The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-01-01
BATTLE OF THE "CRATER."
"A Thrilling Story ViYIdIy Retold-The
Famous Mine in Front of Petersburg
The Story From the Confederate Side.

NASbA
Upon nearly all thegreat battlefields
about Fredericksburg, Richmond and
Petersburg, the earthworks remain
untouched except by the hand OF time.
Just as they were fought Over-just as
they were stained with blood and
heaped with dead and dying, and
pIowed with shot and sEell-just as
they stood when the a ended, there
they stand to-day.
But the most interesting of all are
the works about Petersburg, the his
toric city and the center of interest IS
the old Crater, as it is called, thescene
of the explosion of a Federal mine,
July 80, 1864, and thedreadful scene
following.
Fort Hell" was an immense work,
and remains now in huge tumult, deep
moates, great ridges that look as
though turned by a gigantic plOw-
share, weed and brush co rering bas-
tions and s~alients, high mounds where
the magazines stood, and deep ruts
marking the old covered ways. The
country is perfectly fiat, and $500
feet across the plain, bLnches OF pea
nut stacks mark the site Of Fort Ma
hone. Every inch of this country has
been fought over back and forth scores
oftimes, and for ten months the can
non doomed and the musketry roared
and death rode on the winds in this
place of dreadful reCOllectiOns.
Fort Morton, which faced the salient
blown up by the mine, has been level
ed, and some of the breastwOrks con-
Meeting it with the forts north and
south of it. Fort Stedmanis a pretty
well preserved ruin, both it and the
site OF Fort Morton being but a few
rods from dwelling-houses.
The way up which the Confederates
came when they stormed and captured
Fort Sedgwick is plain to view, and
the national difficulties presented give
one q better idea OF the gallantry of
that dash that caught our boys nap
ping and took them in.
The crater itself has never been
touched by the profaningplowshare Or
spade. The works on either side have
melted away under the hand of the
husbandman, but the bloody old era
ter has been Stunned and spared. OF
course, the "crater" itself has been
filled IN to some extent by rain washes
and vegetable deposit, and the highest
mounds beaten down d triiie, but in
the main the place remains unchanged
.since the close of the war.
You stand upon the edge Of the Cra-
ter over which the opposing lines
fought in fierce hand-to-hand struggles
with swords, pistols, knives, dubbed
muskets and bayonets, and down
into that hell-hole ofdark and dreadful
memories. Front that contracted space
four hundred corpses have been dug,
and no one knows how many more
remain to this day. Facing you, only
three hundred feet away, are the Fed
eral outworks, for here the two lines
were separated for long, bloody
months by only that space. From
the rear OF the mound marking the
Federal picket line straight up the
slope to the edge of the Crater before
you runs what appears to be a ditch.
It's distinctly marked, being covered
and filed with grass and weeds, while
On either side the land is plowed.
That marks the course ofthe old mine
where it ran from down in the hollow
withinthe Unionlines up to and thirty
feet under where you stand, it's length
being $40 feet. In and about the
Crater peach trees are standing that
grew from pits scattered about by
the soldiers: indeed, these peach trees
are thick all along the lines.
Back OF you is Petersburg, in the dis
TanceC Cemetery Hill, nearer and close
by. the rayine, up which the Confed-
crates came TO battle that morning,
and the plain V e which the fighting
took place and across which the Con-
federates Of Mahone's brigade swept
down in the final triumphant assault
TO retake the captured works.
You are gazing on the scene ofevents
than which there Is nothing moregriIn
and CHASTITY In all the history of war.
Here scenes more wild and dreadful
than anything the Imagination Is able
to conceive Of were enacted.
Here, upon that fateful morning, be-
fore even the eastern sky limited of
dawn, the Confederate soldiers lay
sleeping around their guns, and all
was quiet. Down in the bowels OF the
earth beneath them the enemy
crawied through sitting passages,
placing in position the last kegs of
eight Thousand 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, exceptant lines. Battalion
after battalion crep4 noiselessly up in
the misty gloom, and silently passed
into its appointed places and stood
waiting the dread moment. They
were men of Burnside's Ninth Corps,
and among them We're the colored