The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-01-01

almost forgetting TO peep occasionally
through the eye-holes in the breast,
works looking toward the Yankee
works, three hundred feet away.
And all this time the little Missing
sputtering flame of the fuse was run,
ming along through the dark gallery,
nearer and carer to the 32O kegs
of powder stored thirty feet beneath
them.
Can we think that to those sleeping
soldiers there was some message told
in some way from the Fate hat dI-
rected the course of the yellow flame
Of the fuse? Did not some shadow OF
prcsentiment steal into their dreams
as nearer and carer the fuse-hame
Crept through the dark passage to the
stOredu up thUnders beneath them? Can
we not we'll imagine a Divine Pity that
shed into the dreams of these gallant
men some glorious vision of light and
beauty as their fate came upon them?
Or did some ones stir uneaSily and NUT
ter in his sleep just before the space
between flame and powder vanished?
Or did another raise upon his elbow
as an awful unknown fear came upon
him in the thick darkness that seemed
sitting and gasp: My God, what is
it," as the end came like the crack Of
doom.
Among them were the men OtPeg-
rams Battery, brave soldiers as ever
lived and gallant young gentlemen Of
Petersburg. They were fighting in de-
tense OF their native city, in sight OF
their homes, and where they slept
their feet had often strayed in boyish
excursions about the old city.
There was the first faint streak Of
gray upon the eastern sky as the mine
exploded.
Those waiting felt q strange thrill
run through the earth, and then, said
one, at seemed as though the earth
had exploded" The ground rocked
under the tremendous recoil, as a sol
id has OF earth rose slowly two
hundred feet in the air, the exploding
gunpOwder blazing through it like
lightning playing through a bank Of
clouds" seemed to hang poised an in
slant, and then with a vast roaring
sound in showers of stones, broken
timbers, cannon, blackened human
limbs or bodies, it fell, and a heavy
cloud of black smoke hOated of.
The dreadful work had been thor
oughly done. Where the Elliott salient
had stood there was now a horrible
chasm one hundred and fifty feet long,
sixty feet wide and from twenty-five
to thirty feet deep, and it's brave gar
rison lay buried beneath the jagged
blocks of blackened clay-in all, 256
officers and men of the Eighteenth and
Twenty-second South Carolina, and
twenty-five men of Pegram's Battery.
Instantly the Union batteries open
ed with every gun from ~Appomattox
Creek to Jerusalem plank road, from
Fort McGilvery to Fort Davis, in hor-
rid 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 thAday
of carnage began.
This was the scene Gods creatures
prepared to greet Gods sunlight as it
broke in beauty upon that sunamer
morning.
Hundreds of people have tried to
tell the story of the Battle of the era
ter, which began with the explosion at
4 in the morning and ended with the
recapture of the confederates about
1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The
story can not be told. No language
IAN adequately describe it. 1t cannot
be painted, for no colors are deep
enough. Out of all conflicting re-
ports, out of the mingled sto-
ries of cowardice, of bravery,
of laundering, of incapacity, of savage
vengeance and brutal butchery, We
gather the picture that presents itself
to the Imagination, such as presented
itself to Elder when he printed the
noted picture that hangs in Mahone's
house. The story from the Federal
side is not a proud one. Grant called
it a miserable affair."" and summed
up it was a disgraceful affair to the
Union army, and cost the lives OF
nearly five thousand 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 it upon that oc-
casion. There was individual gal
lantry and many exhibitions of high
courage, and there was the most DIES.
parate 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 in,
stead of pushing on to Cemetery Hill,
as ordered, and soon an enfilading fire
made it as dangerous to go back as tc
go forward.
1t was not until s o'clock that th,
colored troops were sent in. They
charged over the heads of the whites
crowded in the Crater. swept over tn
crests cheering, and spread to tn
right. c%apturinc two hundred prison