General Hancock, suffering much from a wound received at Gettysburg, was now relieved of duty, and General Birney assumed command of the Second corps. The Eighteenth corps, General Smith, was removed to Bermuda Hundred, and its place supplied by the 5th, General Warren. General Burnside directed the assault, on the morning of the 17th, and it was commenced by General Griffin’s brigade, who made an impetuous dash forward, capturing six guns and four hundred prisoners, including sixteen officers. General Ledlie’s division made another charge in the afternoon, capturing a portion of the rebel fortifications. General Burnside then began to shell Petersburg, being distant about a mile and a half from the city, but did not long continue the bombardment.
About nine o’clock in the evening of the 17th, the rebels made a sally, to recover the position they had lost, and a severe hand-to-hand fight ensued. The First Michigan regiment, sharpshooters, sustained the brunt of the attack, and, at the outset, captured two hundred and forty prisoners. But the flank column of the enemy, pushing out to the left, suddenly charged into the Union works, which the enemy at the same time shelled from the front, and so drove out the brave Michiganders. The color-sergeant of this regiment, dreading capture, buried his flag in the intrenchments. The rebels held the line they had taken, until about two o’clock at night, when they abandoned it. On the morning of the 18th, the Michigan regiment marched in and took possession, the color-sergeant disinterring his flag. The National loss was about one thousand.
The operations of the 18th were particularly directed against a rebel line of works near the railroad from Petersburg to Suffolk. Wilcox’s division was assigned the duty of taking these fortifications, and was supported by Colonel Curtin’s brigade of Potter’s division, General Ledlie’s troops acting as a reserve. There was a good deal of skirmishing in the morning, but the general advance was not ordered till noon. Portions of the Eighteenth corps, together with the Sixth, Second, Ninth, and Fifth, were engaged in this day’s assault. The fighting was of the most desperate character in all parts of the field. Up and down ravines, over ditches, and breastworks, under a destructive fire of artillery and musketry, the brave soldiers of the Union forced and fought their way. Desperate and continued charges were made throughout the afternoon and evening; but with no material success. The slaughter, on both sides, was tremendous.
“The scenes in our hospitals,” says a contemporary correspondent, in closing an account of these four bloody days before Petersburg, “during the past few nights, have been of the most ghastly character. Day and night our surgeons have been engaged in the sad duties of their profession. There are not tents enough for the wounded; and numbers of the poor fellows are stretched beneath the trees, awaiting their turn upon the operating tables.”
Sunday, the 19th of June, witnessed a lull in this bloody strife. The enemy’s artillery did, indeed, belch forth now and then—meeting with prompt response—and there was some skirmishing. A rebel charge made at nightfall, on the Union centre, was repulsed. General Butler’s forces also repulsed an attack, made by Longstreet, at Bermuda Hundred. The rebels had, by this time, reached a clear understanding of General Grant’s position and design, and were actively opposing him at every practicable point.
The Siege of Petersburg and of Richmond now began in good earnest—the quiet, steady circumvallation, that is, of the rebel citadels and armies—and it was never relaxed, until the rebellion had fallen. Many important incidents marked its continuance and progress—battles, skirmishes, success and failure, brave deeds and sad losses. It will be the province of this narrative, within a brief compass, to touch upon the most important of these incidents.
An effort to destroy the railroad between Petersburg and Weldon was made on the 21st of June, and resulted in a battle at Davis Farm, in which the Unionists, under General Barlow, were defeated, with a loss of about a hundred men. On the 22d the same effort was repeated, in a more formidable manner, and a yet fiercer battle ensued, in which the rebels made many prisoners, while the National troops gained no material advantage. More fighting took place on the 23d, the 24th and the 25th.
EXPLOSION OF PLEASANTS’ MINE, AND BATTLE BEFORE PETERSBURG.
July 29, 1864.
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.