Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 73- The Battle of the Crater

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

A very hungover Joe and Nick dive into one of the Union Army's biggest blunders during the US Civil War: The Battle of the Crater during the siege of Petersburg. Two drunken commanders throw their soldiers into battle without a plan or orders. Hilarity does not ensue. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/notifications Buy some merch: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store sources: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/crater https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/union-forces-stopped-at-the-battle-of-the-crater https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-battle-of-the-crater-petersburg-virginia-june-15-18-1864/

hello and welcome to a specially hungover version of the lines led by donkeys podcast i'm joe and with me as always is Nick Not feeling too solid And I'm fucking dying I have not felt like this In a very long time Your birthday? Yeah probably my birthday is a good bet That was especially bad My worst hangover this year

Was definitely two weeks ago There's something special about Getting so hungover that you eat breakfast Wearing sunglasses in the same night That you accidentally run into the town mayor who also knows who I am, which is all, which is really weird. Chad Kroger was at the bar last night too. I will point that out. It was just a guy with long blonde hair.

He was, uh. Chad Kroger of Nickelback is not going to hang out in Yelm, Washington. He was definitely there. That's definitely the place he would go to. I mean, just stay in Canada. Anywhere in Canada is cooler in Yelm, Washington. He was definitely there. That's definitely the place he would go to. Just stay in Canada. Anywhere in Canada is cooler than Yelm, Washington. No. Yelm kind of sucks.

It would be better if Scott Stapp was there with him. Also with me today is the bootless Nick. He doesn't have his space boot on. I don't. Featuring comfy pants, though. As he's been cleared to on. I don't. Featuring comfy pants, though. As he's been cleared to walk. Only at home.

Walk at own pace and distance. Pretty much. Also, like the attire we both decided to wear. I'm wearing a combination of sweatpants, which I don't think are mine. I believe they are Rich's. And this jacket that I found in a box. I'm also not sure if I stole this from someone or not. Also, comfy wear.

Oh, yeah. Very comfy. This is a comfy podcast wear today. I only put on pants because I went to the corner store to get pho to nurse my hangover. But we hope you're not wearing pants. Yeah, you should never wear pants. Pants are just prisons for your leg. Pretty much. So what brings us to this episode is, of course, the Battle of the Crater.

Moon battle. Yeah, the Battle of the Moon. The Moon Nazis are back. Yes. Now, I will say on this show, we have something of a proud history of shitting on the Confederate States of America and their stupid Civil War.

Nick is fist pumping right now. So, yeah, I'm trying to stop the burps. I think we've made about three full hours of Confederate roasting in the last year of our show. And it is the we've covered two things that have had an incredibly vicious pushback on. Only two things, and that was anytime we talk about the Confederacy and PragerU. And it's kind of a toss-up, which one sent me more death threats.

I think the PragerU one did because they actually retweeted it and brought down a shitstorm on us, but made us $600 of T-shirt money, which i then donated to charity so fuck you yeah exactly what the shirt says yeah uh but the confederate ones are certainly the longest and most misspelled of the death threats um but if we're anything if not fair here on the dunk cast uh we will be shooting on the union uh but we're not like gonna both sides of this civil war thing uh fuck confederates fuck yeah we're still shit on them launch every single goddamn confederate statue into the sun fuck you i'm gonna piss on

your grave you have to do it the real reason the real problem with pissing on confederate gravestones is that you eventually run out of piss. That's very true. Yeah. Um, how many, how many gravestones do you think you can get through with a one piece ash? Uh,

like first waking up in the morning, I could like, if I just take my pants all the way off, start pissing and then break into a sprint, I could probably cover a solid company's worth of Confederate dead. Do you think you'd probably have to like kind of run off to the side a little bit yeah it had to be like a shuffle yeah yeah and a lot of that piece inside slides yeah a lot of those peas are is gonna hit me but it's like it's totally worth it yeah it's suicide p attack yeah uh now the battle of the crater is

interesting being one of the weirdest uh episodes of the War that I can think of, but also not really being covered by much of anything. It's been a character in a really bad romance movie called Cold Mountain starring Jude Law. It's also been the subject of a book by a renowned piece of shit, Newt Gingrich.

In reality, it's more of like a co-author credit because he does this a lot with a guy named William Forshton, who is actually a pretty talented author when he's not sucking Newt Gingrich's cock. So he just throws it on there for friendship? They're really good friends, which kind of makes me hate the fact that I like one of Forstian's books. I think it was called Year Zero or Minute Zero or something like that when it was about an EMP going off over the United States and kind of dropping the whole country into a post-apocalypse by destroying electronics.

It was a really good book that he turned into a series to make money. I know some Doomsday Preppers. Yeah. I mean, I don't know anything about turning a single book into a movie to make money i know some doomsday preppers yeah i mean i don't know anything about turning a single book into a movie to make money at all but um uh yeah he uh it increasingly turned into a really weird neo-confederate civil war circle jerk that's really strange um but the first book is good um but yeah um i feel like if one thing was going to have more pop culture around it, if we were going to make a good, weird movie about the Civil War, someone would do the Battle of the Crater. But whatever.

So the battle's background is the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee. So I know a lot of you are probably saying, Joe, he's generally, everybody knows him as general. There's even a car named after him. There's actually, he was only made a general by the Confederate government, meaning he was not promoted by a real government. He was a fake general. Yeah.

He was never really a general at all. And actually there's some credence to, he also didn't believe he was really a general because he never wore general rank. He, he, he only would have taken the the actual rank uh he wore colonel rank throughout the war and he said he'd put general rank on once the confederacy won and they didn't so fuck you yeah uh bitch um so anyway they were entrenched on petersburg virginia squaring off against the

union army of the potomac commanded by major general george meade under the direct supervision of our boy general ulysses s grant former really or future very bad president grant current drunk yeah uh there's there's a lot of debate around that if he really was a drunk or if that was something that was just inflated by his political enemies and i'm willing to bet after everything this guy went through there's a little bit of proof or a little bit of truth behind the rumor like the dude saw some shit yeah i totally believe it and i think there's also uh reports about him like suffering horrific nightmares from years at war so like he definitely drank a lot if you see his da photo i say this is i say this is somebody who is currently nursing

a hangover and drinking a beer i'm willing willing to bet Ulysses S. Grant drank more than I did. For sure. If you've seen his DA photo, then yeah, he drinks. Yeah, he looks like he's drunk. Him and William Tecumseh Sherman always look fucked up in every picture that they're in, which is awesome. Yeah, they said, did you try to come look presentable today? I Which is awesome. Yeah. They said. Did you try to come look. Like presentable today. I look great today. Okay.

Sir. You're not wearing any pants. Fuck pants. All right. That's also our shows. Yeah. So. Lions led by donkeys.

