OUTER WORKS OF FORT SEDGWICK.

work.

While the hours were thus wasted in the time and means necessary to extricate the human mass from its now perilous position, the enemy, having taken advantage of our inactivity to mass his troops, was seen to emerge from the bushes which grew in the swale between the hill on which the crater was situ

DAMNATION." (FROM PHOTOGRAPHS.)

About 9:30 A. M. General Meade had given positive orders to have the troops withdrawn from the crater. To have done so, under the severe fire of the enemy, would have produced a stampede, which would have endangered the Union lines, and might possibly have communicated itself to the troops that were massed in rear of the Ninth Corps. General Burnside thought, for these and other reasons, that it was possible to leave his command there until nightfall, and then withdraw it. There was no means of getting food or water to them, for which they were suffering. The midsummer sun shone upon their heads until waves of moisture produced by the exhalation from this mass slowly arose in perceptible horizontal layers; wounded men died there begging piteously for a drink of water-a drop of which was not to be had, for the men had long since drained their canteens. Soldiers extended their tongues to dampen their parched lips until they seemed to hang from their mouths like those of thirsty dogs, and yet they were kept waiting in this almost boiling cauldron, suffering with thirst and worn out with their all

BOMB-PROOFS INSIDE FORT SEDGWICK.

ated and that of the cemetery. On account of this depression they could not be seen by our artillery, and hence no guns were brought to bear upon them. The only place where they could be observed was from the crater. But there was no serviceable artillery there, and no sufficiently organized infantry force to offer resistance when the enemy's column pressed forward. All in the crater who could possibly hang on by their elbows and toes lay flat against its conical wall and delivered their fire; but not more than a hundred men at a time could get into position, and these were only armed with muzzle-loading guns, and in order to re-load, they were compelled to face about and place their backs against the wall.

The enemy's guns suddenly ceased their long-continued and uninterrupted fire on the crater, and the advancing column charged in the face of feeble resistance offered by the Union troops. At this stage they were perceived by our artillery, which opened a murderous fire, but too late. Over the crest and into the crater they poured, and a hand-to-hand conflict ensued. It was of short duration, however; crowded as our troops were, and without organization, resistance was vain. Many men were bayoneted at that time—some probably that would not have been, except amid the heat and excitement of battle. About 87 offi* and 1652 men of the Ninth Corps were captured, the remainder retiring to our own lines, to which the enemy did not attempt to advance.

cers

In the engagements of the 17th and 18th of June, in order to obtain the position held by the Ninth Corps at the time of the explosion, the three white divisions had 29 officers and 348 men killed; 106 officers and 1851 men wounded; and 15 officers and 554 men missing-total, 2903. From the 20th of June to the day before the crater fight of July 30th these same divisions lost in the trenches 12 officers and 231 men killed; 44 officers and 851 men wounded; and 12 men missing total, 1150. These casualities were caused by picket and shell firing, and extended pretty evenly over the three divisions. The whole of General Willcox's division was on the line for thirty days or more without relief. General Potter's and General Ledlie's divisions had slight reliefs, enabling those officers to draw some of their men off at intervals for two or three days at a time.

In the engagement of July 30th, the four divisions of the Ninth Corps had 52 officers and 376 men killed; 105 officers and 1556 men wounded; and 87 officers and 1652 men missing (captured)-total, 3828.†

It was provided in General Meade's order for the movement that the cavalry corps should make an assault on the left. Two divisions of the cavalry were over at Deep Bottom. They could not cross the river until after the

* General William F. Bartlett was among the cap. tured. Earlier in the war he had lost a leg, which he replaced with a patent cork leg. While he was standing in the crater, a shot was heard to strike with the peculiar thud known to those who have been in action, and the general was seen to totter and fall. A number of officers and men immediately lifted him, when he cried out, "Put me any place where I can sit down."

"But you are wounded, General, aren't you?" was the inquiry.

"My leg is shattered all to pieces," said he.

VOL. XXXIV.—106.

Second Corps had crossed, so that it was late in the day before they came up. Indeed, the head of the column did not appear before the offensive operations were suspended. As General James H. Wilson had been ordered to be in readiness, and in view of the unavoidable delay of General Sheridan, orders were sent to Wilson not to wait for General Sheridan, but to push on himself to the Weldon railroad. But the length of the march prevented success; so no attack was made by the cavalry, except at Lee's Mills, where General Gregg, encountering cavalry, drove them away in order to water his horses.

