General James Ledlie was dismissed from service for spending this battle drinking rum in a bombproof shelter.
General James Ledlie was dismissed from service for spending this battle drinking rum in a bombproof shelter. Ledlie's troops, who led the initial confused assault on "Elliott's Salient" during this battle, had been last- minute replacements for Edward Ferrero's division of United States Colored Troops. Many of Ferrero's men, sent in to restore order, were executed or returned to slavery by the victors, who were led by a future Readjuster Party senator from Virginia, William Mahone.  Preparations for this battle were made by Henry Pleasants, whose 48th Pennsylvania regiment, recruited from Schuylkill County coal miners, planted "320 kegs of gunpowder" in the tunnel they dug under the Confederate trenches. FTP, name this July 1864 battle, in which Union forces tried to end the siege of Petersburg with a giant explosion.
General James Ledlie was dismissed from service for spending this battle drinking rum in a bombproof shelter.
Battle of the {Crater}