cone, the exploding powder
still flashing out here and there, while limbs and bodies of
mutilated men, and fragments of cannon and wood-work could
be seen, then all fell heavily to the ground again, with a
second report like thunder. When the smoke and dust had
cleared away, only an enormous crater, thirty feet deep,
sixty wide, and a hundred and fifty long stretched out in
front of the Ninth Corps, where the rebel fort had been."

The explosion was the signal for the federal batteries to open fire, and
immediately one hundred and ten guns and fifty mortars opened along the
Union front, lending to the sublime horror of the upheaved and quaking
earth, the terror of destruction.

A confederate soldier thus describes the explosion, in the Philadelphia
_Times_, January, 1883:

"About fifteen feet of dirt intervened between the sleeping
soldiers and all this powder. In a moment the superincumbent
earth, for a space forty by eighty feet, was hurled upward,
carrying with it the artillery-men, with their four guns,
and three companies of soldiers. As the huge mass fell
backwards it buried the startled men under immense
clods--tons of dirt. Some of the artillery was thrown forty
yards towards the enemy's line. The clay subsoil was broken
and piled in large pieces, often several yards in diameter,
which afterwards protected scores of Federals when
surrounded in the crater. The early hour, the unexpected
explosion, the concentrated fire of the enemy's batteries,
startled and wrought confusion among brave men accustomed to
battle."

Says a Union account:

"Now was the time for action, forward went General Ledlie's
column, with Colonel Marshall's brigade in advance. The
parapets were surmounted, the abatis was quickly removed,
and the division prepared to pass over the intervening
ground, and charge through the still smoking ruins to gain
the crest beyond. But here the leading brigade made a
temporary halt; it was said at the time our men suspected a
counter mine, and were themselves shocked by the terrible
scene they had witnessed. It was, however, but momentary; in
less than a quarter of an hour, the entire division was out
of its entrenchments, and was advancing gallantly towards
the enemy's line. The ground was somewhat difficult to cross
over, but the