Fuck pants. Ulysses S. Grant. Yeah. Listen to us. Now. Petersburg made sense. To be the scene of a major battle. It was something of lynchpin in union strategy to take it it was a major railroad crossing four different rails crossed there and uh connected directly with the confederate capital of richmond uh so it was a

supply hub uh lee's army of northern virgin Virginia was almost entirely supplied through those railways, taking it an absolute must if anybody was finally going to destroy Lee's army. Moreover, after the Overland Campaign, where Grant and his army repeatedly kicked Lee in the dick and inflicted huge losses on both his and Lee's army, Grant realized that the only way he was finally going to crush Lee is if he crushed his supply base. And his dick. And his dick.

Crush that dick. The old dick twister. It has to be noted that Grant lost a ton of people during the Overland campaign as well. He lost a lot of men, material, supplies, everything. But the problem was the Union really did have a war machine kicking. So they could be replaced. And Lee's really couldn't. Doesn't sound too good for anybody enlisting.

No. War is just continuously old men killing young people and be like, it's working. Yeah. Grant would have got along fine as a general during World War I. Oh, for sure. Is this foreshadowing? Are we foreshadowing? Oh, yeah, definitely would have got along fine as a general during World War I. Oh, for sure. Wait, is this foreshadowing? Are we foreshadowing? Oh, yeah, definitely.

Okay, cool. Grant also, well, actually, there's one main difference between Grant and a World War I general. He threw his men against a fortified Confederate position a couple of times, like, I'm not going to do that anymore. That's stupid. I'd still give it some foreshadowing, but yeah, I totally agree. Yeah.

He wasn't that dumb. No, he was a much better gentleman. He ever would be a president. Oh yeah. Which just goes to show that sometimes some people are just really good at killing people and that's about it. I mean,

and we're not, this isn't a bio of Ulysses S. Grant, but his life was one of continuous failure until the civil war like he went bankrupt a couple times like lost businesses he was virtually on the streets when he got his commission like back into the army so like he's just really good at killing people that's sometimes it's all you need it shows well maybe he wasn't good at killing people but he was really good at telling people to kill people. Uh, the problem of,

of course was, um, the union army had actually almost captured Petersburg before, but Confederate general PGT Beauregard, whose full name, this is true, is actually Gustav, uh,

Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard. Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, he actually went by GT. Oh, GT. Sorry.

Yeah. Uh, he went by Gustav Toutant. No, no, no, GT. Oh, GT. Sorry. Yeah. He went by Gustav to taunt. No, no, no. Call me GT. I mean, if you're going to name a guy who is a prominent general in a slave master rebellion, this would be his name. It would be.

And he would say GT. Yeah. Just like the muscle car. So Beauregard had managed to hold Petersburg by the skin of his teeth. But during the Overland Campaign, Grant drove Lee directly into the city for reinforcing the city and digging in further, storming the city and taking it all impossible now. So, whoops.

Oh, well. Whoopsie doodle. Just got to throw some dudes at him. Grant's like, hmm, have we tried a human wave attack yes but we shall do again uh we'll do it again all right fine god damn it uh so now once the city was reinforced uh they began to entrench creating a large system of trenches and bulwarks lined with muskets, cannons, and sharpened sticks just in case the first two didn't run out. Now, it has to be pointed out that these trench lines are pretty goddamn impressive. Foreshadowing.

These lines would not look out of place in World War I. Yes. They were huge. They stretched like 20 miles. They built heavy timber. They had bomb-proof shelters. huge they stretched like 20 miles uh they're built like heavy timber they like bombproof shelters uh they even built like an ingenious system of chimneys so the soldiers could stay warm and cook food and not like clam fake their their fucking dugouts and kill themselves with smoke you know

that they had a few people die and they're like you know what oh yeah i need a fucking that only got implemented because some soldiers like fuck i'm hungry and started a goddamn cook fire in like a really small room and kill everybody in it yeah because they already smell too oh they smell terrible yeah these guys haven't bathed in months yeah they're wearing wool too oh god what what is the like what is the final boss of swamp ass like a monsoon ass yeah um. Old salami and dick cheese. God damn it. I hate you. Now, a few historians have pointed out that this battle and a few others like it as being either one of the first instances of field fortifications quickly outpacing military technology and tactics of the day, leading to another argument that the Civil War was either the last gasp of Napoleonic styles of warfare

or what we would now know as modern warfare, which is like, not the Call of Duty game. I'm not calling in a cruise missile on this fucking bunker. Yeah, the Confederates got a kill streak, and they just keep using all of their

rewards on slaves, and that's why they lost. UAV go. Uh, so, I mean, there's something to be said, uh, for that,

the vast majority of the officers who fought in the civil war, led the civil war and caused the civil war, um, were educated in like Napoleonicstyle warfare at West Point. Almost all of them went to West Point. Or what was the other one? VMI, the Virginia Military Institution. Yeah, which leads me to believe

maybe just burn VMI to the ground. Wasn't there a movie about one of the, I think... About VMI? A bunch of cadets? Oh, that was a school uh they took over their own school yeah it wasn't west point though those were like high school kids okay i don't know why i thought it was a really strange one of them because like one kid actually shoots somebody and everyone's like what the fuck man uh but yeah uh and you know that they advanced from napoleon x dells of war to what we would

see roll out eventually during like world war one and like the crimean war and shit like that all bad mostly um yeah anyway we're not here to debate military theory maybe that's what other shows do but you know whatever i don't even read that shit i don't care about military theory really at all um all these fortifications led to a problem for grant uh he had no idea how the hell he was going to take them over or get around them or what anything uh sir you see the problem is here uh they're in the ground yeah hold on what they they they dug a hole fuck we didn't plan for this what You can do this? What the?

We don't have to just stand here and square off with one another? Yeah. He's fucking cheating! Yeah. Now, Grant's tactics simply weren't up to the task, and it could be argued his soldiers really weren't either. I wouldn't be either. No, I'm still not. Yeah. No, I'm still not. Earlier that same year, the Battle of Cold Harbor happened, and Grant ordered his army to storm the fortified positions that the Confederates commanded.

It ended up being a total disaster. Union forces were easily repulsed, leaving behind nearly 12,000 dead and gaining him absolutely nothing. That's a lot. In his personal memoirs, Grant said that of all the orders he gave during the war the second order to assault cold harbor was the one he regretted the most so at least he understands that yeah grant seems to be a guy who definitely didn't really ever blink about sending people to die but he felt really bad about it afterwards which reminds me of a really bad joke um it's like america's wild because we'll send soldiers to invade

your homeland and then make movies about how killing you made a soldier sad. That's a lot of those movies. I wrote a whole book about it. Waiting for the movie. Me too. So is my bank account. Who would play you?

