beneath the jagged blocks of blackened clay—in all, 256 officers and men of the Eighteenth and Twenty-second South Carolina—two officers and twenty men of Pegram's Petersburg Battery.[1]
The dread upheaval has rent in twain Elliott's brigade, and the men to the right and left of the huge abyss recoil in terror and dismay. Nor shall we censure them, for so terrible was the explosion that even the assaulting column shrank back aghast, and nearly ten minutes elapsed ere it could be reformed.[2]
NOW A STORM OF FIRE
bursts in red fury from the Federal front, and in an instant all the valley between the hostile lines lies shrouded in billowing smoke. Then Marshall, putting himself at the head of the stormers, sword in hand, bids his men to follow.
But there comes no response befitting the stern grandeur of the scene—no trampling charge—no rolling drums of Austerlitz—no fierce shouts of warlike joy as burst from the men of the "Light Division" when they mounted the breach of Badajos, or from Frazer's "Royals" as they crowned the crimson slopes of St. Sebastian.
No, none of this is here. But a straggling line of the men of the Second brigade, First division, uttering a mechanical cheer, slowly mounts the crest, passes unmolested across the intervening space,[3] and true to the instinct fostered by long service in the trenches, plunges into the crater, courting the friendly shelter of its crumbling sides.
Yonder lies Cemetery Hill in plain view, naked of men.[4] and, hard beyond, the brave old town, nestling whitely in its wealth of green.
Silence still reigned along the Confederate lines, yet Ledlie's men did not advance, and now the supporting brigade of the same division running forward over the crest, and with an incredible folly crowding in upon their comrades, already huddled together in the shelving pit, all regimental and company organization was lost, and the men speedily passed from the control of their officers.[5]
- ↑ Beauregard's MS. Report of Mine Explosion; Lieutenant-Colonel Loring's statement.
- ↑ Statement of General O. B. Wilcox, U. S. A. Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 79; Burnside's testimony—Ib., p. 147.
- ↑ Grant, Meade, Potter, Duane and others testify to this effect.—Ib., pp. 36, 87, 110, 116.
- ↑ {Statement of Captain F. U. Farquhar, U. S. Engineers: "There was not a soul between the Crater and that position, and I believe that position was the objective point of the assault"—'Ib., p. 211; cf. testimony of other officers.—Ib.
- ↑ See testimony of General Grant—Ib., p. 110; Meade, p. 36; Pleasants, p. 116. As regards the men passing from control of their officers, see statement of Lieutenant-Colonel Loring—Ib., p. 92; General Hartranft, p. 190
