his
right arm extended to the full length, and firmly clenched
in his hand was a piece of fancy soap. A bullet had entered
his forehead, the blood from the wound was trickling down
his face, but the hue of health was still on his cheek. How
he came to be there is to me a mystery, as that part of the
line was forced by colored troops. Swinging by the right
flank we kept our way along the Boydton road. A Confederate
light battery in position alongside of a cottage, which
stood in a hollow, shelled the column as it advanced, and so
accurate had the gunners got the range that almost every
shell did damage. A couple of shells burst together above my
company. The flash blinded me for a few seconds. I heard a
scream of pain and just then was ordered to lie down. Not
twenty yards from me was a wounded soldier. His leg was
shattered badly. He prayed and sang hymns alternately, but
his voice gradually grew weaker until it ended in death. One
of our batteries was brought into position, and engaging the
Confederate battery, the latter was silenced, when the
column again resumed the march, arriving in front of
Petersburg about noon.

"It was the intention of General Birney to carry by assault
the main fort which commanded the city, and he deployed the
division in line of battle for that purpose, but General
Ord, coming up in time, ordered him to retire his division
out of range and await further orders. We went into bivouac
for the night, and at early dawn of the 3d we entered the
city, the Confederates having evacuated the forts during the
night. The field music played "John Brown's Body," and a
tiny Union flag in the hands of a girl of ten years waved us
a welcome. Resting an hour in the city the division started
in pursuit of the Confederates. For a mile or two outside of
the city the road was strewn with plug tobacco. Blood could
be seen also at intervals in patches along the road. We
bivouacked some fifteen miles from the city. A few of our
officers took supper in a house close to our camping ground.
Our fare was "corn pone," scraps of bacon, sorghum molasses,
and a solution of something called coffee, for which we each
gave our host, a middle-aged Virginian, one dollar. The
colored troops being encamped on his farm his indignation