Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1882-01-18
From the Detroit Free Press.1
The PIT Of DEATH.
BY NJ. QUAD.

up the hill, past the burylng grounds,
and as the roads fork I look for signs of
the crater. There are the signs. Away
to the left and high in the air are the
buzzards sailing in slow circles. Hound
them at Sharpsburg, at Winchester, at
Malvern Hill, at Cedar Creek-I saw
them lowering over score of different
battle-felds. That was the first think I
looked for as I rode along the dusty
highway towards the fighting grounds.
When the buzzards could be seen there
was no need to ask further information.
At Malvern Hill there were hundred of
them huttering over the field where the
corpses had lain thickest. At Cedar
Greek could have killed them as. they sat
on the breastworks and uttered their
horrible notes. At Charlottesville I
drove one off the stone erected to the
memory Of Stonewan Jackson, and over
III the field where blackened chimney,
rotting cannon-wheels and hillocks of
earth mark the spot where Hooker
massed his guns, half hundred of the
croaking birds disputed the ground with
me.
And so, turning to the left, I ride
down foot-path running between cot
ton and peanut field, and find myself at
length in front of hill covered with
pine and peach trees. This hill is the
crater. When once you have climbed
its side it is no longer hill. You look
down into an irregular hollow hundred
and fifty feet long by from twenty to
forty broad, and that hollow will live
forever in our war history as the crater.
Weeds, grass and the young peach and
pine trees hide much of the horror of the
spot, but one who has time to larry can
place everything as it was on that morn
ing of July 80, 1864, when it was hole
twenty-five feet deep and full of dead
and wounded federals.
The mine can be traced from the crater
to the spot where the federals turned the
first sod. The long gallery is marked by
caving in of the earth, and the shaft
has caved in and filed up until one
would not know what it was. Right at
this point, and what first suggested the
idea of the mine, the lines are so close
together that one can stand at the crater
and hurl a peach stone into the thicket
where the federal pickets were stationed.
At no other point on the lines around
Petersburg were federal and confederate
able to look into each others eyes. It
hardly twenty steps across the cotton
field to the edge of the tbicket, and here
for months not hand could be shown
that dozen bullets did not whiz for it.
When there was no firing, the confeder-
crates in the fort and the federal pickets
in the thicket could converse in ordinary
tones of voice.
When Grant swung around he pushed
on until Lee checked him, and then
stopped right there and began intrench-
ing. This made very irregular line.
At the crater the federals held the
thicket along the creek, the railroad be.
hind it and the forest still further back.
Hardly eighty rods above, the confed.
crates held the same thicket. creek and
railroad track.
It is said that the idea OF tunnelinq
under the six-gun confederate fort atthif
point originated with Pennsylvania
miner who was serving in one of the
regiments in Burnside's corps. A lieu.
tenant in New York infantry regiment
is also mentioned, and had the mine beer
success probably dozen men would
have stepped forward to claim the honor
No matter who carried the idea to Burn.
side, he grasped at it. War means hor'
rible wounds and sickening sights an6
death in dozen terrible forms, but in s
war between civilized nations men de
not look upon such weapons as mines
with much favor. A direct attack upo1
this six-gun fort would have resulted il
repulse. If it could be blown out oil
the way there would be agap in the con
federate lines through which whole
brigades could pour. One brigade
through that gap and Lees lines were
gone.
The work was done by old coal miners
working in regular gangs, and the shat
was sunk about 500 feet before the gal
lery branched of. This gallery was widt
enough for two men to work abreast, enc
over four feet high. One of the Creates
troubles was in surveying the route an6
striking the proper distance, and ever
when the gallery was under the fort NJ
one felt exactly sure within six or eight
feet. A little science and great deal O.
guessing, however, struck the right spot
and galleries were then dug to the righ
and left for distance of thirty feet.
The confederates within the fort wer,
totally unsuspicious of what was goinl
on beneath them. Once, when one O.
the wing galleries was being excavated
o soldier who was lying on the GROUND
suddenly called out that he could hea,
the sounds of digging, but those t,
whom he appealed said that it must b,
rats burrowing their way in to get q
the provisions. Again, Degro who hai
been within Burnside's lines reported
seeing the shaft, but the men supposed
the federals were digging q we'll. .
When the mine had been finishet
Grant suddenly discovered that it wa
q grand thing and certain to work
though during its progress {. Burnside
Tunnel was as much ieered at a
Buffers Dutch Gap Canal. Powder va
brought up for it and carefully carrie,
through the long, dark hole until eigh
tons were heaped under the fort. The