The Battle of the Crater was over but the battle to live for the wounded was not. In between the Confederate and Union lines lay the Federal wounded. Temperatures soared over 100 degrees on July 31st again and informal flags of truce popped up in which some Confederates ran a canteen of water to some of the wounded. Whereas, Henry Bird of the 12th Virginia Infantry and a Petersburg native wrote that other Southerners shouted Bois ton sang! Tu naurais de soif! and bayonetted the wounded. General Meade initially wished Ambrose Burnside to arrange a local and informal truce to collect the wounded. However, the Confederate general Pierre Beauregard informed Burnside that there would be no truce until a formal letter came from General Meade. Meades letter was sent over in the afternoon to Robert E. Lee; but as Beauregard was technically in charge of the military district in which Petersburg lay, Lee forwarded on to Beauregard. By the time this happened, it was late in the day so an agreement was reached to collect the wounded on August 1st between 5:00 and 9:00 a.m. Imagine laying on the field in the heat, bleeding, men dying around you and the dead from the battle already there near you. Do you think the wounded consider Meade, Lee, Beauregard heroic?
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 15:30:55 +0000
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