state them for the information of the Southern people, and especially of the people of Texas.

"Judge Reagan replied to him at considerable length, and in the plain and vigorous English which generally characterizes the writing of that venerable gentlemen, he said, directly and positively, that no offer had ever been made, nor was any such offer reported to Mr. Davis or his Cabinet, either in writing or verbally, by the commissioners, who, as he said, stated orally to Mr. Davis all that occurred."'

It is proper to state that Colonel Sexton was a member of the Confederate Congress; that he has ever since been a prominent lawyer in this State, and that he is a man of the highest social, moral and professional standing, whose word no one who knows him would question.

They may all be These statements

I do not make these quotations to show a conflict between them and other statements attributed to Mr. Stephens. true, and still there is no conflict between them. show, what Mr. Stephens' book and the other evidence shows, that no such offer was made. The other statements show that in certain private conversations between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stephens, some such matter was talked of. We may understand that both sets of statements being true, and relating to different questions, there is no conflict between them.

Mr. Watterson says: "I regret that Judge to recur to a question I thought was settled."

terson.

Reagan has seen fit
Innocent Mr. Wat-

When settled, and how? I am now contributing my part towards the settlement of this question as truth and justice demands that it should be settled. Mr. Watterson assumes to advise me that it was untimely and ungracious to discuss this question at the Confederate Reunion at Nashville. I choose to discuss it before the brave and true men, who, having lost the cause for which they fought, have an interest in seeing that history shall not be perverted to the dishonor of that cause, and of the men who represented it.

Mr. Watterson also says that "I have no personal motive, as Judge Reagan has, for making any special plea in favor of any particular view." I do not know what personal motive Mr. Watterson attributes to me; but I confess to having a high and holy motive in this matter. It is, that the truth of history be established, in order that justice may be done to the dead and the living, and that the coming generation shall not be taught to believe false statements as to that history, tending to dishonor the President of the late Con

federacy, who, I think, was the bravest, truest, most virtuous, most self-sacrificing, and the greatest man I ever knew.

If Mr. Watterson does not want contention on this subject kept up, why did he write a four or five column editorial on it? when by his own statements, he does not disagree with me that no offer of $400,000,000 was made at the Hampton Roads conference to the Confederate authorities by Mr. Lincoln for the slaves, to secure peace and reunion.

JOHN H. REAGAN.

THE CHARGE OF THE CRATER.

A GRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE MEMORABLE ACTION.

By Lieutenant-Colonel Wm. H. Stewart, C. S. Army.

The editor is indebted to the gallant author for a revised copy of this excellent paper, which was published in the Norfolk, Virginia, Landmark, July 30, 1897, the thirty-third anniversary of the memorable action which is so graphically described.

The article has been highly commended by Henry Tyrrell, the author of a series of articles on General R. E. Lee, which recently appeared in Pall Mall Gazette, London.

Colonel Stewart, a valued citizen of Portsmouth, Virginia, is favorably known to the public by his contributions to the press, as well as an entertaining lecturer:

As the wild waves of time rush on, our thoughts now and then run back over rough billows, to buried hopes and unfulfilled anticipations, and oft we linger long and lovingly, as if standing beside the tomb of a cherished parent.

Thus the faithful follower of the Southern Cross recalls the proud hopes that led him over long and weary marches and in bloody battles.

These foot sore journeys and hard contested fields are now bright jewels in his life, around which the tenderest chords of his heart are closely entwined.

They are monuments of duty! They are sacred resting places for his baffled energies! They are rich mines from which the very hum

blest actor gathers the wealth of an approving conscience! He hears no paeans from a grateful country-no bounty rolls bear his name— yet these are sweet choristers ever chanting priceless praises to the zeal and manhood with which he faced his foe.

The veteran of an hundred battles always points with greater pride to one as the crowning glory of the many achievements.

So the soldiers of Mahone's Old Brigade look upon the great battle which I shall attempt to describe.

My little fly tent, scarcely large enough for two persons to lie side by side under, was stretched over a platform of rough boards, elevated about two feet above the ground, in that little grave-yard on the Wilcox Farm, near Petersburg. I was quietly sleeping within it, dreaming, perhaps, of home and all its dear associations (for only a soldier can properly appreciate these), when a deep, rumbling sound, that seemed to rend the very earth in twain, startled me from my slumbers, and in an instant I beheld a mountain of curling smoke ascending towards the heavens.

The whole camp had been aroused, and all were wondering from whence came this mysterious explosion.