I hope Morgan Freeman. He's in everything. Well, he's getting kind of of old i don't think that's a solid one i would go for god i'm i already said morgan freeman you to play you no i mean that would be like that uh 517 to paris movie that they made that was starring the actual fucking shit that shit fucking shit. That shit was so bad. Clint Eastwood would direct your movie. No, there's no... Well, actually, Clint Eastwood would direct any movie that would give him an... which would then star himself that would only exist to give

him an excuse to show racial slurs at fucking brown people. That's the only reason why The Mule exists. The Mule only... Gran Torino? Gran Torino, he yells racial slurs for two and a half hours i haven't seen the mule yet it's really bad you've seen it i watched it on a flight back from iceland and it was like my only option and i turned it off you have a lot of options well i've seen

everything else and uh everything else is on the list and i watched it for about 30 minutes and mind you my only other option there was staring blankly at the seat in front of me. I turned it off and stared at the seat in front of me. You just looked at the little animation of the plane going past another dot. Yep. Closer. That's a better movie than The Mule. We're closer.

So with Cold Harbor fresh in Grant's mind, the siege of Petersburg fell into a stalemate with neither side really willing or able to force the other one to do much of anything this one for months and there was like little uh side battles that happened uh that grant attempted to make them pull resources a different way to see if he could create a gap one of them was called the battle of the deep bottom i just had i just had to bring that up the deep we'll call this battle the Dookie Maker. Yeah. We name that something else. Nope.

It's official. It's already in the dispatches. God damn it. Fuck. Enter one Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasance. Pleasance was actually born in Argentina and didn't move to the US until he was 13. And unlike most white people whose family moved to Argentina, this before World War II so you don't have to be suspicious nice, nice, good sneak

after that he moved to Philly and what else did people in Philly do at the time? He became a coal miner, I mean no really what do people in Philly do other than like boo Santa Claus, scream racial slurs there's no jobs in Philly, all you do is walk around do people in Philly do? Other than boo Santa Claus, scream racial slurs, There's no jobs in Philly. All you do is walk around the streets of Philly. Clean it up with your mouth. Eat Philly cheesesteaks, yell about pork rolls. Pleasance was under the idea that the Civil War

was actually over what kind of cheese you put on a sandwich. Cheese whiz, bitch. Cheese whiz. Prove alone. And then somewhere like the volunteer regiment from new york has to bring in someone from new jersey as an interpreter is that i can't understand the fuck this guy is saying they're both they're both shitting on each other we don't know what to do sir what's he saying uh he's just spelling the word eagles repeatedly i feel like we should just burn this place to the ground. That's now the second time in this episode I've volunteered to just burn something to the ground immediately.

The Civil War will do that to you. Yeah. Anyway, Pleasance got married and became a civil engineer for the local mining industry. He eventually got married to Sarah Bannon, who died pretty much immediately from an unknown illness. They like almost immediately after he was married that she died. Now, according to some of his friends, he wrote

letters saying that he wished to join the army in 1861 because he really wanted to die in combat and rejoin his wife in the afterlife. So depressing. Imagine like a... I'm not laughing at his wife dying, I promise. No. But like imagine a rousing speech by this guy.

So, sir, what are we supposed to do? We're going to go die, boys. Huh. That's not very uplifting. Sir, we're just training right now. We're not even fighting. Shut up and shoot at each other. Uh, okay.

Everybody will join my wife in the afterlife. Sir, we'd really like to not do that. Let's go die, okay. Everybody will join my wife in the afterlife. Sir, we'd really like to not do that. Let's go die, everybody. He's on it with the dying thing again. You can literally just fall on your own sword or drink the water. Sir, have you tried committing suicide so the rest of us can live? You shouldn't be commanding us at all. Like, I can't imagine what my commander would have been like in the lead up to

Afghanistan. He's like, alright guys, we're gonna go over there and we're just gonna die. That's the only thing I really want to do to finish my mission. You have sappy plates in? Why? What are you, some kind of pussy? It's pleasant just going over a chugging water out of rivers full of corpses.

Why won't I die? The first one's like, please take i die like the first one's like please take me down god damn it's like get the soldiers away get the soldiers away and this was that like a lack of trying that this man managed to survive uh he became an officer in the 48th pennsylvania volunteer infantry and that sounds like a shit it managed he managed to survive the battles of antietam second bull run f, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness. Maybe he just should have wanted to live and he would have died.

Yeah, the whole time he's like, God damn it. He just pulls himself. I'm still alive, what the fuck? It's like, it's a scene, he just pulls himself out of a pile of corpse. He's like, please, for the love of God, take me, death.

I wonder if the Confederates saw him and were like, let him live. Why is that man crying constantly? Don't shoot for that one he looks sad uh by the time of uh the battle petersburg he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and was now in charge of his entire regiment so you see uh you still have limbs yeah yeah you got commanded by default well we killed all the other officers please kill me no mr pleasance we need you to command the regiment. You're so funny, sir. You're in charge. Please just kill me. Now, like

Pleasance, many of the men, and also his name is Pleasance, and he had to be the most Debbie Downer motherfucker to ever exist. Oh, yeah. He wasn't pleasant at all. He was terrible at parties. Hey, you want a drink? I'd really like to die. My wife is dead. Have I told you about how I really want to see my wife again?

I carry her with me, but... Did you bring anything? I brought Zima. Oh, all right. It's basically Sprite. It's spicy Sprite. Yeah. Now, like Pleasence, many men of his regiments had come from the coal mines.

That was when Pleasence went to his commanding officer, Major General Ambrose Burnside, with a hell of a good idea for Ariana's shoulders. So, here's my theory on the unit of coal miners. They're like the Charlie Brown character where they just have soot following them around everywhere they march. I assume they look like the naked coal miners from the Chernobyl

miniseries all the time. Did you shower? Yes, I did. Oh, oh okay i just kind of look like this uh now he wanted his infantry regiment full of plucky miners to tunnel across no man's land directly underneath the confederate trenches and fill the entire fucker with explosives blowing it up so it's like uh the end of Incredibles. Sure. Though I imagine this whole thing would be easier if Pleasance had superpowers,

then he could use them to kill himself in a spectacular way. The concept of tunnel warfare is nothing new. It goes all the way back to the days of ancient Greece, where people would try to tunnel underneath cities during sieges. And then the besieged people would attempt to tunnel out and meet them and stab each other underground. Could you imagine the first time they tried doing this and how many errors they had to go through with tunneling?

Also, yeah, because this is hundreds of years later and there's dedicated coal mines now. And in ancient Greece, they're like, fuck it it just dig a really huge hole and that's when they find out oh god there's no oxygen under here hey sir should we keep using our swords uh yes what the fuck else are you gonna use

a shovel uh in one account Philip of Macedon simply lied to a town that he had besieged that there was he had built a tunnel under their walls Macedonian army in part to war and they just surrendered through the fear of Macedon simply lied to a town that he had besieged that he had built a tunnel under their walls. The Macedonian army in Empire Total War. And they just surrendered through the fear of having a tunnel built under their walls.