The Fifth Corps and the Eighteenth Corps remained inert during the day, excepting Tur

SIDES AND EDGE OF TWO BULLETS THAT MET POINT TO POINT AT THE CRATER-THE SIDES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE ORIG

INAL IN MAJOR GRIFFITH'S MUSEUM AT THE CRATER.

ner's division of the Eighteenth, which made an attempt on the right of the crater, but it happened to be just at the time that the colored troops broke up; so his command was thrown into confusion, and fell back to the trenches.

In this affair the several efforts made to push troops forward to Cemetery Hill were as futile in their results as the dropping of handfuls of sand into a running stream to make a dam. With the notable exception of General Robert B. Potter, not a division commander was in the crater or connecting lines, nor was there a corps commander on the immediate scene of action; the result being that the subordinate commanders attempted to carry out the orders issued prior to the commencement of the action, when the very first attack developed the fact that a change of those plans was absolutely necessary.

William H. Powell.

"Then you can't sit up," they urged, "you'll have to lie down.' "it's only my

"Oh, no!" exclaimed the general, cork leg that's shattered!"-W. H. P.

+ General Meade reported the losses of his army in the assault on the crater at 4400 killed, wounded, and missing, all except about 100 being in the Ninth Corps. General Mahone states that the number of prisoners taken was 1101. The loss in Lee's army is not fully reported. Elliott's brigade lost 677, and that was probably more than half of the casualties on the Confederate side.-EDITOR.

T

UNION RAILROAD BATTERY, PETERSBURG. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

HE story of the dash into the Petersburg crater and the struggle there, with the thrilling experiences of the men engaged, is too broad for one witness to cover, but the record of one regiment will convey a fair idea of what the battle was. The selection of troops to lead the assault was settled on the eve of the movement, but the plans and purposes for the day were not communicated to any soldier below the rank of field-officer. There were indications of a forward movement that the privates could well interpret, such as orders for extra rations, the concentration of troops, and the massing of lines of battle close to the enemy's works in front of Cemetery Hill. The honor of leading the assault came by rotation to Colonel E. G. Marshall's brigade. During the night his regiments were marched to a position about twenty rods from the mine, where a single breastwork, an old Confederate work, turned, lay between them and the fort. The condition of this work was not pointed out to the men, nor was any notice given them of what would occur or what was expected in the emergency before them. The men dozed and rested a couple of hours before daylight, awaiting developments. Suddenly the earth trembled, and a black pyramid shot into the air, so close that it seemed as though in spreading after the upward force was spent it would fall on and crush those nearest. It was so startling that the first two lines of men broke, for it was believed to be an earthquake or a Confederate mine sprung upon us. No one believed that a Confederate fort was so near. The 14th New York Heavy Artillery, to which I belonged, formed the third line, and was Colonel Marshall's own regiment. With two lines in front and the familiar presence of their own

commander to encourage them, these men remained comparatively steady, although there was confusion for a brief spell. Just how far this confusion set back the movement will be seen from the experiences of the first moments. Lieutenant Thomson, of Company B, was thrown into a mudhole by the shock, and just as he came up blinded and bespattered before his astonished soldiers, the call rang out," Forward!" Forward meant across those breastworks in front, and these were as high as a man's shoulder. There were no steps or ladders, and this unlucky lieutenant scraped the mud from his eyes, repeated the orders, and climbed up the logs, for the works at the time were more like a high terrace wall than a field breastwork. Some of the men put bayonets into the wall and made steps, and a few stood on the top and lent hands to their fellows. When twenty men of Company B had joined their lieutenant on the works, he ordered them to align, but Colonel Marshall called out, "No time for that, Lieutenant; go for the crest." So it stood with the whole regiment, and but a handful were ready at the first jump. These charged in companies, by the flank. Our artillery opened at once and shells went screaming overhead, and puffs and clouds of smoke from the shell and from the yawning pit made by the explosion obscured the view and added to the confusion. About one hundred and fifty men were close to Colonel Marshall and the colors, and more came straggling on as fast as they could get over the works, and the grand dash was made by this handful. At the crater a slanting pit was open, and on each side of it the Confederates were now alert, although they were not cool enough for action. In the pit, powder smoke issued from the crevices; guns were seen half buried; the heads or limbs of half-buried men wriggled in the loose earth. The command came again, "Go ahead!" There was a section of the exploded work remaining, and here and in the breastworks alongside men were seen. In front, beyond the hole, a Confederate battery was firing into the pathway from our works, and a shot cut a man of Company C in two. The men in the pit and near it surrendered or ran away and the flag of the 14th New York Heavy Artillery was planted on the site of the old fort. The enemy on the flanks and beyond came to their senses at sight of this flag and opened with bullets. Our men saw that all around them

