Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 2 (of 2)

On the 25th of June, at the suggestion of Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasants, work was commenced with a view to the destruction of one of the most important of the rebel works before Petersburg, by mining. The work to be blown up was situated about two thousand yards from Petersburg. The mine was started in the side of a ravine, and was constructed of the customary shape—about four feet wide at the base, between four and five feet high, and sloping towards the top. Near the entrance was a ventilating shaft. Many of Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasants’ men, the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania, were accustomed to mining, and so the labor was prosecuted with skill and ease, as well as energy. As it advanced, the tunnel was sloped upwards. At length, when the desired point was reached, the miners were twenty feet beneath the rebels. Wings were then constructed, so that the fort might be subterraneously encircled. Eight chambers, separated from each other by sand-bags, and charged with four hundred tons of powder, completed this device for blowing up the enemy. Wooden pipes and hose connected the mine with the besiegers without.

Soon after midnight, on the 29th of July, the assaulting force—the Ninth and Eighteenth corps, the Second and Fifth being held in reserve—were massed and ready. Generals Ledlie, Wilcox, Potter, and Ferrero were to lead the charge. At half-past three o’clock, A. M., on the morning of the 30th, the fuse was lighted. But the dampness of the gallery extinguished it. Much delay ensued. Daylight came; then sunrise. At last, at a few minutes before five o’clock, the fuse was successfully lit, and the mine exploded. The scene was awfully exciting and impressive. At first the earth heaved and trembled; then the whole mass, fort, guns, caissons, soldiers, and all surged upward like a tornado into the air. The next moment there was a yawning pit, a hundred feet long and half as wide, in which ruins were commingled, ghastly and terrible; and, all along the line, the guns from the National works simultaneously brayed out the fury of war. A charge was immediately made by a brigade of General Ledlie’s division, which rushed through the gap, and then paused to form for an assault on the enemy’s interior line. But the rebels, recovering from their dismay and consternation, immediately rallied, and now poured in an enfilading fire upon the captured fort. Presently, however, the divisions of Potter, Ledlie, and Wilcox charged together, in the face of a most terrific fire, which was no less severe on their flanks than in their front. Their effort was grandly made, but the fire was too severe, and they finally wavered and fell. The colored division, under General Ferrero, was next hurled forward, but only to meet the fate of its predecessors. Ultimately, the National troops were penned up in the fort which they had taken, and were obliged to endure the concentrated fire of the enemy. Squads of them, however, succeeded in making their escape. The rebels made several charges upon the fort, but were bravely repulsed. In this plight the soldiers of the Union remained until noon, a steady cross fire being kept up over every yard of the space between the fort and the Federal lines. At noon a general retreat was ordered, in which many contrived to get away; but, at two o’clock, being destitute of ammunition, those who remained surrendered to the enemy. The National loss was five thousand; that of the rebels, who fought in intrenchments, was, of course, much smaller.