That's not a tactic in Empire Total War. It should be. It really should be. That'd be the fucking shit. During the siege battles? Oh, man. Maybe one day they'll make another Empire Total War that won't suck. After the invention of gunpowder, people began to fill these sons of bitches up to this uh to the brim and explode them this became such a worry that places like the kremlin and moscow had a purpose-built hearing tunnel that was uh dug

under the city where a guy would just sit in it and listen for people moscow yeah yeah like the kremlin how deep was this tunnel it's pretty big i mean he was just sitting there just somebody's job was to sit there and listen for people it's a super dark tunnel i imagine you don't they would open the hole and they get the small light like they enlisted the fucking mole people yeah they throw down food like slop like feeding time and then they forgot about him he's still under they eventually just sealed the tunnel up with him still inside. I've been serving under here for 80 years. Oh, God.

Oh, no. Oh, this is a dangerous hole. Pleasant's idea was pretty simple. Blow a big asshole in the Confederate line and then rush it with the gap that it created with infantry. My favorite version of this is World War I, watching a few documentaries on it where they throw giant torpedoes of like explosives into a tunnel like they'd use like stethoscopes and they'd be able to hear the next tunnel be like yeah let's blow them up yeah yeah it's just counter-tunneling which is really crazy to think about yeah it is like imagine like your job is to dig at them imagine if i started from my house to get here it It would take a very long time. It would. You don't have an infantry regiment at your disposal. I have

a dog. Yeah, and she's not very good at it. Well, she's pretty good at digging. She fucked up my backyard. Your dog helped. Now, when Grant and Meade were told of the plan, they actually thought it was kind of dumb. But they let the soldiers get to

work on their tunnel in June anyway. Not for any real strategic purpose. Grant thought the tunnel would be a great idea because, quote, it would be a good mere way to keep men occupied, which is the most army thing to have ever happened. Holy shit. Well, we can't figure out how to attack the Confederates. And our soldiers are just sitting around here

probably fucking shooting themselves on accident. They're throwing rocks into a hat. In a circle. We can't have that. Have them dig a hole. Sir, what do you want the soldiers... Fucking dig a hole. Now, Pleasance and his army of miners got to work,

but they quickly realized... The coal mining. Yeah, they quickly figured the coal mining yeah they quickly figured out that nobody really gave a shit now building a mine requires things like you know wood for buttresses and things like shovels and pickaxes they didn't have any of that they uh the first thing they had to do was make their own mining tools out of fucking uh cracker tins that's not the best mining tool. They had to find wood and beg, borrow, and steal it because pretty much as soon as they started building, Grant stopped supporting them.

But dig that tunnel. Yeah, just make it happen. Grant is the most army man to have ever existed. It's awesome. He's the inventor of the good idea fairy. Oh, God. Now, they had to find wood that would be used for things like shelters and reinforcing the actual trench lines at the front so they were these like literally

cannibalizing their defenses to build a big meaningless hole how do you get away with that i don't know i figure if i was like in a position and like a whole bunch of angry philly dudes came up and tried to steal a wall, I'd be pretty fucking upset. Yeah, because you won and you can't understand them. Yeah, I don't have my fucking guy from Pittsburgh nearby to translate for me or whatever. Yeah. They're using privates as supports in the tunnel.

Just jamming people into the side. Yeah. Fuck it, just hold up the dirt with your head. He has wood. It's only a stick. it it's ours now yeah uh now because like i've pointed out this is an actual army of miners the tunnel ended up being pretty goddamn impressive it also included an air exchange system uh so it wouldn't have so they wouldn't have to uh build ventilation shafts in the middle of no man's land and give up the like give up the game that they were playing with the Confederates. So they had to

light fires to force air in a certain direction. It was pretty smart. So it's better than my theory of how they did it. I think they just had one giant chain of one guy at one end of the tunnel, and then open mouth kissing and blowing air into the next guy going all the way to the end.

A human chain of open mouth kissing? It's almost like human centipede, if you will. Oh, God. Just don't try to use your ass. Honestly, of all the things you've said on this show. That's the smartest one. And somehow that one has given me the most visceral picture in my head. Yeah, because the guy on the end gets all like the, oh, it's almost like, oh, it's like the gold miners where they try to get the gold at the end. He gets all the guy on the end gets all like the oh it's almost like oh it's

like the gold miners where they try to get the gold at the end he gets all the shit at the end he gets like teeth fucking leftover chewing tobacco don't puke don't puke we need the oxygen oh god um you got me shook man i thought you already were shook from the hangover yeah that doesn't help uh so all this work for secrecy so like uh not building the the ventilation shafts and like very covertly hiding all the dirt that they're pulling up from the earth uh was completely pointless because the confederates picked up on the mining pretty pretty quick really uh yeah how uh i think it just says a rumor started spreading how the fuck does that spread i mean there's a good there's a good chance that like the dead of the night they heard them digging or like they the miners would come out from their shift in the end

of the tunnel it's a long tunnel fuck yeah i'm really tired from digging that really big tunnel and the guy all the way to the end of it. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. And then, of course, that's what Philly is for. They just fucking say shit. Dumb. They really Phillied that one.

The Philly special is actually just getting shot by Confederates. So, rumors began spreading within the Confederate lines of a possible tunnel coming towards them uh for no good reason whatsoever and uh it was immediately passed to general lee himself um sir they're trying to play whack-a-mole uh there's a big goddamn tunnel under our feet sir and then lee did absolutely nothing with that information exactly because you have the upper hand at whack-a-mole you have the upper hand at Whack-A-Mole. You have the hammer. Once their head pops up, use your rifles to bat them down.

This is simple. I heard if I put a male's dog's pee in a tunnel, it stops the Union boys from coming through it. Like with a mole. You get it? I don't know what the fuck you just said. Because they're mole people. The whole southern accent threw it all off uh now uh lee didn't do anything in

this information for two fucking weeks uh afterwards he ordered a counter mining operation which went absolutely nowhere got lost and then quit just quit it like yeah well fuck it i've i've mined far enough away from the lines where the lieutenant can't see me anymore oh they put all the fucking E4 confederate assholes on it this is our napping tunnel I gotta get away from my cousin brother lieutenant husband then their tunnel collapsed on them

good good three days after the union miners complete, Grant and Meade ordered the motherfucker to be packed to the gills with explosives. This included 320 kegs of gunpowder, which is around 8,000 pounds. That's a lot of kegs.

