to aid and support the movement--the
whole being forty-three thousand men, with eight thousand pounds
of gun-powder to first spring the mine. General Sheridan, with his
cavalry, was to make a demonstration in our front and against the
roads leading to Petersburg. Hancock, too, was to take a part, if all
things proved successful--fifty thousand men were to make a bold dash
for the capture of the city. Immediately over the mine was Elliott's
Brigade, consisting of the Seventeenth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-third,
Twenty-second, and Eighteenth South Carolina Regiments. At 3.30
o'clock the fuse was lighted, and while the Confederates, all
unconscious of the impending danger, lay asleep, this grand
aggregation of men of Grant's Army waited with bated breath and
anxious eye the fearful explosion that eight thousand pounds of
powder, under a great hill, were to make. Time went on, seconds into
minutes. The nerves of the assaulters were, no doubt, at extreme
tension. Four o'clock came, still all was still and silent. The
Federal commanders held their watches in hand and watched the tiny
steel hands tick the seconds away. The streaks of day came peeping up
over the hills and cast shadows high overhead. The fuse had failed! A
call was made for a volunteer to go down into the mine and relight the
fuse. A Lieutenant and Sergeant bravely step forward and offered to
undertake the perilous mission. They reach the mouth of the tunnel
and peer in. All was dark, silent, sombre, and still. Along they grope
their way with a small lantern in their hands. They reach the barrel
of powder placed at the junction of the main and the laterals. The
fuse had ceased to burn. Hurriedly they pass along to the other
barrels. Expecting every moment to be brown into space, they find all
as the first, out. The thousands massed near the entrance and along
Taylor's Creek, watched with fevered excitement the return of the
brave men who had thus placed their lives in such jeopardy for a cause
they, perhaps, felt no interest. Quickly they placed new fuse, lit
them, and quickly left the gruesome pit. Scarcely had they reached
a place of safety than an explosion like a volcano shook the earth,
while the country round about was lit up with a great flash. The earth
trembled and swayed--great heaps of earth went flying in the air,
carrying with it men, guns, and ammunition. Cannon and carriages were
scattered in every direction, while the sleeping men were thrown high
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