556
THE BATTLE OF THE PETERSBURG CRATER.
was an order to go back and tell the brigade commanders to get their men outand press forward to Cemetery Hill. This talk and these orders, coming froma commander sitting in a bomb-proof inside the Union lines, were disgusting.I returned again to the crater and delivered the orders, which I knew before-hand could not possibly be obeyed; and I told General Ledlie so before Xleft him. Upon my return to the crater I devoted my attention to the move-ments 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 hadreturned to the crater for the third time, General Edward Ferrero, commandingthe colored division of the Ninth Corps, received an order to advance his divi-sion, pass the white troops which had halted, and move on to carry the crest ofCemetery Hill at all hazards. General Ferrero did not think it advisable tomove his division in, as there were three divisions of white troops alreadyhuddled together, and he so reported to Colonel Charles G. Coring, of GeneralBurnside’s staff. Loring requested Ferrero to wait until he could report toGeneral Burnside. General Ferrero declined to wait, and then Colonel Loringgave him an order, in General Burnside’s name, to halt without passing overthe Union works, which order he obeyed. Colonel Loring went off to reportto General Burnside, came back, and reported that the order was peremptoryfor the colored division to advance at all hazards.
The division then started in, moved by the left flank, under a most gallingfire, passed around the crater on the crest on the debris, and all but one regi-ment passed beyond the crater. The fire upon them was incessant andsevere, and many acts of personal heroism were done here by officers andmen. Their drill for this object had been unquestionably of great benefit tothem, and had they led the attack, fifteen or twenty minutes from the timethe debris of the explosion had settled would have found them at CemeteryHill, before the enemy could have brought a gun to bear on them.
But the leading brigade struck the enemy’s force, which I had previouslyreported as massed in front of the crater, and in a sharp little action the coloredtroops captured some two hundred prisoners and a stand of colors, and recap-tured a stand of colors belonging to a white regiment of the Ninth Corps. Inthis almost hand-to-hand conflict the colored troops became somewhat dis-organized, and some twenty minutes were consumed in re-forming; then theymade the attempt to move forward again. But, unsupported, subjected to a gall-ing fire from batteries on the flanks, and from infantry fire in front and partlyon the flank, they broke up in disorder and fell back to the crater, the majoritypassing on to the Union line of defenses, carrying with them a number of thewhite troops who were in the crater and in the enemy’s intrenchments.\
Had any one in authority been present when the colored troops made then’
\ A field-officer of one of the colored regiments[Lieutenant-Colonel John A. Bross] seized a standof United States colors as he saw his men falteringwhen they first met the withering fire of the enemy,and mounting the very highest portion of the crestof the crater waved the colors zealously amid thestorm of shot and canister. The gallant fellowwas soon struck to the earth.
While this was taking place an amusing occur-rence happened in the crater. As the coloredcolumn was moving hy the left flank around theedge of the crater to the right, the file-closers, onaccount of the narrowness of the way, were com-pelled to pass through the mass of white men in-side the crater. One of these file-closers was amassively built, powerful, and well-formed ser-