Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1885-12-13

TO the edge Of the crater before you runs
what appears to be ditch. IL Is distinct
Inv marked, being covered and filled with
grass and weeds, while on either side the
land Is plowed That marks the course
iof the old mine where It ran from down IN
the hollow within the Union lines up TO
and thirty feet under where you stand, its
length being $40 feet. In and about the
crater peach trees are standing that grew
from pits scattered ABOUT by the soldiersi
indeed, these peach trees are thick all
along the lines.
Back OF you Is Petersburg in the dis
lance Cemetery Hill, nearer and closer by
the raylnc up which the Confederates
came 60 battle that morning, and the plain
over which the fighting took place ana
across which the Confederates OF Ma
hone's brigade swept down TO the inal
triumphant assault TO retake the captured
works.
You are gazing on the scene of events
than which there is nothing more grim
and ghastly in all the history OF war.
Here scenes more wild and dreadful than
anything the imagination Is able to con-
ceivo OF were enacted.
Here, upon that fateful morning, be-
fore even the eastern sky hinted OF
dawn, the Confederate soldiers lay sleep
ing around their guns, and all was quiet.
Down in the bowels OF the earth beneath
them the enemy crawled through sitting
passages, placing In position the last Kegs
OF 5000 pounds of gunpOwder and laying
the train and making all ready. Beyond
| those federal lines and all along that
valley stood the men who were to
make the assault, in long, still,
t.s,ttn Vtt llUItulInn gffnT
| battalion crept noiselessly up in the
misty gloom, and silently passed into its
appointed place and stood waiting the
dread moment. They were men Of Burn
sides Ninth Corps, and among them were
the colored troops OF Ferrero's division.
At this moment, back OF the main lines, a
hundred thousand men lay ready to adj
vance on the second, and every one of
the hundreds Of guns along the federal
lines for miles was surrounded by gun
crews, and loaded and ready to fire.
LIGHTING TIKI, FUSE.
This was the situation when, at half
past 3, the fuse was lighted. Upon the
federal side men grasped their muskets
nervously, they held their breath In awful
suspense, and could hear their hearts
beat In the black stiffness. The Confed-
crates slumbered on peacefully in their
doomed fort, the men on their picket-line
in the perfect quiet almost forgetting to
peep occasionally through the Sye-holes
in the breastworks looking toward the
Yankee works, 800 feet away. And all
this time the little Kissing, sputtermg
flame OF the fuse was running along
through the dark gallery, nearer and
nearer TO the 500 kegs of powder
stored thirty feet beneath them.
There was the first faint streak OF gray
upon the eastern sky MS the mine ex-
ploded. Those waiting felt strange
thrill run through the earth, and then,
said one, "lt seemed as If though the
earth had exploded" The ground rocked
under the tremendous recoil, as solid
mass Of earth rose slowly 200 feet in the
air, the exploding gunpowder blazing
through itlike "lghtning playing through
n bank of Clouds,n seemed to hang
poised an instant, and then with
vast roaring sound in showers of
stones, broken timbers, cannon, black
ened human limbs or bodies, IL fell, and
heavy cloud Of black smoke foated off
The dreadful work had been thoroughly
done. Where the Elliott salient had
stood thore was now horrible chasm
100 feet long, GO feet wide and from % to
80 feet deep, and its brave garrison lay
beneath the jagged blocks of blackened
clay-ln all 256 officers and men of the
Eighteenth and Twenty-sccond South
Carolina and twenty-five men of Peg
rams battery.
Instantly the Union batteries opened
with every gun from Appomattox creek
to Jerusalem plank road, from Fort Nc
Gilvery TO Fort Davis, in horrid uproar
The air was alive with bowling shot and
screaming shells and the valley shrouded
in billowy smoke. The troops pressed
forward into the crater and over the lines
of the enemy, stunned and demoralized,
and the day OF carnage began.
BLOODY CHAPTER.
Hundreds OF people have tried to tell
the story of the Battle OF the Crater,
which began with the explosion at In
the morning and ended with the recap
ture by the Confederates about or
o'clock in the afternoon. The story can
not be told. No language can adequately
describe It, 1t cannot be painted, for no
colors are deep enough. The story from
the federal side is not proud one.
Grant called Il "mlserable affair" and
summoned up 1t was disgraceful affair
to the Union army, and cost the lives of
nearly 5000 men.
The troops were the poorest in the
Northern army-mixed white and black
and led by men who, if they possessed
any knowledge, bravery, or sense, failed
TO show II upon that occasion. There was
individual gallantry and many exhibitions
of high courage, and there was the most
desperate and deadly fighting OF the war,
but in general there was no glory in the
day for the Yankees.
Our men huddled in the crater instead
OF pushing on TO Cemetery Hin as or
dered, and soon an entllading fire made 1t
as dangerous to 20 backward as to 20
forward 1t was not until O'Clock that
the colored troops were sent in. They
charged over the heads OF the whites
crowded IN the crater, swept over the
crests cheering, and spread to the right,
capturing 200 prisoners and flag. A
heavy lire OF artillery and musketry sent
them back to add to the confusion in the
crater, aud the numbers In that horrible
mixture of men alive, wounded and dead
aud the CHASTITY debris of the explosion.
The Confederatcs trained their heavy