Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army

by Augustus Meyers

Captain Came's camp was close to the City Point road. I called on him a few times, when he invited me to his tent and asked me to take a "little mite," as he expressed it. He seemed pleased to see me, or was pleased at the excuse I afforded for an extra drink. We chatted, and he urged me to stay and have dinner with his "boys." On one of my trips, I fortunately missed by a few hours the explosion of a boat with a cargo of ordnance stores, at the wharf where I loaded my wagons. It killed and wounded about a hundred of the negro stevedores and other persons near-by, demolished some ordnance wagons, and did great damage to the wharf and adjoining vessels. The cause of the explosion remained unknown, but it was surmised that Rebel spies were to blame for it.

Some change in the position of our division caused the removal of our camp nearer to the Jerusalem Plank road. This caused the digging of more and deeper wells to obtain a sufficient supply of water, during the great heat and drought. General Burnside's Ninth Army Corps was on the right of the Fifth and there I saw the first colored troops join the Army of the Potomac, observing the arrival of a new regiment of negroes with their white officers on the road from City Point. Many of them had taken off their shoes and carried them slung on their bayonets while trudging bare-footed along the hot dusty road. In the evening I went to their camp and heard the roll-call of one of the companies. There were so many Jacksons and Johnstons, that the first sergeant numbered them as high as "Johnston number five." They appeared to be very proud of being soldiers and serving with white troops.

There were rumors, late in July, that a mine was being dug at a point in front of the Ninth Army Corps, where the field fortifications of both armies approached the closest. On the night of July twenty-ninth, I was awakened by an orderly who brought me an order from Lieutenant Pond to have the ordnance train ready to move at three o'clock next morning. An hour later the order was changed to have forty thousand rounds of ammunition at the front at daylight. I supposed that the mine was to be blown up under the enemy's works and that a general bombardment would take place.

It was just daylight, when I arrived at the front with one wagon containing the ammunition. I waited, expecting to hear an explosion at any moment. It was a beautiful morning and all was quiet. I must have waited for an hour, when suddenly I felt the earth tremble as the mine was fired, and I heard a dull heavy thud in front of the Ninth Corps close by. The report had not yet died away when our batteries, mortars and great guns opened a tremendous fire on the Rebel works which shook the earth.

An intervening strip of woods prevented me from seeing anything except the great cloud of smoke which arose over the batteries. The teamster and two guards were busy trying to keep the mules from running away, while I endeavored to quiet my horse, which was trying to break the halter by which I had tied him to a tree. I think it was ten minutes or more before there was any reply from the Rebel batteries and longer than that before their fire became general. Occasional shells now began to fly over us and one of them—a twenty-pounder—landed within a few yards of me, kicked around and scattered dirt over me, as I threw myself prone to the ground; but fortunately it failed to explode. The artillery fire was kept up for more than an hour when it slackened, but was vigorously resumed for a time about nine o'clock. By noon it had ceased and I was ordered to return to camp.

We learned later that the springing of the mine was a success, although it took place an hour later than intended, owing to a damp fuse which failed about half way into the mine and had to be replaced. The explosion blew a small Rebel fort, with all its inmates and guns, about two hundred feet up into the air and made a crater in the ground about one hundred and fifty, by sixty feet and twenty-five feet deep, which caused consternation and surprise among the enemy.

It has been conceded that General Meade's plan for a general assault on Petersburg was skillful and should have been a success, had his orders been fully obeyed. General Hancock's Second Army Corps had been sent across the James on the twenty-seventh to make a diversion, which resulted in General Lee's weakening his defenses by several divisions; while the Second Corps was to return on the night of the twenty-ninth to take part in the general assault on Petersburg, which failed to take place. Owing to deplorable delay and mismanagement of the division of the Ninth Corps, which advanced after the explosion of the mine and became huddled in the crater, the attack was doomed to lamentable failure, which caused the loss of nearly four thousand men. Some historians have termed this event "the mine fiasco." A week later General Meade ordered a court of inquiry to investigate the cause of the failure. This court, after the conclusion of its sessions, promulgated its opinion as follows:

That General Burnside had failed to prepare his parapets and abatis for the passage of the assaulting columns and had not given them proper formation; that he had neglected General Meade's order for the prompt advance to the crest and had not provided engineers, working materials and tools, etc., etc. As General Burnside remained at his headquarters, more than a mile away, during the assault, he had no personal knowledge of what was taking place. Brigadier-Generals J. H. Ledlie, commanding the white, and Edward Ferrero, commanding the colored troops of the assaulting columns, were found not to have pushed their divisions forward promptly, according to orders; nor did they accompany them, but remained in the rear in bomb-proofs most of the time and did not know the position of their troops. Two other brigade commanders were less unfavorably commented up. Six months later the congressional committee on the conduct of the war made a more searching and exhaustive inquiry into the "mine fiasco."

Unremitting picket firing and occasional cannonading went on during the sweltering first half of the month of August. On the night of the fifteenth, the Fifth Corps was relieved from duty in the trenches by the extension of the Ninth Corps to the left. General Grant had decided to destroy the Weldon railroad, an important means of supply for Lee's army, some miles to our west, and, if possible, to make a lodgment there and extend our investing lines to that point. The Fifth Army Corps was selected for this movement and was to march on the morning of the Seventeenth, but a torrential rain-storm on the night of the sixteenth had put the roads into such a condition that it was impossible to move artillery the next morning.

Just before midnight on the seventeenth some Rebel batteries opened fire on the Union lines and soon all the guns and mortars on both sides seemed to be engaged. It was the most furious midnight cannonading since the beginning of the siege. All the mortars were firing shells, which made the sky look as though there were a display of fireworks. It lasted for an hour and a half, when the firing slackened and then suddenly ceased on both sides, as if by an agreement.