William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

But the bloody work was not done. Only a part of the lost line had been recovered. Saunders' brigade was ordered up to retake the remaining lines; and, after a splendid charge, every inch of lost ground was regained.

“The enemy,” says a writer from the scene, “made but slight resistance to this charge. The chasm caused by the enemy's explosion appears to be about 40 feet in depth, and some 200 feet in circumference, and resembles what one would imagine to have been the effects of a terrible earthquake. Immense boulders of earth were piled up rudely one above the other, and great fragments of bomb-proofs, gun-carriages, limbers, etc., were lying promiscuously in every direction. One man was caught between two boulders near the surface of the ground and literally crushed between them. He still remained in this painful position, with only his head and neck visible, our men not having had the time to extricate him. Life had long been extinct.”

The crater made by the explosion of the mine presented a ghastly spectacle. It was lined with mangled bodies that lay in every conceivable position. The sudden and terrible explosion produced a temporary confusion in the Confederate ranks, and if a heavy column had been pushed through the chasm the result might have been most disastrous; but the prompt and gallant resistance of the Confederates changed the whole aspect of the affair.

The loss of the South was heavy in this battle, and Virginia mourned the death of some of her bravest children. Petersburg sustained a severe loss, as numbers of her best young men were in Mahone's troops; and many a household mourned a hero son who nobly died for his country.

The Federals opened a heavy fire from their siege-guns on the city immediately after the explosion of the mine,