If you think about it, last night, the taproom went through 15 kegs that we were just at. Jesus Christ. I wonder how many of those would be. It feels like at least one of them. So they went through 15 kegs. I can only imagine what a

Philadelphia infantry unit can throw in there. 320 kegs of gunpowder. Now, this was only 20 feet below Confederate lines. So it was pretty close. 20 feet. Now, the problem, of course, being that these were

just kegs of loose gunpowder. They weren't shaped charges. They they weren't like it wasn't a bomb uh so there's no way to direct the explosives so pleasance had to figure out a way to do that himself and just packed a whole bunch of dirt at the end of it so i think he'd want to sit in the mine as it goes off like he's just like ride it yeah he's just like all right go ahead set it off sir you're still down there finally i know i'm gonna see my sweet sarah now just blow me into the goddamn afterlife i just think every time he gets the chance he's just a pussy about it right well he's too big of a coward to kill himself so he shouldn't get other people do with it but he's obviously the goddamn like everybody in the army

because whenever we go to the range or anything like that and they're in the field we're like fuck i want to kill myself then once we get the chance we get the real bullets we don't do it i mean statistically you do more than anybody else it's true it's very it's quite depressing yes uh now pleasance actually uh was kind of uh he pulled it out of his ass and figured it out like he wasn't exactly an eod guy like he was an explosives expert yeah they called an e him EOD. Yeah, there was no EOD. You think they finally came hours after in their fucking EOD carriage? We need the tunnel

to explode at this specific time. They show up nine hours late in their EOD carriage wearing the cool guy fucking Union uniform. They're dressed like zwabs with really big beards like, hey, we heard you guys called it no we figured it out guys you can fucking leave now

backwards union cap and shit somehow it's still a it's a velcro union flag on it so I'm making a coffee business when I get out yeah it's gonna be really racist too so I hope the confederacy wins oh

man we just ruined the civil war with vet bros yeah imagine the shitty uh like veteran apparel that would have come out of the civil war it'd be so bad i didn't fuck my cousin on the hills of antietam to give these black people freedom buy our wool shirts now uh he he got the blast to go off where he needed by piling dirt uh behind so didn't explode backwards into union lines which he's which would have been fucking hilarious the union accidentally suicide bombed the confederacy what's he what's he saying i believe he's saying allahu akbar sir oh that's weird yeah it's really weird.

Now. They in preparation for the coming assault, General Burnside had a division of the United States Colored Troops. That was their name. As racist as it is under the command of one general, Edward Fierro, to begin special training for their upcoming mission. Now, side note here about our boy Ferrero. General Ferrero was a man who, and this is true, was not a career military officer. He was instead the West Point Academy's dance instructor.

Yes. And the author of the book, The Art of Dancing. He made so much money teaching dance to the upper class of New York City that when the Civil War started, he simply bought his own regiment. All they did was square dance back then. That's all they did. I mean, white people suck at dancing now. Imagine how bad they were in the 1800s.

Exactly. That's why all they do is square dance. They can't do anything else. Just grinding at each other's genitals in wool pants. I imagine at the time, square dancing, you're not allowed to touch the other partner because back then. Now, to make this even worse, the regiment he purchased and stood up was the 51st New York Volunteers. And he was simply put in charge of it by the federal government. How much does it cost to stand up a unit? I could probably afford to do it.

I mean, if I had as much money as I did in the 1800s, I would not be a crippling poverty. I would actually be quite rich. I don't know who would want to spend money on to build, like, stand up a unit. Someone who really wants rank. Because they got, like, militia commissions, which weren't technically real. Like, they were just given colonel, given general, shit like that. But they weren't federal real um like they were just given colonel given general shit like that but they weren't federal army officers they fell they fell under the united states army uh but it was a really weird convoluted system of like where the weird backward militia system that america had up

until that point kind of tried to work with a federalized army for the first time and it really didn't work and that's why it died off after that right um but yeah he just kind of purchased himself colonel rank which is pretty common back then is the buyer commission totally i mean that's why so many goddamn officers during every war ever were like lawyers and doctors and shit every war ever um a good example is uh like world war one like half of like yale and harvard's graduating classes went and died in the trenches because they all purchased commission which is by the way a really good way to get rid of bad people uh dying in the trenches yeah yeah uh you know if that happened to yale and harvard's graduating classes more often the world would probably be a better place go to the western

front it's 2019 we have an arrangement with the french they're gonna put you in a hole in machine and Harvard's graduating classes more often. The world would probably be a better place. Go to the Western Front. It's 2019. We have an arrangement with the French. They're going to put you in a hole in machine gunny with a show show. Yeah. Oh, okay. Get fucked.

Yeah. We even have a guy dressed up in World War I uniform to make it really authentic. So he's suffering too? Yes, he is actually. He's actually a volunteer. Yeah, he's actually a volunteer.

He's very excited. Yeah. It turns out he is from Africa, and most of you guys end up graduating and getting spook-related jobs in the United States government and drop drone strikes on his villages. So he really wants to shoot you. Now, a shocking twist of just about everything in American history up to that point. The soldiers of the USCT were made the main fighting force for the mission. Now, up until this point, the USCT, which is

black soldiers led by white officers, had not really been used for combat despite the fact that they were told specifically upon enlisting they'd get a chance to fight Johnny Reb. And they never got a chance because of racism, mostly. Now, they thought it would be ungentlemanly to send black people into combat because they couldn't fight as good as white people well yeah when you have ferris bueller

leading you it's honestly you need to go to battle glory's a really good movie and not about the battle of the crater it's not but can you take Ferris Bueller as a leader? Ferris Bueller killed a guy in Ireland once, so maybe. Have you ever heard about that? No. Yeah, he got in a drunk driving accident and killed someone and just kind of paid a fine and went home.

What? Yeah. Did he have the same stupid goatee? I hope so. I feel like any drunk drive murderer is probably some douchebag with a goatee. I think he paid like 800 bucks and just kind of went home. What a douche.

Yeah. Yep. The world is not equal when you have Ferris Bueller money. I think it was directly after the Ferris Bueller movie came out, too. I can't believe you called him Ferris Bueller. I don't remember his real name. Neither do I. It's so forgettable.

Why is it so forgettable? Now, their job would be to exploit the gap that would be made in Confederate lines after the... Oh, yes, their thigh gap. The Confederacy certainly does not have a thigh gap. Not with fucking the kind of food that they're eating. Well, they might towards the end of the war because of crippling starvation. might towards the end of the war because they're fucking dying it's crippling starvation oh man uh so yeah the the tunnel would explode and then the usct boys would go running through i would hate to run through this i got that must smell like shit oh god i hate you uh now for like for civil war time uh the usct soldiers actually went to went through a lot of training beforehand. That's good.

They drilled how to place the footbridges to cross over trenches. They drilled how to assault around the crater that would be formed. They drilled what I guess we now know as Battle Drill 1 Alpha. And the airmovers were just assaulting a fortified position. They did fucking glass houses. Yeah. It was an obscene amount of, and only like a couple days, but like that's way more than you normally get.

