Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 28, 1993 TAG: 9306280083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: AMANDA KELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PETERSBURG LENGTH: Medium
While working as an intern during the summer of 1988, interpreting the role of a soldier in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War battle, Miles decided the black soldiers deserved a permanent memorial.
"It's a monument park, and in relation to those existing monuments, you could see this gap," Miles said. "The monuments should present a full representation of the 20,000 or so U.S. Colored Troops that were in the Petersburg campaign."
After five years of planning and fund raising, Miles is preparing to fill the gap with a 4-foot granite marker. It will be dedicated on the July 31 anniversary of the Battle of the Crater in 1864.
The monument will be the first to black soldiers at a national park, said Petersburg park Superintendent Michael O. Hill.
"I thought of it more as a monument that would join a few others, such as the Robert Gould Shaw monument that honors the 54th Massachusetts Infantry and a monument at Camp Douglas in Chicago," Miles said.
The park will place the marker at Battery 9 of the Confederate defense line around the city, captured by a black division during Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's initial assault June 15, 1864.
Twenty-two black infantry regiments and a black cavalry unit fought at Petersburg, according to Army records. Miles said about 6,000 black soldiers were killed there from June 1864 to April 1865.
The black troops were scheduled to play a starring role in the Battle of the Crater. A black division was to lead the assault after an underground mine blew a hole in Southern defenses. But the day before the battle, Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade replaced the black troops with unprepared and tired white soldiers.
The white troops failed to move in right after the explosion, and the Confederates slaughtered the white troops and the blacks, who followed them into the crater. The black troops led a final rally, capturing battle flags and prisoners, but their assault was broken.
Despite the Union's failure, one white commander said the black soldiers' performance improved their status.
Army records show 178,975 blacks served in the Union Army during the war, with a greater per capita mortality rate than that of white troops.
"I just was imagining people who hadn't had any chance to make a transition from slavery or servitude going from that point to actually fighting overnight and having so much at stake," Miles said.
by CNB