nearly all night. Next morning, 17th, some flat cars came after us and
landed us in Petersburg, and we hurried to the front. Grant had taken some
of the outside lines, and we formed a line in a corn field and threw up
breastworks under shelling and picket fire. While fortifying our line,
Joseph Crowder was killed and James Bedford and Simon Eskridge were
mortally wounded. About 2 p. m. Grant began to assault our line next to
the river on our left, and kept it up for a long time. Our boys would yell
when they would drive them back and pass the word along the line,
"Repulsed with great loss; hold your position at all hazards; Lee's army
will be here at 10 to-night." Near sunset they took the position held by
Wise's Brigade. We were under moving orders at once, and a little after
dark the Thirty-fifth and Fifty-sixth, and probably some of our other
regiments, joined Grace's Alabama Brigade to retake the lost ground. The
full moon was an hour or two high. After a quick but desperate struggle
the line was retaken, to be abandoned next morning. All our historians
give the Alabamians all the credit and none mention the North Carolinians.
In the night and through the woods I thought at the time all our brigade
was there. I know the Thirty-fifth was next to us and sustained heavy
loss. About 2 a. m. we fell back to a new and last position in front of
Cemetery Hill, now known as the Crater, leaving a strong skirmish line
with orders to hold as long as they could and to fall back as slowly as
possible. This was to enable us to fortify another line which had only
been staked off the day before.

At daybreak on the 18th we were standing in single file, half line of
battle, when we heard Grant's massive columns charge on our skirmishers
and take the last ditch between them and Petersburg. Our artillery was all
in position on our last line. Lee's army had not come, and Grant only had
a half line of tired and worn-out soldiers in his front, standing in open
field between him and Petersburg. The Fifty-sixth in the night battle was
on the left flank, and did not suffer like the other regiments. Of Company
F, Noah Phillips, was killed, Spencer Moore and Wesley Revels captured.

When the enemy got those earthworks, we expected them on us at once.
Having only seven or eight tools to the company, we fell to work with our
bayonets to make a hole to squat in. We had bluffed them so the night
before that they thought Lee had arrived, and waited