Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 2

[71] not made until several hours later, but was then completely successful. Fort Harrison, the strongest rebel work north of the James, was carried, with fifteen guns, and a long line of entrenchments below Chapin's Farm. Several hundred prisoners also fell into Butler's hands. Ord, however, who commanded the assaulting column, was wounded in the leg and obliged to leave the field, and this circumstance prevented any further advantage being taken of the success at the moment, when time was all-important. Birney also had advanced on the right, and carried the entrenchments on the Newmarket road, scattering the enemy in every direction; but he too halted when he should have pushed on with vigor.

Grant was at Deep Bottom in person at an early hour, and though anxious to remain at a point where he could communicate promptly with Meade, he rode out at this crisis to Butler's front, visiting first Birney's lines, and then the fort captured by the Eighteenth corps. This was a large enclosed work, projecting from the rebel line, but still commanded by other important batteries. Dismounting, in order to cross the ditch, Grant walked into the redoubt. The ground was covered with blood and shells, and here and there a dying rebel looked up vacantly at his captors; while from a work not many hundred yards away the enemy was throwing shells directly inside the parapet. Grant stepped upon the banquette and got a nearer view of the defences of Richmond than he had at any time before been able to obtain. The whole line could be seen through the smoke, in reverse, for miles; and on the left, the spires of the rebel