So true. They're doing it with muskets and shit. Yeah. And then, the day before their fateful assault, General Meade changed his mind about the idea of using black soldiers as such an important part of an operation. Now, this is generally put up as he was worried about the political ramifications

if it failed, because then a large number of black soldiers would die and it would look like we just freed black people and then threw them to death yeah yeah which i mean they did that's exactly why they freed black people but like they didn't want they don't want to say the quiet part out loud right because they're the union but it really is is just racism. Meade himself thought that the black soldiers couldn't fight as well as the white soldiers. And the idea that he was worried about losing black soldiers is kind of obscene when you think about it. Because in the Civil War, the black soldiers were much more statistically higher likely to die than white soldiers. die than white soldiers. Now, obviously, much fewer number of black soldiers

died than white soldiers because of people like General Meade and not wanting to use them in combat. But statistically, you're much more likely to die if you're a black guy than a white guy because 1800s America just had to keep getting worse. You think Pleasants tried doing blackface to die?

Oh, God. I'm pretty sure everybody in the Union Army was totally fine to blackface. I imagine so, but I imagine Pleasants are like, they have a higher rate of dying. I want to die. He should have just commanded a USCT unit, but nope. Maybe he just should have drank fucking mud water. Drink literally any water and you'll die of some horrible wasting disease,

like everybody else around you that probably didn't help that general Fiero agreed that his soldiers probably shouldn't be the spearhead of the attack he shouldn't be at the spearhead of the attack well that's what it came down to that's what their training also was they also had to learn how to pirouette

get the numbers down right while they're learning how to assault trenches he's like, this is bullshit. None of them can even dance. Yes. None of them have tempo. None of them have rhythm. They're not ready for the main stage, sir.

They're planning to attack a trench line. But look at that plie. It's bullshit. Now, Fiero was much more likely just didn't want to be in combat. Totally agree. And he was also a huge racist so that probably had something to do with it um so it should be pointed out that um most of the white officers put in the usct command positions were kind of thought of as pieces of shit because

nobody wanted that command so fiero didn't get that position by being a good officer right so you think almost like shitbag officers got put in that unit? I mean, it could be something as little as pissing off the wrong people. Okay. But it was not considered a favorable command to have. Mostly because, you know, this was the gentlemanly warfare and they wanted to go out and get glory and all that shit. And people were too racist to use black soldiers in combat. And it was thought of as like a lesser command. glory and all that shit and people were too racist to use black soldiers in combat so and

it was thought of as like a lesser command so yeah if you're definitely which is obviously not true um i mean black soldiers prove themselves on time and time time and time again throughout history uh but you know it's it's the union army during the civil. They're not going to be very woke. Very true. And also the Army continued to be incredibly racist to the current day. So there's that. Now, the problem was when Fierro said that his

soldiers shouldn't take the spearhead position. Nobody else really wanted it. Nobody volunteered. Not a single commander stepped forward and was like, my men will do it instead i wouldn't volunteer no i wouldn't either uh alec baldwin would i don't think he would that's very very strange pearl harbor just came into my head i don't know why i hate that movie so much we need to watch it uh general burnside uh decided that he would select the uh the person to command the

attack by having them draw lots uh the winner or loser if you happen to fall into one of these idiots commands was general james ledley who decided he didn't even need to learn about the attack at all uh he didn't go to his briefing and did not tell his soldiers but they're what they were supposed to be doing which you might remember the usct guys had just trained for hours to do all that training for no reason he just kind of wandered off to a bomb uh for uh to a bomb shelter and hung out do you think they probably like fucked him over with the straws like give him the smallest straw uh not if this guy not if they wanted him to not if they wanted the attack to succeed um because lidley had previously been noted for incompetence

if they wanted to succeed I would imagine somebody would have been like you know what I'll step up I have a good unit he also ran away from his men and left them out to die at Cold Harbor which got him in zero trouble but his men all remember it nobody really seemed to care about that

the plan for the mine was to be blown between 3.30 and 3.45 AM, but Pleasance was, once again, giving shitty material, and his fuse hardly worked, making the bomb go off an hour later than scheduled. Maybe he was sitting down

there an hour before, like, when will this shit fucking blow up? And it only finally went off when he left. Yeah, when he left it just, boom, he's like, fuck. Boiled again. Yeah. A mushroom cloud erupted from underneath the Confederate lines, blowing a 120

foot wide, 30 foot deep crater into the ground and vaporizing around 278 Confederate soldiers. Men who weren't killed by the explosion were buried alive in their sleep. Fuck yeah. Fuck those guys. Yeah, this should happen more often. Fuck yeah. Uh, soldiers, yeah, this should happen more often. Oh yeah.

Just give you the Houdini treatment. Uh, a soldier serving with the 118th New York regiment said, quote, the fort was blown up into the air. It was a splendid sight. John, John Haley of the 17th Maine said,

quote, the earth and heaven were rent by an explosion, which would have done credit to several thunderstorms. That one's kind of suck. That one's kind of lame. I liked the first one. one, Quote, the earth and heaven were rent by an explosion, which would have done credit to several thunderstorms. That one's kind of sucky. That one's kind of lame. I like the first one. One of the Confederates near Ground Zero said, quote, the first jar felt I felt as though I was a bomb was lit under my bomb proof roof.

And then I lit into the ditch, came another blast, and God only knows it sent me high. I spread out my wings to see if I could fly. But the first thing I knowed, I was back on top of the works. Yeah, yeah. Also, if you ever try to fly away from an explosion, you probably have a pretty mean concussion. He does. Or he had it before.

Maybe he's just stupid. The Confederate diaries just get worse. This one was written, and I'm going to try to read this the best I can. Can you do two things? One, do your best Confederate accentate accent okay go all right quote jw callahan was killed by the blowed up of the breastworks he was buried within the dirt dirt is spelled d-i-r by the way uh as i spell it when they found him he was standing straight up in the ditch and the 100 kilton buried by the explosion he spoke kilt with like a k-i-l-t k-i-l-d oh okay sorry uh the men who are not

killed outright or buried alive were stunned and confused because you know god just punched a hole in the earth dirt in their eyes nobody wants that i think that's the least of their worries like oh they ruined my uniform yeah I can only imagine what they thought uh and this is when the it should be known this is when the union was supposed to attack uh but since the units and the commanders had been switched out nobody had any

idea what to do Ledley waited a full 10 minutes before finally ordering his men to attack the crater what a fucking asshole uh also because they were untrained they did not bring foot bridges so they would have to climb up and down each and every trench line they came across uh through union lines did you see the movie that this was kind of like not i'm not gonna say based on but there was a scene where this mountain no i try not to watch movies with jula on it

so there's a scene personal policy that i have where they show the union soldiers all laying down before the first trench, kind of like, you know, secret, like, oh, we're about to fucking go in here and fuck their shit up once it blows up. Yeah, I imagine that didn't happen. No, it didn't happen at all. I imagine they're all just chilling and they're like, holy fuck, there's a giant explosion. General Ledley saying that we need to attack.

