The Union Army conjured up a masterful strategy to inflict a serious blow on the Confederate soldiers at Petersburg, VA. The idea was to tunnel into the Confederate defensive trench system and detonate a huge quantity of explosive. This would expose the trenches and allow the soldiers to override the confederates.
A five-hundred foot tunnel was dug and the explosives detonated, producing a hole of 135 feet across. A brigade of troops was sent into the crater to flush out any soldiers. But the troops weren’t briefed, so they milled around at the bottom of the hole waiting for orders. The orders never came, because the man in charge of this part of the operation, General James Ledlie was in his tent, drunk. He had been selected by General Ambrose Burnside to lead this operation — by a cast of lots.
No ladders were provided to the soldiers to climb out of the trench and fan into the trenches. Sure enough, the Confederate soldiers regrouped and found easy targets. 5,300 Union soldiers were killed or wounded at the bottom of that crater.
What was a great plan was destroyed in the execution. The generals didn’t see the plan through to the troops. It looked great on paper, but they weren’t given the full picture or the tools.
You are probably formulating how this applies to your life – perhaps your workplace. As soldiers, we are often left to the enemy and have no choice. We weren’t told the plan and we yet we have to suffer the consequences.
How does the Red Letter Believer react when others are sending us to what seems destructive? Power is greatly abused in our fallen world. We are to submit to our authorities, and yet we are to be wise. We have been given insight into a whole world of understanding. Do we sit on our hands in blind obedience? Where is the balance? What do you think?
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