We left them alone at their repast. It occurred to me they might try to escape, and I heartily wished they would. But after an hour they were marched away, we knew not whither.
On July 30th occurred the dreadful explosion of the mine which the enemy had tunnelled under our line of fortifications.
A little after four in the morning the city was roused by the most awful thunder—like nothing I can imagine, except, perhaps, the sudden eruption of a volcano. This was the explosion of a mine tunnelled by General Grant under our works. Instantly the unhappy residents of the town poured into the street and out on the road, anywhere to escape what we supposed to be an earthquake. No words can adequately describe this horror! We lost a part of our line. Colonel Paul, a member of Beauregard's staff, was sent to inform General Lee of the disaster, and bore back his orders that the line must be at once recaptured. As the colonel passed his father's house, he ran in and found the old gentleman's hand on the bell-rope to summon his household to family prayers.
"Stay, my son, and join us at prayers," said the old man. "Get some breakfast with your mother and me." The colonel could not pause. He must leave this peaceful home, and bear his part in protecting it.
When the veterans meet to-day for their camp-fire talk, it is of the "battle of the Crater," the shocking incidents of which cannot be told to gentle ears, that they speak most frequently. The fountain of fire that shot up to heaven bore with it the dismembered bodies of man made in God's own image. Then infuriated men, black and white, leaped into the chasm and mingled in an orgy of carnage. No one has ever built on that field. Nature smooths its scars with her gentle hand, but no dwelling of man will ever rest there while this tragedy is remembered.
On May 3d, 1887, Federal and Confederate veterans met on this spot and clasped hands together. Since then the Confederates have met there again and again. Each one has some story to tell of heroism, of devotion, and the stories are not always tragic. Some of them have been gleaned from the experiences of the boys in blue.
Lieutenant Bowley of the Northern army delivered an address before the California commandery of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and quotes from the address of a negro preacher to his fellows just before the explosion of the crater. He was sergeant of a company of negroes, and thus exhorted them:—
"Now, men, dis is gwine to be a gret fight, de gretest we seen yit; gret things is 'pending on dis fight; if we takes Petersburg, mos' likely we'll take Richmond an' 'stroy Lee's army an' close de wah. Eb'ry man had orter liff up his soul in pra'r for a strong heart. Oh! 'member de pore colored people ober dere in bondage. Oh! 'member dat Gin'ral Grant an' Gin'ral Burnside an' Gin'ral Meade an' all de gret gin'rals is right ober yander a watchin' ye; an' 'member I'se a watchin' ye an 'any skulker is a gwine ter git a prod ob dis ba'net—you heah me!"
Words than which, except for the closing sentence, I know none more pathetic.