THE BATTLE OF THE PETERSBURG CRATER.

was an order to go back and tell the brigade commanders to get their men out and press for ward to Cemetery Hill. This talk and these orders, coming from a commander sitting in a bomb-proof inside the Union lines, were disgusting.

I returned again to the crater and deliver ed the orders, which I knew beforehand could not possibly be obeyed ; and I told General Ledlie so before I left him. Upon my return to the crater I devoted my attention to the movements of the enemy, who was evidently making dispositions for an assault.

About two hours after the explosion of the mine (7 o'clock) and after I had returned to the crater for the third time General Edward Ferrero, commanding , the colored division of the Ninth Corps, received an order to advance his division, pass the white troops which had halted, and move on to carry the crest of Cemetery Hill at all hazards. General Ferrero did not think it advisable to move his division in, as there were three divisions of white troops already huddled together, and he so reported to Colonel Charles G. Loring, of General Burnside's staff. Loring requested Ferrero to wait until he could report to General Burnside. General Ferrwait, and then Colonel Loring gave him an order, in General Burnside's name, to halt without passing over the Union works, which order he obeyed. Colonel Loring went off to report to General Burnside, came back, and reported that the or der was peremptory for the colored division to advance at all hazards.

The division then started in, moved by the left flank, under a most galling fire, passed around the crater on the cr est on the debris, and all but one regiment passed beyond the crater. The fire upon them was incessant and severe, and many acts of personal heroism were done here by officers and men. Their drill for this object had been unquestionably of great benefit to them, and had they led the attack, fifteen or twenty minutes from the time the debris of the explosion had settled would have found them at Cemetery Hill, before the enemy could have brought a gun to bear on them.

But the leading brigade struck the enemy's force, which I had previously reported as massed in front of the crater, and. in a sharp little action the colored troops captured some two hundred prisoners and a stand of colors, and recaptured a stand of colors belonging to a white regiment of the Ninth Corps. In this almost hand-to-hand conflict the colored troops became somewhat disorganized, and some twenty minutes were consumed in re-forming; then they made the attempt to move forward again. But, unsupported, subjected to a galling fire from batteries on the flanks, and from infantry fire in front and partly on the flank, they broke up in disorder and fell back to the crater, the majority passing on to the Union line of defenses, carrying with them a number of the white troops who were in the crater and in the enemy's intrenchments.(1) Had any one in authority been present when the colored troops made their

(1) A field-officer of one of the colored regiments [Lieutenant-Colonel John A. Bross] seized a stand of United states colors as he saw his men faltering b when they first met the witheringmy, and mounting the very highest portion of the crest of the crater waved the colors zealously amid the storm of shot and canister. The gallant fellow was soon struck to the earth.

While this was taking place an amusing occurrence happened in the crater. As the colored column was moving by the left flank around the edge of the crater to the right,'the file-closers, on account of the narrowness of the way, were compelled to pass through the mass of white men inside the crater. One of these file-closers was a massively built, powerful, and well-formed sergeant, stripped to the waist-his coal-black skin shining like polished ebony in the strong sunlight.

As he was passing up the slope to emerge on the enemy's side of the crest he came across one of his own black fellows, who was lagging behind his company, evidently with the intention of remaining inside the crater, out of the way of the bullets. He was accosted by the sergeant with " None ob yo' d__ n skulkin', now," with which remark he seized the culprit with one hand, and, lifting him up in his powerful grasp by the waistband of his trousers, carried him to the crest of the crater, threw him over on the enemy's side, and quickly followed.- W. H. P.