division of colored troops are lying. The guns in the forts by the house of Mr. Dunn give a direct front fire, while those by the house of Mr. Osborn on the north enfilade the line. Brooks is in position to move upon the batteries by Osborn's house, while Martindale is to advance up the railroad.

The troops were placed in line for the attack not far from one o'clock. They were exposed to the fire of the artillery. Hinks impatiently waited for orders. Two o'clock passed. The shells from the Rebel batteries were doing damage.

"Lie down!" said he to his men. They obeyed, and were somewhat sheltered.

Three o'clock! four o'clock,-five, still no orders. Duncan's brigade was lying on both sides of the road, a short distance north of Buffum's house.

At length the word was given. Duncan threw forward a cloud of skirmishers. The Rebels opened with renewed vigor from the batteries; and the infantry, resting their muskets over the breastworks, fired at will and with great accuracy of aim. Men dropped from the advancing ranks. It was of little use to fire in return. "On! push on!" was the order. Hinks and Duncan both entered heartily into the movement. They had chafed all the afternoon at the delay; but had been admiring observers of the conduct of the troops under the fire of shells.

The skirmishers advanced quickly within close range, followed by the main line, moving more slowly over the fallen timber. The skirmishers gave a yell and pushed on, without waiting for the main body. They leaped into the ditches in front of the breastworks, and climbed on their hands and knees up the steep embankments. The Rebels above fired into their faces, and many a brave fellow rolled back dead to the bottom.

The column, perceiving the advance of their comrades, and catching the enthusiasm, broke into a run, rushing upon the forts, sweeping round the curtains, scaling the breastworks, and dashing madly at the Rebels, who fled towards Petersburg. Brooks's men at the same moment swarmed over the embankments by Osborn's, while Martindale advanced along the railroad. Fifteen pieces and three hundred men were captured, of which two thirds of the prisoners and nine cannon were

taken by the colored troops, who wheeled the guns instantly upon the enemy, and then, seizing the spades and shovels which the Rebels had left behind, reversed the fortifications and made them a stronghold.

Through the months which followed the colored troops looked back to this exploit with pride. They never were weary of talking about it, how they advanced, how they leaped over the intrenchments, how the Rebels went down the hill upon the run.

Smith had possession of the fortifications at 7 P. M. He ought to have moved on. There were no other works between him and Petersburg. Not a brigade from Lee had reached the city, and the disaster was calculated to demoralize the Rebel soldiers. The Second Corps had arrived. Birney, who had the advance of that corps, ought to have been on the ground by mid-afternoon, and Smith had delayed the assault on his account. He expected Birney to appear on his left, and attack by the Jerusalem plank-road; but that officer, by taking the wrong road, went several miles out of his way. Had he been in position at the time Smith expected him, the attack would have been made at 3 o'clock instead of at 7.

Smith's delay to follow up the advantage gained was an error. General Grant says:

"Between the line thus captured and Petersburg there were no other works, and there was no evidence that the enemy had reinforced Petersburg with a single brigade from any source. The night was clear, the moon shining brightly,—and favorable to further operations. General Hancock, with two divisions of the Second Corps, had reached General Smith just after dark, and offered the service of these troops as he (Smith) might wish, waiving rank to the named commander, who, he naturally supposed, knew best the position of affairs. But instead of taking these troops and pushing on at once into Petersburg, he requested General Hancock to relieve a part of his line in the captured works, which was done before midnight."*

Not till the Rebel outpost on Bailey's farm fell into the hands of the colored troops did Lee fully comprehend Grant's movement. Then there were lively movements in the Rebel ranks. All of the railroad cars in Richmond were put upon the road.

Grant's Report.

Brigades were hurried through the streets, piled into the cars, and sent whirling towards Petersburg.

While Lee was watching the Charles City and Newmarket roads, north of the James, expecting Grant in that direction, Butler sent General Terry, with a portion of the Tenth Corps, on a reconnoissance in front of Bermuda Hundred. Terry encountered the Rebel pickets, drove them in, reached the main line, attacked vigorously, broke through, carrying all before him, and pushed on to the railroad at Port Walthall Junction, cut down the telegraph, and tore up the track.

