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[72]
July 28.
We turn out at 5 a. m. A dull day, with threatening rain.
I was detailed for fatigue.
All quiet through the day. At night I was detailed on picket.
A quiet night.
We were intending to advance our picket line, if possible, but the Rebels got the start by placing their videttes too near us.
July 29.
Very warm.
The enemy throw shells at daylight over our skirmish line, and again at 6 p. m. We on picket are relieved at 8 p. m. An order is given for the whole corps to turn out at 2.30 the next morning.
July 30.
This order is obeyed, and our corps (the Fifth) moved to the right, into a trench just in the rear of the Ninth Corps, about a half-mile from our fort, and remained in line there with the Second Corps on our right.
At 4.44 that morning there was a terrible explosion right in front of us. A tunnel four hundred and ninety feet long had been dug to a point under a Rebel fort, since known as ‘the Crater.’
It was blown up with about two hundred and fifty men. This fort was at the right of Fort Sedgwick—our right.
This was a signal for all the guns on our side to open, and the cannonading was terrible.
This lasted till 8 a. m. Our Ninth Corps rushed up and took the Rebel fort and their works, but about 9 p. m. the enemy re-took them.
Besides being driven back, we lost fully four thousand men, and all through mismanagement.
We—that is, the Second and Fifth Corps—never received an order to advance.
As a piece of engineering the mine, which was under the direction of Lieutenant-colonel Pleasants, was well managed.
That day the Northern army lost three men to the enemy's one.
Who blundered?
It is said that General Grant and General Meade did not take kindly to the plan from the first.
Burnside, however, favored it. It seems as if Petersburg might have been taken then, instead of months later.
That night the dead and wounded that had been lying between the lines all day, exposed to the glare of the hot sun, were brought in: most of them were in a terrible condition.
We went back to the fort, and, except for the grumbling, everything went on as before.
[To be continued.]
Somerville. Historical Society. , 1908.
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