groes, or to the whites taken with them, and so to be shut up with blacks in the crater was equal to a doom of death. The officers began to scheme for a retreat. At the time there were one general of division and four brigade commanders on the spot,- R. B. Potter, E. G. Marshall, S. G. Griffin, W. F. Bartlett, and John F. Hartranft. Orders came to withdraw the men, but the space between the hole and our works was commanded at every point by Confederate artillery and sharp-shooters. The road was corduroyed with bodies of the fallen. The commandant of the First Battalion of the 14th Regiment, Captain Houghton, Company L, proposed to lead his men back, but they all preferred to remain, and the general officers advised all hands to wait. One plan was to send for spades, and have two parties at work at either end digging a ditch for passage. Another was to wait until nightfall. Both plans were cut short by the action of the enemy. Two or three small parties advanced on the crater, and were repulsed; yet reënforcements were coming up, and it was evident that the spot must be abandoned. Captain Houghton watched the men who attempted to cross back to the works and saw that a gun throwing case-shot did most of the damage to the retreat. After a discharge of this gun he started and passed its range before another discharge came. In crossing the space he found it planted so thick with the fallen that he could not avoid stepping on them. As soon as he reached the works, he directed a sharp musketry fire upon the points whence the hottest Confederate fire came and partly silenced it, so that a few more men got home safely. Colonel Marshall and General Bartlett were among those who remained in the crater and were captured.

The experiences of these men at capture must be told from recollections of survivors after a long captivity ending with the war. It has been positively asserted that white men bayoneted blacks who fell back into the crater. This was in order to preserve the whites from Confederate vengeance. Men boasted in my presence that blacks had thus been disposed of, particularly when the Confederates came up. Many of the prisoners died in Andersonville, and it is impossible to get good accounts of the closing moments, the time of hand-to-hand work between whites and blacks in the crater and the Confederates who came in. A man who kept tally when the bodies in the hole were buried by the enemy recorded one hundred and fortyseven white and black Union soldiers found in the pit itself. Some of them may have been mortally wounded outside, and some were killed

by shots falling into the crater. Sergeant Hill, our comrade who captured the Confederate flag, met death that morning, and a medal of honor was awarded for his action. This flag is now in the War Department collection fully identified on the record.

There were many scenes here to move the strongest hearts. When the débris of the explosion was in the air men's bodies could be distinguished, and of course it flashed upon every mind that a horrible fate had overtaken fellow-men. On one of the elevations in the crater, a Confederate was seen struggling with his head and shoulders buried and held fast. Our men attempted to relieve him, but were driven away by Confederate bullets. On each side of the hole were counter-shafts about fifty feet deep standing open. Down one of these a Confederate had fallen and lay there alive and moaning, but there was no means for his relief at hand. These counter-shafts had been run perpendicularly and abandoned. The Confederate prisoners stated that the fort was full of men that night, for our movements in front had been noticed, and an assault was expected and preparations had been made to receive it. The explosion, however, was wholly unexpected.

The wisdom of selecting the Ninth Corps for the assault has been questioned by high authority. The quality of men for this kind of work depends on their present spirit, commonly called the morale. This condition is easily affected and is an uncertain quantity among the very best troops. Three points may be noted as to the spirit of our corps at the time, and the same would be true of the other corps of the army. First, there was a feeling that the soldiers had been pushed persistently into slaughter-pens, from the Wilderness down, and needlessly sacrificed by such methods. Second, there was a determination to rebel against further slapdash assaults. Third, the strongest element of all, as affecting the general spirit, was the all-powerful ambition to take Petersburg and end the struggle. It was universally felt by the men in the breach that the explosion of the mine was a means to that end. But the first assaulting columns would not go on and seize the crest without supports, and these supports did not come. There was not an instant from the moment of the explosion up to the time when the negroes came on that the whites would not have rallied to a man and risked everything in a combined and well-directed charge upon the crest. The men knew that success lay in a strong movement, and they refused to go out in weak detachments.

George L. Kilmer.