The negroes manifested their humanity as well as their patriotism.
"While the battle was raging," said General Hinks, "I saw two wounded negroes helping a Rebel prisoner, who was more severely wounded, to the rear."
"Give the water to my suffering soldiers," said the wounded Philip Sidney. The incident stands upon the historic page, and has been rehearsed in story and song, as worthy of admiration. Shall not this act of two unknown colored soldiers also have a place in history?
The time, we trust, will come when men will be rated for what they are worth,—when superiority will consist, not in brute force, but in moral qualities. The slaveholders of the South, at the beginning of the war, esteemed themselves superior to the men of the North, and immeasurably above their slaves; but in contrast,—to the shame of the slaveholders,—stands the massacre at Fort Pillow and the humanity of the colored soldiers in front of Petersburg.
On the night of the 16th, Burnside arrived with the Ninth Corps. Neill's division of the Sixth also arrived. Burnside attacked the Rebels, but was repulsed. The lines were reconnoitred, and it was determined to make a second assault.
About half a mile south of the house of Mr. Dunn was the residence of Mr. Shand, held by the Rebels. During the cannonade which preceded the assault, a Rebel officer entered the house and sat down to play a piano. Suddenly he found himself sitting on the floor, the stool having been knocked away by a solid shot, without injury to himself.
The house was a large two-story structure, fronting east, painted white, with great chimneys at either end, shaded by buttonwoods and gum-trees, with a peach-orchard in rear. Fifty paces from the front-door was a narrow ravine, fifteen or twenty feet deep, with a brook, fed by springs, trickling northward. West of the house, about the same distance, was another brook, the two joining about twenty rods north of the house. A Rebel brigade held this tongue of land, with four guns beneath the peach-trees. Their main line of breastworks was along the edge of the ravine east of the house. South, and on higher ground, was a redan,—a strong work with two guns, which enfiladed the ravine. Yet General Burnside thought that if he could get his troops into position, unperceived, he could take the tongue of land, which would break the Rebel line and compel them to evacuate the redan. Several attempts had been made by the Second Corps to break the line farther north, but without avail. This movement, if not successful, would be attended with great loss; nevertheless, it was determined to make the assault.
It was past midnight when General Potter led his division of the Ninth down into the ravine. The soldiers threw aside their knapsacks, haversacks, tin plates and cups, and moved stealthily. Not a word was spoken. The watches of the officers in command had been set to a second. They reached the ravine where the pickets were stationed, and moved south, keeping close under the bank. Above them, not fifteen paces distant, were the Rebel pickets, lying behind a bank of sand.
If their listening ears caught the sound of a movement in the ravine, they gave no alarm, and the troops took their positions undisturbed. The moon was full. Light clouds floated in the sky. Not a sound, save the distant rumble of wagons, or an occasional shot from the pickets, broke the silence of the night. The attacking column was composed of Griffin's and Curtin's brigades,—Griffin on the right. He had the Seventeenth Vermont and Eleventh New Hampshire in his front line, and the Ninth New Hampshire and Thirty-Second Maine in the second. Curtin had six regiments,—the Thirty-Sixth Massachusetts, and the Forty-Fifth and Forty-Eighth Pennsylvania, in his front line; the Seventh Rhode Island, Twelfth New York, and Fifty-Eighth Massachusetts in his second line.