The long-continued battle of Petersburg had already begun before we were in battle line. General Butler, on the other side of the Appomattox, on this Thursday morning through General Terry, had assaulted Port Walthall with the intention of interrupting the coming of rebel re-inforcements on the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad and, the night before, troops of the Eighteenth Corps, which had been with us at Cold Harbor, had attacked south of the river, and had there been a supporting force at hand, the second as well as the first line of works might have been carried. As troops of the Second Corps came up they were sent against the works and, during the night and the following day, the 16th, the contest continued along the line composed of the Eighteenth Corps on the right, the Second in the centre and the Ninth on the left. All this while we of the Fifth Corps were sporting in the waters of the James. Meanwhile other portions of the Fifth Corps had gone forward, and at four o'clock in the afternoon the Thirty-ninth with its neighbors started on the road to Petersburg. After covering some ten miles of the way, we halted at 10.30 p. m. for food and rest, the route having been over hills and through swamps, difficult at the best, all the more so at night.

It was early in the morning of the 17th when the march was resumed, and at 9 a. m. we halted in the rear of breastworks, our entire route having been enlivened by the sound of firing, more or less vigorous, indicating a resumption of the days at Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. Moreover, Massachusetts men do not forget that it is the 17th of June, and noise they had grown to think a regular accompaniment of that illustrious date. We are at the Union left and massed in the rear of the Ninth Corps, under Burnside, and the duty of our Corps is to act as a support of the Ninth if needed. We are about two miles from Petersburg and from many points the city is plainly seen. The cupola of Dinwiddie County Court House will be a target for Union artillery during many coming months. Lying in the breastworks through the day and night, we were exposed to the missiles of the enemy; Lieut Wyman of "H" and Captain Willard Kinsley of "K" as well as others were wounded. Unless he could sleep in the direst confusion there was no closing of the eyelids during this first night in front of Petersburg. In this memorable siege, the 18th of June is a notable date, for then there was concerted action along the entire line, though not in such uniform time and order as General Meade desired. It was a bloody day in which a vigorous effort was made to force the rebel lines before the arrival of help from the Northward. This might have been done earlier in the day, but, before the advance could be made, re-inforcements had arrived to nearly, if not quite, equal the number of the Union soldiers, and General Meade's orders were to hold what had been gained and to fortify immediately. The casualties of the four days, 15th-18th, footed up nearly two thousand killed and more than eight thousand wounded, the charges of this 18th day ending assaults on intrenched positions. The work of the Fifth Corps is thus described by a war correspondent: June 18, '64

The advance of the First Brigade, Third Division, is made at daybreak and we find the enemy missing. We are passing over surface which was fighting ground yesterday and last night; encountering the dead in both blue and gray, a most gruesome sight, at the same time driving back the rebel skirmishers until we come in sight of the Confederate earthworks, when we halt and throw up works for our own protection. Even danger and death can not wipe out human or, at least, boyish nature. Near the brief halting place are mulberry trees, fairly black with luscious, well ripened fruit, and not even rebel riflemen can keep Yankee berry-pickers out of those tempting branches. We soon advance, however, across a field and towards a railroad-cut some distance ahead of us, and to reach it we have to run the risk of the foe's rifles and cannon, snugly entrenched beyond the cut. We make a rush for this cut and the tumbles that some of the men take in entering it are funny even in battle's din. Colonel Davis's well known avoirdupois gained such momentum in the rapid rush that halting on the brink was quite impossible, and he rolled rapidly down the declivity. There is skirmishing all day and an artillery duel in the afternoon. Just at dark, a rapid movement is made across a ravine and orders are quietly passed that when the Colonel's hat is raised on the point of his sword, we are to rush forward to the edge of a bank, so near and yet so far below the rebel works that they cannot depress their cannon sufficiently to hit us. Officers are summoned later to brigade headquarters where they are informed that there will be a night attack, but, for some reason, changes come in the programme and in a new position we again throw up breastworks. In an exposed condition, we lie in them through the night and are saluted in the morning of Sunday, the 19th, by the enemy's fire at closer range.

The 19th falls on Sunday, though the particular day of the week gives these soldiers very little concern, since each successive twenty-four-hours is only one day more of "smoke and roar and powder-stench" and of this particular interval, General Warren has only the words, "Remained in position. Loss about three hundred." If remaining in position brought such a record as this, what would it have been had there been another effort to advance? The night before had seen very vigorous work in the trenches and men tried to strengthen them against possible attack, and so close were the workman to each other and so emphatic their strokes, George A. Farrar of "E" was wounded in the knee by a pickaxe and was obliged to go to the hospital. Nothing in the world finds more ready and willing workers than the throwing up of breastworks that may be used for defense and, under the spur of hostile missiles, the laziest become most industrious. At such times there are no suggestions that the other fellow ought to do it, but everyone is doing something, if it is no more than loosening earth with a bayonet or case-knife and throwing up the results with a cup or tin-plate, hoping thus to stop a vagrant bullet. Continuous rattle of musketry recalls the noise of the Wilderness and, with the evident skill of the sharpshooters, it behooves everyone to lie low. Writes one poor fellow, somewhat discouraged, June 19, '64 "When shall we get through this terrible campaign?" Another says, "The Thirty-ninth is about five hundred yards (others put the distance as low as eighty yards) from the Confederate works and our skirmishers are on a hillside, across a ravine. At nightfall, we begin on the works again." This, doubtless, is the point referred to by Captain Porter, years afterward, when at a reunion of the Regiment, he said, "our skirmishers were among the first to establish the line at what was afterward the Crater, blown up on the 30th of July, 1864, and that line was pushed nearest to the rebel line, not excepting that of Fort Stedman and Fort McGilvery, by twenty yards."

Of the 20th, an officer records, "We worked till two o'clock last night, and turned out at four this morning. The rebel sharpshooters are on the lookout for a man careless enough to show himself. I am twenty-four years old to-day." Another scribe in the same company enters these words, "Wish I were at home to-day for it is our boy's birthday," so closely does the absent soldier keep in heart and mind to the loved ones at the hearthstone. While there is a trend towards the west, General Griffin's Division (First) reaching the Jerusalem plank-road and the Second Corps crossing it, our portion of the Fifth Corps, except as a part of the Brigade moves off to the left to help fill the gap made by the withdrawal of Griffin, remains as before. The 21st varies little from yesterday, men keeping pretty closely to their places, the least exposure bringing attention from the enemy, and men are wounded in spite of all care to the contrary. One of Burnside's colored regiments is digging a traverse out to the picket line. Extreme vigilance continues into the night, through fear of an assault by the enemy, and at about 9 p. m., the most of the Regiment goes on picket. Picket duty on the 22nd requires vigilance, "Yank" and "Reb" exchange compliments whenever opportunity offers and Jonas P. Barden, Company A, is killed. Quite late in the evening, the Regiment is relieved and retires to its former location, the same being not remote from the spot which in a few weeks would be known as the "Crater," and somewhat further to the Union left, opposite prominencies will be called Forts Sedgwick and Mahone, or in army parlance, Forts "Hell and Damnation." It is on this day that the Second Corps suffers one of the severest set backs in its entire history, the enemy succeeding in getting at its left flank, in a manner unprecedented, and in carrying off four cannon and more than two thousand prisoners.

Everyone is learning caution, but there are mortalities still, as with S. B. Harris of "H" who is hit in the head and killed on the 23rd. It is fair to suppose that Union sharpshooters are just as vigilant as their opponents, and that Death visits, with no show of partiality, both blue and gray. As the stay in these advanced trenches has not savored at all of rest, any change seems desirable, hence orders to move early in the morning of the 24th are heard with pleasure and, before daylight, we are off to the left to take the places of Second Corps men who had gone still further to the left, while the Ninth Corps moves into our vacated places. One very careful observer states that we lost our way and had to back and fill, as it were, at one time coming near running into the enemy, who kept up an almost constant shelling during the change. There seems to be less activity among the sharpshooters, for which the soldiers are duly grateful. To-day the original members of the Twelfth Massachusetts, the Fletcher Webster Regiment, long in the Second Brigade of our Division, draw out of line and start for home. The recruits, re-enlisted and drafted men of the Twelfth are to become a part of the Thirty-ninth. The coming into our ranks of one hundred and twenty-five men from the returning Twelfth, is the crowning incident of the 25th. One hundred and six more men are nominally transferred, but they are absent on sick leave, in rebel prisons or elsewhere, and those received to-day, represent about all the real additions to come from our friends who, after three June 24, '64 years of arduous labor, are homeward bound. The new position of the Regiment is across the Petersburg & Norfolk Railroad and the depleted condition of the 39th, following the campaign, is evident from the fact that eighteen of the men from the Twelfth Regiment, added to those left in Company C of the Thirty-ninth, called for just forty three rations in the entire company.

It was not lack of excitement which prompted a certain Company A man to a prank which afforded him and his comrades a deal of pleasure, rather was it a desire for something out of the ordinary that, in the midst of this, the severest campaign in the progress of the war, suggested to him a variation. Taking pencil and paper, he wrote, "I should be happy to correspond with any young lady so disposed; address G. W. Cheney, Company A, 39th Regt., M. V. M., Second Brigade, Third Division, Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac." Thinking the idea too good to be kept secret, he read it to the boys around the campfire who were delighted with the plan and he had to write another, couched thus, "I would be pleased to correspond with young ladies, 18 to 22, with view to matrimony." Both of the ads were sent to the Boston Herald and the writer thinks they were the first of the kind ever inserted there. Two weeks later, or after the ads had had time to circulate, the mail brought one hundred and six answers, representing every state then in the Union; long letters, short and pithy ones, some perfumed and embossed; no end of good advice, love, kisses, merry, sporting fun and blessings; it was understood that the Colonel's good wife was quite horrified at seeing the ad and there must have been some uxorious advice to Colonel Davis since, though the next mail had over two hundred letters for the advertisers, they were all destroyed on the pretext that there were no such persons in the Regiment as those addressed. This however did not prevent the enterprising young men doing extensive corresponding over their own names.

The 26th is a quiet day; the 27th has its alarms with prompt response but no attack. Long desired rain fell along towards night, but not enough to satisfy the overheated men and the thirsty earth; so near are pickets of the opposing armies, they could readily converse without raising their voices, but they have not, as yet, reached that degree of familiarity. The 28th, Tuesday, marks a change in the situation in that we move to the front and right and proceed to throw up a line of earthworks, stronger than those already in use with the expectation of thereby affording shelter for suddenly attacked pickets and to better resist any assault of the enemy. The month of June ends with the Corps stretched along the Petersburg line, with the Ninth and Eighteenth at the right and the Second and the Sixth at its left. By seeming common consent, pickets cease firing, though the heavy guns thunder away; evidently both Johnnie and Yankee would like a rest; after extremely hard work, the regimental rolls are got into shape for muster which is had on the 30th; another sign of semi-permanency is the coming up of some of the sutlers who are anxious to resume operations, especially in view of the possible coming of the paymaster. It is in these days that the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, Second Corps, which received so severe a handling at Harris's Farm, May 19th, yet most manfully held its place, is once more encountered and the ravages of war were never more apparent than in the fact that only three hundred are reported present for duty out of eighteen hundred men who left the defenses in the month of May.

The first third of July, as far as the Thirty-ninth is concerned, is quite uneventful. The comparative quiet that the men are experiencing has become a necessity. The persistent bending of the bow, beginning at the Wilderness, is bringing expected results. The fire of conscious strength, so evident in the earlier encounters of the campaign, is nearly burned out and recent trials of courage and endurance have shown and, future struggles July, '64 will exhibit, a lacking of that enthusiasm which characterized the early days of May. Human bodies cannot endure everything, their limitations are sooner or later determined and such is the case with these survivors of the terrible exactions so continuously made. General F. A. Walker says, "Men died of flesh wounds which, at another time, would merely have afforded a welcome excuse for a thirty days' sickness leave. The limit of human endurance had been reached." General Grant, in his Memoirs, writes of the situation after the assault on the 18th of June, "I now ordered the troops to be put under cover, and allowed some of the rest which they had so long needed." It is a protraction of this rest that our men are getting in earlier July. From the 1st to the 10th of the month, the diary of General Warren has no entry of greater importance than reference to the building of a redoubt or the development of some plan on paper and, though constant vigilance is evident, there are none of the exposure and tests characteristic of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania.

To supplement the somewhat stilted rations furnished by the commissary department, the sanitary commission is sending in a variety of vegetables, fresh and dried, as well as fruits that are most gratefully received by the men and they are working a great improvement in general health. In our Regiment, appearances begin to resemble those of winter quarters since roll calls, three times a day, are in order, falling-in with guns and equipments. Ground is cleared for inspection and those formal ordeals are had as of old, and guns have to be cleaned up accordingly; prayer-meetings also are resumed. The 4th, usually so noisy at home, is just the reverse in our particular locality, though away off to the right, Butler and Smith fire salutes. In the Fifth Corps, the impression apparently is that we have had noise enough of late. In the evening, the pickets on both sides celebrate a bit with cheers, perhaps in behalf of ancestors who, both North and South, fought for a common cause. The weather continues very hot and mutual forbearance permits the men to stretch their tents as awnings back of the earthworks into which they are ready to tumble instantly, should occasion arise. Heavy details are made of men for labor on a new fort in process of erection to the southwest of our position, to be called, at first, Fort Warren, but later to take the name of our Colonel who, all unconscious of the fact, is rapidly approaching the day of his departure. On the 7th of July the Third Division of the Sixth Corps is detached and, by way of the James and Chesapeake Bay, is sent to Baltimore to head off near Frederick, Maryland, the movement of General Early and his men on Washington. This Confederate officer had been ordered to leave the vicinity of Cold Harbor on the 13th of June, and to proceed towards the Shenandoah Valley for the purpose of making trouble for General David Hunter, who had been operating in that section, Lee evidently thinking that his lessened battle front could afford the withdrawal. A considerable battle followed on the 9th, at Monocacy Junction, where Lew Wallace with a force made up of local militia and certain Ohio one hundred days' men and the Third Division of the Sixth Corps, was able to hold the Confederates long enough to permit the arrival in Washington of the remaining two divisions of the Sixth, the same leaving City Point the night of the 9th, and to successfully repel the rebel assault upon Fort Stevens on the 12th. Considerable effort was necessary to persuade General Grant that any portion of the Confederate army was missing from his front, luckily he was convinced in time to send a sufficient force to Washington to destroy all of Early's expectations.

The comparative calm of the first third of July was rudely broken on the 11th. The day had begun much as usual and, from five o'clock in the morning till five-thirty in the afternoon, there was the regular round of camp and other duties when, for some unexplained reason, the July 11, '64 enemy began a fierce fire of artillery on our rations-train. As hitherto, nearly all of the shells exploded way back of our lines but one, and a man states distinctly in his diary, "the only one," struck close beside Colonel Davis and, exploding, wounded him so severely that he died very soon afterward, 7 p. m. Private Mentzer of "A," long years later, recalls the sad happening thus: "Streets, tents, stockades, properly aligned; camps, graded and drained; constant discipline, inspections, dress parades, deportment, all better than those of any other regiment I ever saw, tell me that Colonel Davis did his work thoroughly and well. He sat on a rustic seat or bench, talking with a friend (Asst. Surgeon of the Thirteenth), none other near, save a detail of pickets, of whom I was one, just reported at headquarters, when a shell burst and tore his body dreadfully, still he was the commander to the end."

Lieut. J. H. Dusseault, "H," describes the sad event thus:

At this very time Colonel Davis was president of a court martial at the headquarters of the Third Division and had been there earlier in the day but, as the business in hand was not in proper shape, the court did not convene and its president returned to his Regiment. Had it been in progress, the chances are that our colonel would not have passed out of life as he did. John S. Beck, "C," detailed as a clerk at the court martial, writes thus: "I did not think it was the last time I should ever see him.... I felt very badly about it, for he seemed like a father to me. The boys felt blue enough. I think it will be hard to fill his place. I turned in feeling very sad and downcast."[N]

As with Tennyson's Brook, "Men may come and men may go," but the war "goes on." The gallant officer, into whose care the dying colonel committed the Regiment, was fully equal to the task. A member of the famous Fourth Battalion, which served its period of volunteer duty in Fort Warren at the breaking out of the war entirely without compensation, he had been one of the first to volunteer in the Twentieth Massachusetts where he was first lieutenant and adjutant and, captured at Ball's Bluff, had experienced July 11, '64 Richmond inhospitality. Then as a staff officer, he had seen the fierce Peninsula campaign along with Generals Dana and Sedgwick. An early selection of Governor Andrew, he was made second to Colonel Davis in the raising of the Thirty-ninth and we have grown pretty well acquainted with him during the preceding months. As close to the enemy at Laurel Hill as he well could be, he was severely wounded and he now takes his promotion with the good will and thorough loyalty of every officer and man under his command. Major Henry M. Tremlett who was still absent on detached service in Boston becomes lieutenant colonel, and Captain F. R. Kinsley of the Somerville Company, "E," succeeds Tremlett as major.

Were this history that of the entire war or even that of the Army of the Potomac, the story of the remaining days of July would occupy very little space, for the siege of Petersburg, actually beginning on the 15th of June, is to continue until the 2nd of April, '65, and may be characterized as an unbroken engagement of almost ten months' duration with occasional extra emphasis laid on this or that point along the battle line, many miles in extent. Away at the right is the Eighteenth Corps, holding the space from the Appomattox to the Ninth Corps which stretches out till its left joins the right of the Fifth, which in turn touches the right of the Second; this corps since the withdrawal of the Sixth for service in Maryland, in Washington and later in the valley of the Shenandoah, has become the extreme Union left, with its line refused towards the south, and west of the Jerusalem plank-road, only a fraction of the distance to be covered before the winter's stay is ended. Even now the enemy is making vigorous effort to defend the several railroads which connect Petersburg with the south, feeling certain that Grant and Meade will not long delay trying to cut off the city from its Weldon Railroad connections and, until that time arrives, there will be more digging than charging along the rival lines, though the exchange of sulphurous compliments will be so constant that cessation rather than continuance will arouse remark.

General Warren, who has his command well in hand, has no conspicuous statement for this period, and even some regimental historians pass over the interval with only a few and scattering remarks. It will be understood that the most diligent picket and camp duties are maintained all of the time, and very few if any idle days come to either commissioned officer or enlisted man from one week's end to another. Never was there a better illustration of eternal vigilance than that displayed by both sides in this long game of opposites; hence in our progress it will be unnecessary to mention more than the passing events, in the least out of the ordinary. Colonel Thomas F. McCoy of the One hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania succeeds Colonel Davis as president of the court martial, while the body of the deceased officer, with his faithful steed and Chaplain French, starts July 12th on its long journey homeward. Many a member of the Regiment felt, if he did not so express himself, as did the writer who put these words in his diary, "I can't realize that he has really gone and will not be with us at the front again." Early in the morning of this day, the Regiment is aroused and at 2.30 a. m. moves into the large fort or redoubt, for some time in process of erection. Of this, General Warren makes mention, saying that he spent the day here, planning and cutting timber, etc. At daylight of the 13th, everyone goes to work with pick or shovel in making defensible the new fort. Here we are to remain till the middle of August. Named at first for the commander of the Fifth Corps, it will soon take the name of our late colonel. Covering about three acres of ground, it is capable of holding a brigade. Situated a mile or more below Petersburg, it is on the Jerusalem plank-road and the next fortification south of Sedgwick, the Fort "Hell" of rebel parlance. Lieutenant Dusseault says, "In building our fort, we dug a trench twenty feet wide and ten feet deep, and threw July 13, '64 up the rampart on the inside. Thus there were eighteen or twenty feet of banking. The fort was made square with a diagonal through it. We had a magazine in it, and two wells were dug for a water supply. Besides our Brigade there was with us also the Ninth (Bigelow's) Battery, which had suffered so severely at Gettysburg."

The routine of duty, including at least three hours' work daily on the fortifications, continues to-day, and all day and all night, too, for that matter, since the stronghold must be one in fact as well as name, men being so detailed as to keep the dirt flying; a writer in the story of the Thirteenth Massachusetts Infantry says it took eight men to get one shovelful of dirt from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the work, the men standing in little nitches cut in the side of the bank and passing the earth from one to another. This day also marks the transferral of recruits and re-enlisted men of the Thirteenth Regiment, the time of this staunch companion on many a march and hard fought field having expired and the original members being about to withdraw for their joyful journey home, though the actual union of the one hundred remaining men of the Thirteenth and the Thirty-ninth does not take place till the 14th of July, the only noteworthy event of the day, unless mention is made of the withdrawal of the Second Corps from its western position and its encampment south of the Fifth Corps, thus leaving the Fifth at the extreme Union left. On the Fifteenth the camp ground is thoroughly policed and General Warren superintends the laying out of a camp for the men and pitching our tents, regular living seems probable for a time at least. It is related that, reviewing some of the work as already laid out, General Warren, who had been Meade's chief engineer, asked who had projected certain lines and, when a division commander was named, he sharply remarked, "General —— had better stick to his pills," and seizing a shovel worked off some of his indignation by making the dirt fly with his major general hands. The Masonic Lodge held its first meeting for many a day and voted to pay for the embalming of Colonel Davis' body, and the expenses incident to sending it home, also appointing a committee to look after the families of brother Masons killed in the campaign.

The passion or appetite for drink is well illustrated on the 17th in Lieut. Dusseault's effort to properly distribute eight canteens (twelve quarts) of whiskey among one hundred men, on police duty, the ration being one gill for each one but, for fear that the quantity might intoxicate them, he discreetly gave out one half a gill per man, thus retaining four canteens for a subsequent occasion. When he lay down at night he put the canteens under his head, but despite his care the canteens were stolen with no clue to the thieves, save the maudlin condition in which several men were found. There seemed to be no risk that men would not take to secure that which was worse than useless for them, an enemy to steal away their brains. Several days of continued routine of police, picket, drill and other features of camp life follow, but entirely agreeable after the exactions of May and June. Thursday, the 21st, the enemy varied the monotony by making an artillery demonstration against Fort Sedgwick, possibly lest its occupants should forget its nick name, "Hell." The cordial relations existing on picket are well illustrated by an incident related of the period where a Union soldier, crawling out carefully to reach his station, was more than surprised to hear in unmistakable Southern speech, the words, "Say, you Yank don't belong thar'; that's we uns place; you uns place's over thar," a bit of information that the Yank did not hesitate to avail himself of. Deserters are in constant evidence, all coming in ragged and hungry.

It was at Fort Davis that Corporal Dow of Company C got one of his first experiences on horseback. Captain Hutchins sent him to Colonel Peirson, one morning, in answer to the latter's request for a messenger to City Point. On the Colonel's telling Dow that he was to ride July 21, '64 a horse to City Point, ten miles away, the poor Corporal stood aghast and avowed his utter ignorance of an equine, his vocation being that of a ship carpenter, saying, "I can tell you all about a boat, Colonel, but I know absolutely nothing about a horse." "Oh! That's nothing," replied the officer, "you can stick on and the horse you will ride is like a rocking chair." The animal that Colonel Peirson named was an exceedingly easy riding beast but, unfortunately, the same had been appropriated by an officer and ridden off on a somewhat questionable errand; to make a fuss about it would be to give the officer away, so Dow submitted to the caprice of the man in charge of the stable and went off mounted on the Adjutant's steed, notoriously the worst riding brute in the entire equine outfit. John Gilpin's condition after his ride to Ware and back was nothing compared to that of the Corporal when he returned; as he expressed it, if he had ridden a rail the entire twenty miles, with sledge hammers pounding the ends of the same, he could not have been more jolted and galled than he was at the end of his twenty miles. A whiskey ration was being distributed when he reached camp, and Dow remarked that he needed extensive application, both within and without. "I guess I've killed your horse or he has me," he remarked to the Adjutant as, walking very wide, he passed that officer. "I hope you have," said the officer, "for then I can get a better one." The steed really did die from the trip, and when the Colonel called for Dow again, luckily for him, the easy going beast was ready.

Lest we should forget that we are in a state of war with our Southern brethren, we are favored on the 24th and the 25th, late in the afternoon, with certain iron compliments, the rebels even shelling the picket line, a very unusual procedure, one shell entering the fort; as many of their missiles fail to explode, we conclude that they must be using a very poor grade of powder. The cannon opposite to us are manned by the Washington Artillery, that crack New Orleans organization whose batteries were found in all the great Confederate armies, east and west. Towards the end of the month, a greater degree of activity is apparent; the Second Corps moves out on the 26th and then returns the next day; on this same 27th, loads of ammunition are bought up and picket relations are less amicable than hitherto. We turn in July 29th, with orders to turn out at 2.30 the next morning; this we do on the 30th and the Fifth Corps moves a half mile or so to our right into trenches back of the Ninth, with the Second Corps similarly disposed at our right. As yet we do not know what a large part of the country is to learn soon, viz., that this 30th of July is to go down the annals of time as the day of the "Crater." For weeks, under the direction of Colonel Pleasants of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania, his men have been digging an underground way, in front of Burnside's advanced lines, to a point beneath Elliott's or Pegrams' Salient, more than five hundred feet distant. It was finished on the 23rd and in it were soon placed 8,000 lbs. of powder. To divert the attention of the enemy, lest he might discover the undermining project, the Second Corps had been sent across the James, to assist the troops already there in a demonstration against Richmond, but when the mine was ready for exploding the corps was hastily called back. Pages have been written of the event, of the explosion, of the advance of troops, white and black, into the abyss caused by the eruption and of their sorry fate beneath the concentrated fire of the Confederates, under Mahone and his artillery, and the unkind words that for many a year were uttered concerning Burnside and his part in the well conceived though unfortunately consummated project. Many of our Bay State regiments are in the Ninth Corps and they perform with credit whatever duty falls to their lot. We are not called upon for any part in the fight, though we have our share of earache at the terrific explosion and the artillery firing afterwards. July ends with the Fifth Corps back in July 29, '64 the same position as that held before the "Crater" episode, one of whose principal features was the practical demonstration that negro troops are much like those of other complexion and may be depended upon in an emergency.

Although August, 1864, is written deep in the hearts and memories of members of the Thirty-ninth, up to and beyond the middle of the month there is little to record except the regular round of camp life close to the enemy's lines, and the rumors that are ever afloat where many are assembled. The sending away of the Sixth Corps to the defense of Washington and the inauguration of the Shenandoah Valley campaign under Sheridan, whose only instructions, imparted to him by Grant at Monocacy, in that meeting of August 6th, are "Go in," making matters in the Petersburg Zone much more quiet than they would be otherwise. A southside view of the situation is not amiss and the words of T. N. Page, in his life of Lee, are appended:—

Of the period between the Mine and the month of March, 1865, General Humphreys, in his story of the campaign, remarks on the movements of the Army of the Potomac and that of the James to the right and the left, resulting in the extension of our line of entrenchment in both directions, and causing a corresponding extension of the Confederate entrenchments on our left, and their occupation in stronger force of their entrenchments on the north bank of the James. Very likely these blazing, hot August days would have been blazing with gunpowder in the furthering of the investment of the Cockade City had not the departure of the Sixth Corps compelled the temporary suspension of the western project and a continuance of the strengthening of the works already built. So far, however, as anything akin to comfort beneath the midsummer sun, in the exposed earthworks was concerned, nothing of the sort was possible. Only when the king of day hid his shining face, during the hours of night, could the intensity of his heat be forgotten.

Still, time was passing, and every day marked the approach of the wind-up, so long and so devoutly prayed for. Regimental note takers were observing everything out of the ordinary, and Horton of "E" remarks, August 1st on a visit to the scene of the explosion, July 30, saying, "It is opposite the old brick house, where we were before coming here" and he also comments on the burial of the dead, while a flag of truce is up. Another, writing on the 2d, says, "Walked along the front of our Corps, everything is under ground, covered ways for teams and troops to pass out if the enemy is near, showing a vast amount of labor." Thursday, the 4th, was a Fast Day, appointed by the President, which was observed in Fort Davis by a suspension of fatigue duty and religious services at 6.30 conducted by the chaplains of the Sixteenth Maine, the One hundred and Fourth New York and the One Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania. The day was not observed by all organizations, and along the line of the Aug. 4, '64 Ninth Corps there was considerable firing. The versatile accomplishments of Union soldiers are indicated in that on the 5th of August a member of Company H, suffering from toothache, sought out an ex-dentist in the One Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania and had his aching molars filled; and the scarcity of proper material is also shown in that the substance, used for filling, was just ordinary lead, but it did the business. Who would suppose that, through all of the ups-and-downs of an exacting campaign the instruments, essential to such work would have been, carried and what a substitute for a dentist's chair, with its varied attachments, must have been the end of a log or an empty cracker box!

Almost every day brings one or more deserters from the rebel ranks, men who are convinced that the game is really lost and can see no pleasure or profit in the "last ditch" idea. They are invariably hungry, ragged and dirty. On the 9th, Fred. Glines of "E," a Somerville boy, visits the hospital of the Ninth Corps and there meets Professor John P. Marshall, a respected instructor in Tufts College, a most pleasant meeting for both parties. He also records the blowing up of an ordnance boat, lying at the wharf in City Point, receiving fixed ammunition. The incident is an item in the history of the war, whereby there were a great loss of life and destruction of property. All told, the value of property destroyed mounted into the millions and the number of lives lost was between sixty and seventy; one hundred and thirty were wounded; some battles had a smaller record. At the time the explosion was ascribed to the careless handling of the ammunition cases.[O]

In the night of the 10th-11th there was a little artillery play in the direction of Fort Davis, but it proved to be harmless. The 12th marks the second anniversary of the muster-in of Company E, the first one in the Regiment. This day also saw a new movement of the Second Corps across the James River, another blow to be struck at Deep Bottom, if practicable. Evidently Generals Grant and Meade thought the quiet period had lasted long enough, besides the Lieutenant General thought that the rebels had sent off three of their divisions to reinforce Early in the valley. The truth was that only Kershaw's had gone, and all the others were right on the spot, ready to receive callers or boarders, it was all the same thing, and the expedition was not as productive of results as the projectors had desired.

One scribe, on the 13th, writes, "Got paid off," and elsewhere mention is made of the proximity of sutlers who are ready to settle old scores and also to sell for cash. Rumors of coming activity are current on the 14th and the next day, Monday, the Brigade marched out of the fort giving place to the First Division of the Ninth Corps, negro troops, and going back about two miles, we pitch camp and are evidently in reserve for some project. The heavens also are active and the long delayed rain comes in torrents for two hours in the afternoon. The troops which relieved us were the colored division of the Ninth Corps, under General Edward Ferrero, and of their appearance as we marched out, Beck of Company C remarks, "Who of the Thirty-ninth will ever forget the appearance of the colored troops sent to relieve us, as they lay about outside, half buried in yellow mud and water, as we filed out of the fort on that rainy morning? They had been marching Aug. 13, '64 all night in the darkness, rain and mud, and were so completely exhausted that sleep to them was the one great necessity, position and bed being secondary. We carefully stepped over their bodies and soon were beyond the sound of their snoring." A heavy detail is made on the 16th for work on Fort Sedgwick, but day work is impossible there on account of the nearness of Fort Mahone, or "Damnation," whose sharpshooters are regularly gunning for the "blues." The detail had hardly more than begun to work at 10 p. m. when the command came to cease from labors and to report to the Regiment at once. There the information is imparted that the corps will move at 3 p. m. of the coming day. On this next day, the 17th, when in line awaiting the expected "Forward" there comes the order to break ranks and encamp for the night. Concerning the movement against the Weldon Railroad, whole volumes have been written. It was a part of Grant's effort to cripple the resources of the rebel army that was being hemmed in gradually by the Union forces. The necessity of the move had been recognized from the first and it had been delayed, as already stated, principally by the departure of Sheridan and the Sixth Corps to the Shenandoah Valley. We have noted the activity of Hancock and his Second Corps, north of the James, made in the hope that it might cause the return of some of the Confederates who had gone to Early's relief, thereby enabling Sheridan to strike a heavier blow in his present command.

Incidentally, it seemed that troops had been withdrawn from the rebel right to strengthen those fighting Hancock and others, at the Confederate left, and Grant saw his opportunity to strike again for the Weldon track, and this is what he says in his Memoirs:—

The foregoing extract from the memoirs of the Lieutenant General has been made as an indication of his opinion of the magnitude of the work of August 18th in the progress of the war. The Army and Navy Journal of August 27th, after noting the extraordinary storm of the 15th, "Which swept away many tents and sutler's booths and filled the trenches with water" and the fierce cannonading on the 16th, also that of 1 a. m. of the 18th, lasting for two hours, has this to offer concerning the event which figures so largely in the annals of our Regiment:—

"At four o'clock, on the morning of Thursday, the 18th, and shortly after the heavy cannonading ceased, the Fifth Corps started from its camp (which was rather in reserve) with four days' rations, towards the Weldon Railroad. It took some time to get across the ground formerly held by the Second and Sixth Corps. Then the column marched towards Ream's Station, driving in easily the enemy's skirmishers, of whom a part were captured. Between seven and eight o'clock, the advance arrived at Six Mile Station, and busily setting to work, a mile of the track was Aug. 18, '64 torn up and burned, and the rails destroyed in the usual manner. The skirmishing up to this time had been very light, the enemy having obviously withdrawn to his left, and the whole move being made with hardly a show of opposition. While the First Division was tearing up the track, the others passed on towards Petersburg and after advancing two or three miles, took position so as to repel an expected attack from the enemy. They did not have long to wait. About noon, Walker's Virginia and Davis' Mississippi brigades came hurrying down the railroad. Ayres' Second Division was stationed at this point; the Third and Fourth Divisions, at his right; and the First on his left. The battle opened very promptly on the arrival of the enemy with sharp artillery firing. The enemy, a part of Hill's Corps, then rushed in with great impetuosity, falling with most force upon Hayes', Lyle's and Cutler's brigades, and succeeding in flanking a portion of our force, including Lyle's First Brigade, Crawford's Third Division, the latter brigade being brought forward under a severe enfilading fire. For two hours the firing was very hot, and as it was an open fight the losses were heavy. The main battle lasted till about three o'clock; but the skirmishing and cannonading continued till night, when both forces went to entrenching, the possession of the railroad still being left to our troops. Our loss is still somewhat uncertain, but it is somewhere from five hundred to one thousand. The Second and Third Divisions suffered most and the Thirty-ninth Massachusetts and the Fifteenth New York Heavy Artillery lost heavily. The enemy claims to have captured eight officers and one hundred and fifty men from us in this fight. The enemy's loss in killed and wounded was probably nearly equal to ours, but he lost few prisoners.

Headquarters at night were at the Six Mile House, so called from its distance from Petersburg. That night and all the next day our forces were busily engaged in strengthening our lines, and in endeavoring to connect the right of the new position with the left of our old line. But towards the evening of Friday the enemy came out in force and pushed in between the new entrenchment and the old ones, flanking the Fifth Corps and sweeping off about fifteen hundred prisoners. The Ninth Corps arriving on the field of battle, checked the enemy. Our loss was about three thousand men. Saturday was comparatively quiet, but on Sunday the enemy again furiously attacked us, and was repulsed with heavy loss. On Monday and Tuesday, there was occasional firing along the centre, but our lines were otherwise undisturbed. Our forces still hold the Weldon railroad, the capture and retention of which have cost a week of the hardest fighting of the campaign."