560

THE BATTLE OF THE PETERSBURG CRATER.

Sheridan, but to push on himself to the Weldon railroad. But the length ofthe march prevented success; so no attack was made by the cavalry, except at

Lee’s Mills, where General Gregg, en-countering cavalry, drove them awayin order to water his horses. TheFifth Corps and the Eighteenth Corpsremained inert during the day, ex-cepting Turner’s division of the TenthCorps (temporarily attached to theEighteenth), which made an attempton the right of the crater, but it hap-pened to be just at the time that the colored troops broke up; so his com-mand was thrown into confusion, and fell back to the trenches.

In this affair the several efforts made to push troops forward to CemeteryHill were as futile in their results as the dropping of handfuls of sand into arunning stream to make a dam. With the notable exception of General RobertB. Potter, there was not a division commander in the crater or connecting'lines, nor was there a corps commander on the immediate scene of action;the result being that the subordinate commanders attempted to carry out theorders issued prior to the commencement of the action, when the first attackdeveloped the fact that a change of these plans was absolutely necessary. |

SIDES AND EDGE OF TWO BULLETS THAT MET POINTTO POINT AT THE CRATER —THE SIDES FROMPHOTOGRAPHS OF THE ORIGINAL IN MAJORGRIFFITH’S MUSEUM AT THE CRATER.

4 A. revised table that has been prepared forpublication in the “ Official Becords” shows theloss of the Ninth Corps to have been 50 officersand 423 men killed, 124 officers and 1522 men

wounded, and 79 officers and 1277 men capturedor missing = 3475. The total loss at the mine(including Turner’s division of the Tenth Corps)was 504 killed, 1881 wounded, and 1413 cap-tured or missing = 3798. GeneralMahone states that the number ofprisoners taken was 1101. The lossin Lee’s army is not fully reported.Elliott’s brigade lost 677, and that wasprobably more than half of the casual-ties on the Confederate side.— Editors.

the SIEGE OE PETERSBURG — 1. SHARP-SHOOT-ERS ON THE LINE OF THE EIGHTEENTHCORPS. 2. BIVOUAC OF TIIE FIFTHCORPS IN THE RIFLE-PITS.

PROM SKETCHES MADE AT THE TIME.