This was an advantage not expected by Grant, who at once ordered two divisions of the Sixth Corps, under Wright, to report to Butler at Bermuda Hundred; but that officer, instead of moving rapidly, advanced leisurely, and even halted awhile. Terry was attacked by A. P. Hill and obliged to fall back. Grant had the mortification of learning in the evening that, through the dilatory movements of the troops under Smith and Wright, his plans had failed.

In the counsels of the Almighty the time for final victory had not come. God reigns, but men act freely nevertheless. There have been numerous instances during the war where great events hung on little things. An interesting chapter might be written of the occasions where the scales were seemingly evenly balanced, and where, to the eye of faith, the breath of the Almighty turned them for the time.

At Bull Run the victory was lost to the Union arms through the mistake of Captain Barry.* At Pittsburg Landing, if Johnston had attacked from the northwest instead of the southwest, -if he had deflected his army a mile, far different, in all human probability, would have been the result of that battle.

Was the arrival of the Monitor in Hampton Roads on that morning, after the havoc made by the Merrimac, accidental ? How providential rather! How singular, if not a providence, that the wind should blow so wildly from the southwest on that night of the withdrawal of the army from Fredericksburg, wafting the rumbling of Burnside's artillery and the tramp of a hundred thousand men away from the listening ears of the

See "My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field"; also testimony of Captain Ricketts and Captain Griffin, in Report of Committee on Conduct of the War.

enemy within close musket-shot! Events which turn the scales according to our desires we are inclined to count as special providences: but the disaster at Bull Run, the sitting down of McClellan in the mud at Yorktown; the lost opportunities for moving upon Richmond after Williamsburg and Fair Oaks; also, while the battle was raging at Gaines's Mills and at Glendale; the pusillanimous retreat from Malvern; the inaction at Antietam; Hooker's retreat from Chancellorsville, from Lee,

who also was in retreat, are inexplicable events. Meade's waiting at Boonsboro, Lee's escape, Gillmore's unexplained turning back from Petersburg, Wright's halting when everything depended on haste, Smith's delay, all of these are mysterious providences to us, though to the Rebels they were at the time plain interpositions of God. God's system is reciprocal; everything has its use, everything is for a purpose. We read blindly, but to reason and faith there can be but one result, the establishment of justice and righteousness between man and man and his Maker. There must be a righting of every wrong, an atonement for every crime.

"The laws of changeless justice bind

Oppressor with oppressed;

And, close as sin and suffering joined,

We march to fate abreast."

It must have been evident to most observers, that as the war progressed men were brought to a recognition of God, as an overruling power in the mighty conflict. In the first uprising of the people there was pure, intense patriotism. The battle of Bull Run stung the loyal masses of the North, and filled them with a determination to redeem their tarnished honor. The failure of the Peninsular campaigns, the terrible disasters in 1862, crushed and bruised men's spirits. They began to talk of giving freedom to the slave as well as of the restoration of the Union.

"My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery," wrote President Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 22d, 1862, reflecting doubtless the feelings of nearly a majority of the people. Whittier had already expressed, in the lines quoted on pages 41, 42, the feelings of those who saw that slavery or the nation must die.

Two years passed, and Abraham Lincoln gave utterance to other sentiments in his second inaugural address to the people. Disaster, suffering, a view of Gettysburg battle-field, the consecration of that cemetery as the hallowed resting-place of the patriotic dead, had given him a clear insight of God's truth. Thus spoke he from the steps of the Capitol:

"The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, which in the providence of God must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that the mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

ures.

It was the recognition of these principles that made the people patient under the severe afflictions, the disasters, the failFathers and mothers, weeping for their sons slain in battle, said to their hearts, "Be still! for they saw that God was leading the people, through suffering, to recognize justice and righteousness as the Republic, that thus he was saving the nation from perdition.

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The heroism of the colored soldiers, and their splendid achievements, won the respect of the army. Their patriotism was as sublime, their courage as noble, as that of their whiterhued comrades boasting Anglo-Saxon blood, nurtured and refined by centuries of civilization.

On the morning after the battle, an officer, passing through the hospital, came upon a colored soldier who had lost his left leg.

“Well, my boy, I see that you have lost a leg for glory," said the officer.