It was the morning of Saturday, at 4:44 o'clock, on the 30th day of July, 1864. The long-talked-of mine had been sprung, Pegram's battery of four guns was blown up, and about 278 sleeping soldiers were buried beneath the upturned earth. Immediately the leading columns of the Ninth Army Corps, U. S. A., commanded by Colonel E. G. Marshall and Brigadier-General W. F. Bartlett, pressed forward and occupied the Crater and the earthworks for a distance on either side.

Two hundred cannons roared in one accord, as if every lanyard had been pulled by the same hand. The fiery crests of the battlements shone out for miles to our left, and, sweeping together, formed one vast range of gloom. It was a great gun conflict, with thundering, booming, flashing, blazing, smoking, shrieking, thudding, crashing, majestic terrors of war.

A GREAT ARTILLERY DUEL.

The sun rose brilliantly, and the great artillery duel continued to rage in all its grandeur and fury. An occasional shell from a Blakely gun would swoop down in our camp and ricochet down the line to our right, forcing us to hug closely the fortifications for protection.

Soon after sunrise "Captain" Tom Bernard, courier for General William Mahone, came sweeping up the lines on his white charger

to the headquarters of our brigade commander, Colonel D. A. Weisiger.

Then the drums commenced rolling off the signals, which were followed by the command "fall in" and hurried roll calls.

A large part of General Lee's army were on the north side of the James river, no reserves were at hand, and the line of fortifications on the south had to be unmanned to meet the emergency.

So it fell to the lot of three brigades of Mahone's division to make the

CHARGE ON THE CRATER.

We were required to drive back the Federal troops, who were then holding and within the very gates of the city of Petersburg.

It was startling news; but our soldiers faltered not, and moved off at quickstep for the seat of war.

Wright's Georgia Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel M. R. Hall, and our Virginia brigade commanded by Colonel D. A. Weisiger, the latter numbering scarcely 800 muskets, constituted the first force detailed to dislodge the enemy, who held the broken lines with more than fifteen thousand men, and these were closely supported by an army of fifty-five thousand.

I remember that our regiment (the Sixty-first), which I commanded, did not exceed two hundred men, including officers and privates, and I am quite sure this was the strongest in the two brigades. The distance from Wilcox Farm to the Crater in an air line is about one and a half miles; by the circuitous route taken by Mahone's Brigade about two and a half miles.

I suppose we had marched the half of a mile, when we were commanded to halt and lay aside all luggage, except ammunition and muskets. Fighting-trim was the order.

We then filed to the left a short distance to gain the banks of a small stream called "Lieutenant Run," in order to be protected from the shells of the Federal batteries by placing a range of hills , between. These the enemy were already viewing, within four hundred yards, with covetous eyes, and making dispositions to attempt their capture; for they were the very keys to the invested city. When nearly opposite the portion of our works then held by the Federal troops, we met several soldiers who were in the works at the time of the explosion. Our men began to ridicule them for going to the rear, when one of them remarked: "Ah, boys, you have hot work ahead; they are negroes and show no quarter."

This was the first intimation that we had to fight negro troops, and it seemed to infuse the little band with impetuous daring as they pressed forward to the fray.

A BRUTAL AND INHUMAN SLAUGHTER.

I never felt more like fighting in my life. Our comrades had been slaughtered in a most inhuman and brutal manner, and slaves were trampling over their mangled and bleeding corpses. Revenge must have fired every heart and strung every arm with nerves of steel for the Herculean task of blood. We filed up a ditch, which had been dug for a safe ingress and egress to and from the earthworks, until we reached the vale between the elevation on which the breastworks were located and the one on the banks of the little stream just mentioned-within two hundred yards of the enemy. The ill-fated battery, which had been demolished by the explosion, projected from the line of earthworks for the infantry at an acute angle, and was called Elliott's Salient. It overlooked the enemy's line of works, which were on the northeastern slope of the same elevation, about 100 yards distant.

The "Crater," or excavation caused by the explosion, was about twenty-five feet deep, sixty feet wide and 150 feet long, with its crest about twelve feet above the ground. About seventy-five feet in rear of the line of earthworks there was a wide ditch with the bank thrown up on the side next to the fortifications. This was constructed to protect parties carrying ammunition and rations to the troops.

Between this irregular and ungraded embankment and the main line the troops had dug numerous caves, in which they slept at night to be protected from the mortar shells that every evening traced sparkling circles in death search, like shooting stars bespangling the heavens with meteoric beauty.

The embankment, from the bottom of the ditch, was about ten feet high, and commanded the outer or main line. The space from the outside of the fortifications to the inner edge of the ditch was probably more than 100 feet wide.

The Crater and a space of about 200 yards on the north were literally crammed with the enemy's troops.

Official report shows that five army corps were massed to aid in the assault of the lines broken by the explosion, which reported present for duty on the 31st of July, the day after the battle, as follows: