participant to describe an action as he did? Is the “truth” as it has come to be known to the modern-day audience, 150 years later, actually “fact”?

In Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War as Murder, Kevin Levin analyzes the way July 30, 1864, Battle of the Crater, outside Petersburg, Virginia, has been interpreted over the decades. The Crater is one of the more unique episodes of the war in Virginia. Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard had been pinned into the defenses around Richmond and Petersburg toward the end of June 1864 by the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James. Unable to achieve a quick breakthrough and capture the important transportation hub of Petersburg, Union forces entrenched while their commanders planned the next move. Pennsylvanians in Ambrose Burnside’s IX Corps proposed to tunnel under the Confederate works east of the city and detonate several tons of explosives beneath the fortifications, literally blowing a hole in the Confederate lines. Burnside’s troops would then exploit the breach and capture Petersburg. However, what had the potential to end the Petersburg operations and possibly the war turned into a disaster for the Federals. Burnside’s troops were unable to advance far beyond the crater resulting from the explosion, allowing the Confederates time to counter-attack. Burnside’s black troops – having been relegated at the last minute from leading the attack to instead bringing up the rear in support – were butchered by friend and foe alike in and around the crater. The Battle of the Crater, as it became known, is viewed on the Confederate side as a masterful victory, and on the Union side as a horrendous mistake.

Levin’s is not a book about the Crater; rather it is, as its title suggests, about how the fighting there has been remembered and why. The author traces the interpretation of the battle from initial accounts of it by veterans of both sides, through later veterans’ memoirs during the post-war reconciliation period, artistic interpretations of the battle, the site’s preservation and visitation, to how the National Park Service has interpreted the battle.

What sets the Crater apart from other engagements – besides the use of the mine itself – was the presence of black troops. For many of the Confederates on the field that day, the Crater marked their first encounter with black men in blue uniform. Levin argues that for many of the Confederates – a good number of them, including their commander Maj. Gen. William Mahone, were from Petersburg and the surrounding area – the presence of black troops so near to their homes conjured up fears resulting from Nat Turner’s rebellion three decades before, which led to the slaughter of many black troops in the battle (pp 25-6).

After the war, Petersburg became a center for Confederate memory – hosting one of the largest Confederate Veterans camps (A.P. Hill) in the South – and also was the residence of Gen. Mahone, who became the dominant figure in Virginia’s post-war politics. Veterans of both sides came to visit what remained of the former battlefields around the city, with Mahone himself (and after his death Mrs. Mahone) often being guest of honor at reunions. “No one loomed larger over the burgeoning memory of the battle of the Crater than William Mahone,” Levin asserts. (p 47). The Crater was a popular site to visit, and several monuments were erected there. After the passage of several decades, the hostility between the two sections was gone, replaced by a desire for reconciliation. However, this reconciliation could not occur if a frank and honest memory of what had occurred at the Crater persevered, leading to a sanitized one in which the role of Burnside’s black troops was minimized and the slaughter of them – by both enraged Confederates and terrified white Union troops – was all but erased. This omission became painfully evident during the Civil War centennial of the 1960s, as the Civil Rights movement drew attention to the role black troops had played during the war.

Much of the fields of battle around Petersburg were lost after the war. For a time the Crater battlefield became a golf course. Once the federal government preserved much of the lines around the city, what remained of the Crater was incorporated into the resulting park, which then presented the National Park Service with the question of how to interpret what happened at the Crater.

In recent years several volumes have appeared about the Crater. Remembering the Battle of the Crater is an excellent post-script to the writings about the fighting itself. More social history and Civil War historiography than military history, Levin’s work not only belongs on the shelf alongside other Petersburg works, but also is a must-read for those interested in the memory of the war. ( )