Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1911-12-08

most desperate enterprises of the entire
There are today surviving members of the
Forty fifth Illinois in whose veins the words Fort
Hill Mine" will make the blood Jingle. 1t
only week before the Fourth which Pember-
ton surrendered the Confederate city. In Logan's
front lay Fort Hill. 1t was decided at a council
of the generals that its sapping and mining and
the subsequent selling and holding Of the
brasure made by the explosion would be of ire
mendous moral and strategica1 value to the Union
cause. The place was commanded by Confeder-
ate artillery and by sharpshooters In hundred
rife pits. It known that If the explosion Of
Fort Hill success that few of the men who
rushed into the crevasses could hope to come out
alive. 1t would be what the Saxons called deed
of derringdo. Owing to the limited space to be
occupied only single regiment to be named
to jump into the great yawning hole after the ex-
plosion and to hold it against the hell fire of the
enemy until adequate protective works could be
thrown up.
There as many volunteers for the enter
prise there colonies Of regiments in
Grants army. The choice fell Jasper A. Malt
by and his following of Illinois boys.
The time for the explosion. The Forty
fifth lay grimly awaiting the charge into deaths
pit The signal given there heavy
roar and mighty upheaval. Silence had barely
fallen before there rose one great reverberating
YELL and the Lead Mine Regiment led by its col
onel Jasper A. Maltby, with his lieutenant col.
onel Maancthon Smith, at his elbow, hurled
itself into the smoking crater. The lieutenant col
one was shot through the head and mortal1y
wounded before his feet had fairly touched the
pits bottom. The colonel shot twice, but
paid little heed to his wounds. A battery of
Confederate artillery belched shrapnel into the
ranks and sharpshooters seemed fairly to be firing
by volleys. The question became of getting
sort Of protection thrown up before the
tire regiment should be annihilated Certain men
in the pit were toled off to answer the sharp
shooters fire and to make 1t hot for the cannon
aders In the Confederate battery. They did what
they could, but 1t avaed little to save their COM
rades, who toiling to throw up the redoubt.
Men fell on every side.
Beams were passed into the pit, and these were
put into position as protection by the surviving
soldiers, The josts placed lengthwise and
dirt quickly piled about them. Colonel Malt
by helped the to lodge the beams. He went
to one side of the crater where there no ele-
walton There he stood fully exposed shining
mark He put his shoulder under great piece
of timber and, weak with wounds though he was,
he pushed 1t up and forward into place The bull
let's Clipped the woodwork and spat in the sand
all about him.. One Confederate gunner OF arti1-
lery trained his great piece directly at the devoted
leader. A solid shot struck the beam, from which
Colonel Maltby had just removed his shoulder,
and split 1t into kindling. Great sharp pieces Of
the wood were driven into the colonels side, and
he was hurled to the bottom Of the black pit
The action was over shortly, for the gallant
Forty-ffth succeeded in making that deaths hole
tenable Then they picked up their colonel. He
was still alive though the surgeon shortly after
ward said that 1t would be hard work to count
his wounds They took him to the field hospital,
and before he had been there hour there
clicking over the wires to Washington message
carrying the recommendation that Colonel Jasper
A. Maltby of the Lead Mine Regiment be made
brigadier general Of volunteers for conspicuous
personal gallantry in the face of the enemy
A week later Grants victorious forces marched
into VicksEurg
Colonel Jasper A. Maltby or General Jasper
Maltby as it soon became. lived until the end of
the war, but no system could long withstand the
shock and pain OF those gaping wounds. He died
in the very city which he had helped to conquer
Afterward flag and a precious memory were
rarely absent from the life which finally fickefed
out when the white-haired little widow died -
St. Luke's hospital Chicago.