The 10th artillery boys, who were with that portion of the army on Bermuda Hundred, will remember Butler’s “Dutch Gap” canal.
The historic James river, from City Point to Richmond, is one of the crookedest streams in the country, and the rebel batteries had command of a seven-mile bend in the river that Butler thought to get around by cutting across lots, so to speak.
The distance across was not much over a half mile, and Butler conceived the idea of a canal. The banks were high and it required a vast amount of labor to make the excavation.
The position was exposed to the fire of the rebel artillery and they kept up an incessant bombardment of the men at work who had holes in the banks after the manner of swallows and when things got too hot they would crawl into their individual bomb proofs.
Butler did not get his canal finished in time to be of service to the gunboats before the fall of Richmond but I understand it was completed after the war.
A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION.
One day when I happened to be at City Point a terrible explosion occurred. It was as though a hundred cannon had belched forth. The shock was almost overpowering. The ground trembled and the first thought was that the confederates had in some way gotten a position where they could shell Grant’s headquarters and the hospitals. Looking up we saw a dense column of smoke rise to a great height and then spread out like a parachute and from it fell death dealing missiles in every direction. Some exploded as far away from the landing as the hospitals. Shell flew in all directions. It literally rained muskets, sticks, pieces of iron, etc. When the smoke cleared away the scene from the bluff overlooking the wharves was sickening. Bodies were lying in every direction, blackened and many without heads, arms or legs.
The cause of the accident was a mystery until after the war when on the trial of Werz at Washington a rebel witness confessed that he had done it, making excuse that he had a package for the captain of an ammunition boat at the wharf. He knew the captain was away from the boat so he left the package containing an infernal machine for him with the fuse adjusted so that an explosion would soon follow.
Among the other curiosities at the Point was a stockade where the rebel prisoners were corralled until they could be sent north. Another stockade was called a “Bull Pen,” where all the deserters, bounty jumpers, bummers and other freaks were kept until their cases could be disposed of.
LEE’S DESPERATE ATTEMPT.