Attack what? Oh, the crater? Fuck, okay. I'm still eating. Yeah. yeah now i guess we can wait 10 minutes yeah yeah let let your food digest guys you know what they say attacking a trench on a full stomach's how you get cramps do they this is like the first time we ever heard the word trenches ever now the black soldiers had been trained to run around the crater and press the attack into the broken confederate lines smart the white soldiers ran uh into the area and thought hey that crater

looks like a solid rifle pit and jumped right into it stopping the advance entirely god damn it which remember was the whole goddamn point of this exercise yep they just went from one trench into the other and then stopped moving why people keep just ruining everything history is just one continuous chain of white people fucking people over it is uh this great this gave the confederates time to get their shit together because they were dazed if they pressed the attack there's a good chance it would have succeeded um yeah once the confederates were done being confused that they were like for some reason they started choking each other cause they were both brown, but it was from the dirt that was on their face. Like,

Oh, you're Cletus. Oh, I'm so sorry. I was choking. You were brown there for a second. I only ever choke black people. I don't know what I'm doing here.

Uh, yeah. Fucking ass. So they waited long enough for them to get their shit together and launch a counterattack. This would have been difficult, uh, as most had no idea what was happening, as their brains had been turned into gravy by a giant bomb. But thankfully...

Country gravy, too. Yes, it was definitely instant powder gravy. But thankfully, the Union forces made this way easier by simply jumping into a giant crater and waiting there. Perfect. Yeah. The rebel soldiers directed all their rifle and artillery fired directly into the hole. We have a super trench.

He with the biggest trench wins the war. And Confederate General William Mahoney called the whole thing a turkey shoot. So, also, glad you didn't watch the movie. I suggest watching just the few battle scenes that have to do with crater. Does Jude law die in it? Honestly, I didn't notice Jude law through any of the fighting, which is good.

There's a Indian that fights with the Confederates. Of course, the Confederates aren't racist. We have a native American. Exactly. See, he's our friend. He's one of the good ones.

He's throwing fucking rifles with bayonets on them. Like the, like their spears down into the pit. Why doesn't he the guns i don't know i was thinking i was like what the fuck this is greatly upsetting to me like here hand me another rifle what is he doing well i i guess he's just throwing them like spears that he does know their guns right yeah he says he likes it better this way and then at one point he grabs his knives and fucking just jumps straight into the pit and I was just like what the fuck

so oh that's so dumb please watch it now this is if you're in command you cut your losses and retreat the element of surprise is gone the attack was stalled and now everybody in your command was dying. But that

isn't what happened. Instead, Burnside ordered Fiero's USCT soldiers into the attack. Now, remember, they were trained as they're going to be advancing as undercover. There's going to be surprise. Well, all that's gone. All these guys are confused. They don't know what the fuck's going on. All that's gone.

So as the soldiers are running into battle, the Confederates begin pouring rounds into them as they run across no man's land uh the flanking fire was so intense they had to run to the first cover they could find which was oh my god the crater they ran directly into the crater you know one thing that movie does depict pretty well is how gruesome it could have looked. All these confederates just firing down in the crater. What the fuck are you going to do in the crater? Firing midi balls at a very close range just tearing arms off and shit.

That fucking sucks. Now if you're wondering why Ledley and Fiera would allow their men to act this way or not change the attack ideas change their plan, do ideas. Change their plan. Do something. Do literally anything. It's because neither of them

were anywhere near their men. They couldn't even see the battle, nor were they issuing any orders to subordinate commanders. They instead sat on a bench in a shelter getting drunk off rum while thousands of their men were blown to pieces.

Watch me, Pirouette. Watch this. Hold the rum. Check out this fucking sweet move, man. You're stumbling. You're stumbling. It's Pirouette. Trust me. I literally wrote a book about this. Yeah, they didn't

do shit. Every decision that was made in the field was made by other subordinate commanders pulling shit out of their ass that's pretty cool yeah uh finally union soldiers realized they were fucked and nothing was going to change that so they retreated or at least they attempted to uh but now the confederates are in position uh if you try to climb your way to have a crater and run back across no man's land it's a really good way to get slaughtered uh so many of them turned back around ran right back into the crater they had nowhere to go it's a lose-lose yeah all told nearly 8 000 union soldiers were not trapped that's a giant crater full of a lot

of dudes that's a big fucking hole a lot of dudes i mean also like you just keep rising to the top uh because you're standing on the backs of eight other people who died. Oh God. That is when they assaulted the Confederate positions to the right of the crater, fighting the rebels in hand to hand combat for hours. And by all accounts, both sides executed everybody. Like if you try to surrender or were wounded, you immediately got a band to the face,

which I mean, yeah. But one thing it does remind me of the movie lincoln the first scene the best part of the whole movie don't know why i watched it i've watched it a few times don't know why i watched it a few times either it's a really long movie it is one of them was during school first uh scene was one of the union soldiers drowning a confederate soldier the movie should have just been two hours of that it would have been awesome uh now according to union soldier named josiah cutchen which is just about the most civil war name ever fucking gravy in his canteen there was there was so much

blood in the trenches that was up to the soles of his shoes oh god john sale said it's a lot of blood and everybody could have started from the works and walked to theirs without touching their foot to the ground but by stepping from body to body which you know what that means return of the corpse road that's like back again baby that's fucking metal

I'm putting on death paint right now I said it wrong I gotta go full Ken Burns And everybody could have started from their works And walked to theirs without touching their foot to the ground But by stepping from body to body Josiah Cutchin 1861 It almost reminded me of Corpse Road

Heads bashing and bashing Uh Yeah uh soldiers of the USCT Were reported cheering no quarter for the rebels And then bayoneting confederates if they came Fucking badass Absolutely uh yeah uh soldiers of the usct were reported sharing no quarter for the rebels and then banning confederates if they came with us absolutely and like no fucking shit like people talk about this as well the usct execute confederate wound of course they fucked them what the fuck you literally own them as property like a week ago fuck you how is that even how do

you use that how do you try to defend that yeah like a lot of the guys in us and the usct were uh runaway slaves so like uh i think um i think morgan friedman's character in glory uh was a runaway slave as well or like they were born in in bondage and later later ran away or their family was still in bondage. Like, of course they fucking executed you. This is like, I can't believe those fine Jewish men stabbed the SS officer. After all, after how well we treated you, you're just going to execute me right here in this trench. Yes.

Yes, we are. I've literally been waiting my whole life for this moment. Do you remember that time I gave you one less lashing than I was supposed to? Remember when I fed you and I put you into a chicken coop to live in? It's because I loved you. Like, I love my car. Bane, stab, stab, stab. Stab him in the fucking mouth hole.

That was as far as the Union advance would go. Numerous Confederate reinforcements bulwarked the areas where the union forces were uh making their gains now uh this is this is done because that's what commanding an army looks like and the confederate armies uh were actually in command of not drunk officers maybe or if they were drunk they still showed up to work fiero and fucking fuck is still trying to show them like here's how you square dance all right start with your left your left you leave with your left yeah and meanwhile confederate generals are actually doing their job and killing just like a ton of union soldiers yeah um now it should be pointed out that everything that the union army

achieved of which was very little but uh anything that they did do in the crater was better than they had any business doing whatsoever uh everything they came up with was pulled out their ass because they had been completely abandoned by their own leadership so like credit where credit's due yeah uh with just a bunch of junior leaders randomly throwing out ideas in the middle of a hole full of corpses they still managed to capture two lengths of confederate trenches and hold them for hours they even managed to threaten one of the main objectives a nearby crossroads. They were really close I can only imagine how they tried doing this battle plan like probably for junior officers and they had a

Like a dead dude's back that they were drawing on like drawing They're just drawing on it with a knife. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, scribble it off. Get me a different corpse! Yeah. It was only a matter of time before the tides would change and the Confederates would finally bring down the hammer. Mahoney ordered an Alabamian and a Virginian regiment into the fray and turned the Union's western flank. I just assume that they're running into battle

chanting, well tied! Well tied! They fucking really are. The regiments had reportedly been in very good spirits and morale was sky high. Not because they were winning a battle or that the Union was caught in a slaughter, but because they learned that they were fighting black people and

wanted to kill as many as they could. Civil War wasn't about slavery though. No, states rights to own people's property. Fuck them. This ended up being the final assault the union forces just couldn't hold on any longer and ran for their lives unfortunately as they escaped the crater they once again ran directly into deadly crossfire and artillery bombardment as they had apparently forgotten what they had run from before uh i mean also they didn't really

have much of a choice yeah um it's like i like my odds running from musket fire out of the hole do you think pleasance is still alive just going like none of these fucking mini balls are fucking hitting me oh pleasant survived yeah he's pissed off right now the whole war he's pissed off i know he is uh many simply tossed on their weapons and surrendered when they could but if you were black that was a very bad idea because they were almost all executed uh at around 1 p.m the whole thing was over around 500 union soldiers were killed 1800 wounded and another 1400 went missing only 361 confederates were killed and if you remember that almost 300 were vaporized and the bomb went off nothing yeah almost everybody on the confederate side that was killed was killed in the immediate aftermath of the blast

and very few were killed during the attack. Oh my god. Many of the surviving Union soldiers watch as Confederates cheer, the Yankees have surrendered! And then immediately start banning black people that they found. Because that's what Confederates do. Fucking scumbags. Many Confederate officers noted

in their journals that they are shocked to be fighting black soldiers and thought that the union must be desperate and they were forced to fight by union leadership and called it immoral they can say that yeah because like they were they had this really weird mental gymnastics

going on where they could not bear the idea of like Friedman wanting to raise arms against a slave master rebellion. The hamster was trying to turn the wheel on their head. They were just like, fuck, it's really rusty.

This also had an interesting effect in raising the morale of the beleaguered Confederate army. Not that they've won, but because they were racist as fuck. You see, by sending black soldiers against them, it ingrained in their head that black men can fight meaning their slaves might rebel against

them it reinforced what they were fighting for a racist paradise where black people would never be able to resist the racial hierarchy that had been forced onto them like they were like if we don't win this is what this is going to look like yeah if only it ended up being that awesome

and like, yeah, reconstruction failed miserably, but yeah. Now you're probably wondering what happened to the terrible Union commanders who sent their soldiers to die while they were getting hammered on rum.

Well, General Fierro, the dance master, was promoted to major general in December of the same year. See, he impressed them with his dancing. And in his promotion,

his bravery and meritorious service were noted. You're fucking stomping the yard on the fucking Confederate soldiers was so badass. Your dance is straight fire. It's brave. He never suffered any blowback for throwing his entire regiment to the wolves and opened the now famous Apollo Theater,

then known as the Apollo Hall. Yep. Theo, you're so fucking bad ass. I'm willing to bet he wrote that himself. Now for his drinking buddy, Ledley, he was brought before a board of inquiry alongside Burnside, who had

orders or charges brought against him by General Meade. Ledley also never really faced any serious repercussions. The only one who really did was Burnside, and he was not at fault. This is despite the fact it was Meade's fault the entire plan went to shit in the first place. Burnside would never command

again. He was given extended leave by General Grant and never recalled, officially making him unemployed while gathering a general's paycheck. The fact that they couldn't control their own officers to say, hey're in charge you're trained for this go do this yeah they left it up to a bunch of fucking straws yep uh so burnside eventually did resign his commission uh after the surrender of general lee at appomattox courthouse but he never committed again but not all was terrible for Burnside.

He was, of course, the reason we now know hair on the side of your face as sideburns, and that is actually true. What? Yeah. How? Because he had really big, ridiculous sideburns. Were they good-looking? Oh, they're great, yeah. He was also completely exonerated

by a later Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the Civil War, but none of that really mattered because he never command again. I want to call them Harry sides. Sir, that's a terrible name to be elected to Senate. The true failure of the battle would ultimately fall on General Meade, with the congressional committee officially blaming him with the support of Grant, who didn't really matter because by that time the war was over and General Meade commanded all the way through the war and continued to get things up. And he continued to get promoted.

There's a good chance that General Grant testified against him because he simply didn't like him. They were at each other's throats a lot. But yeah, that was it. So nobody got anything for this? No, everybody got promoted pretty much, except Burnside, who then got elected to Senate.

I can imagine why Firo got promoted. Sick dance skills. Nobody else had anything to bring to the table. And the Siege of Petersburg would go on unchanged for quite some time after this. And that is our depressing episode. That ended terribly.

So, thank you. Literally, the best part of this was Pleasance. Yeah, Pleasance is great. Because he's still sitting there like, why the fuck am I alive? And the man who wanted to die the most survived the war and went on to die at an old age. Poor bastard. You think he was still trying to kill himself?

He's the guy that doesn't wait at crosswalks hoping a car will take him out but always manages to survive. Yeah, the horse is like, whoa, whoa, I almost ran you over there. Yeah. God damn it. Kill me. him out but always manages to survive yeah the horse is like whoa whoa I almost ran you over there yeah god damn it kill me

he tries to kill me please kill me the fucking rope fucking breaks god damn it uh yeah so thank you uh everybody for supporting the show thank you for letting us be able to donate almost two thousand000 to the

Kurdish red Crescent. Um, that hopefully will make some distance, uh, make some difference in the coming humanitarian crisis in Rojava. Um, so, uh,

thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for rate rating, sharing, and reviewing our episodes. thank you for telling everybody about us and uh thanks for a fan randomly coming up and hugging me at a bar uh please don't do that it's weird um awesome i love you all do it but not that much um but yeah that's it that's all i got anything for the for the audience before we go later