“No, sir; I have not lost it for glory, but for the elevation of my race!"

It was a reply worthy of historic record, to be read, through the coming centuries, by every sable son of Africa, and by every man, of whatever lineage or clime, struggling to better his condition.

The negroes manifested their humanity as well as their patriotism.

"While the battle was raging," said General Hinks, "I saw two wounded negroes helping a Rebel prisoner, who was more severely wounded, to the rear."

"Give the water to my suffering soldiers," said the wounded Philip Sidney. The incident stands upon the historic page, and has been rehearsed in story and song, as worthy of admiration. Shall not this act of two unknown colored soldiers also have a place in history?

The time, we trust, will come when men will be rated for what they are worth,-when superiority will consist, not in brute force, but in moral qualities. The slaveholders of the South, at the beginning of the war, esteemed themselves superior to the men of the North, and immeasurably above their slaves; but in contrast,-to the shame of the slaveholders,stands the massacre at Fort Pillow and the humanity of the colored soldiers in front of Petersburg.

On the night of the 16th, Burnside arrived with the Ninth Corps. Neill's division of the Sixth also arrived. Burnside attacked the Rebels, but was repulsed. The lines were reconnoitred, and it was determined to make a second assault.

About half a mile south of the house of Mr. Dunn was the residence of Mr. Shand, held by the Rebels. During the cannonade which preceded the assault, a Rebel officer entered the house and sat down to play a piano. Suddenly he found himself sitting on the floor, the stool having been knocked away by a solid shot, without injury to himself.

The house was a large two-story structure, fronting east, painted white, with great chimneys at either end, shaded by buttonwoods and gum-trees, with a peach-orchard in rear. Fifty paces from the front-door was a narrow ravine, fifteen

or twenty feet deep, with a brook, fed by springs, trickling northward. West of the house, about the same distance, was another brook, the two joining about twenty rods north of the house. A Rebel brigade held this tongue of land, with four guns beneath the peach-trees. Their main line of breastworks was along the edge of the ravine east of the house. South, and on higher ground, was a redan, a strong work with two guns, which enfiladed the ravine. Yet General Burnside thought that if he could get his troops into position, unperceived, he could take the tongue of land, which would break the Rebel line and compel them to evacuate the redan. Several attempts had been made by the Second Corps to break the line farther north, but without avail. This movement, if not successful, would be attended with great loss; nevertheless, it was determined to make the assault.

It was past midnight when General Potter led his division of the Ninth down into the ravine. The soldiers threw aside their knapsacks, haversacks, tin plates and cups, and moved stealthily. Not a word was spoken. The watches of the officers in command had been set to a second. They reached the ravine where the pickets were stationed, and moved south, keeping close under the bank. Above them, not fifteen paces distant, were the Rebel pickets, lying behind a bank of sand.

If their listening ears caught the sound of a movement in the ravine, they gave no alarm, and the troops took their positions undisturbed. The moon was full. Light clouds floated in the sky. Not a sound, save the distant rumble of wagons, or an occasional shot from the pickets, broke the silence of the night. The attacking column was composed of Griffin's and Curtin's brigades, - Griffin on the right. He had the Seventeenth Vermont and Eleventh New Hampshire in his front line, and the Ninth New Hampshire and Thirty-Second Maine in the second. Curtin had six regiments, the Forty-Fifth, Thirty-Sixth, and Forty-Eighth Massachusetts in his front line; the Seventh Rhode Island, Twelfth New York, and Fifty-Eighth Massachusetts in his second line.

The soldiers were worn with hard marching and constant fighting, and had but just arrived from City Point, yet they took their positions without flinching. The officers gazed at

the hands of their watches in the moonlight, and saw them move on to the appointed time,-fifteen minutes past three. Twenty paces, a spring up the steep bank would carry the men to the Rebel pickets; fifty paces to the muzzles of the enemy's guns.

"All ready!" was whis

pered from man to man. They rose from the ground

erect. Not a gun-lock

clicked. The bayonet was to do the work.

OLD REBEL LINE

“Hurrah!" The lines rise like waves of the sea. There are straggling shots from the Rebel pickets, four flashes of light from the Rebel cannon by the house, two more from the redan, one volley from the infantry, wildly aimed, doing little damage. On, up to the breastworks! Over them, seizing the guns! A minute has passed. Four guns, six hundred and fifty prisoners, fifteen hundred muskets, and four stands of colors are the trophies. The Rebel line is broken. The great point is gained, compelling Lee to abandon the ground which he has held so tenaciously.

In the Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts was a soldier named Edward M. Schneider. When the regiment was formed he was a student in Phillips Academy, Andover. From motives of patriotism, against the wishes of friends, he left the literature of the ancients and the history of the past, to become an actor in the present and to do what he could for future good. His father is the well-known missionary of the American Board at Aintab, Turkey.

On the march from Annapolis, though but seventeen years old, and unaccustomed to hardship, he kept his place in the ranks, from the encampment by the waters of the Chesapeake to the North Anna, where he was slightly wounded. The surgeons sent him to Port Royal for transportation to Washington, but of his own accord he returned to his regiment, joining it at

Cold Harbor. While preparing for the charge upon the enemy's works, on the 17th instant, he said to the chaplain, —

"I intend to be the first one to enter their breastworks." The brave young soldier tried to make good his words, leading the charge.

He was almost there, not quite: almost near enough to feel the hot flash of the Rebel musketry in his face; near enough to be covered with sulphurous clouds from the cannon, when he fell, shot through the body.

He was carried to the hospital, with six hundred and fifty of his division comrades; but lay all night with his wound undressed, waiting his turn without a murmur. The chaplain

looked at his wound.

"What do you think of it?"

Seeing that it was mortal, the chaplain was overcome with emotion. He remembered the last injunction of the young soldier's sister: "I commit him to your care."

The young hero interpreted the meaning of the tears,-that there was no hope.

"Do not weep," said he; "it is God's will. I wish you to write to my father, and tell him that I have tried to do my duty to my country and to God."

He disposed of his few effects, giving ten dollars to the Christian Commission, twenty dollars to the American Board, and trifles to his friends. Then, in the simplicity of his heart, said,

"I have a good many friends, schoolmates, and companions. They will want to know where I am,- how I am getting on. You can let them know that I am gone, and that I die content. And, chaplain, the boys in the regiment, — I want you to tell them to stand by the dear old flag! And there is my brother in the navy, write to him and tell him to stand by the flag and cling to the cross of Christ!"

The surgeon examined the wound.

"It is my duty to tell you that you will soon go home," said he.

"Yes, doctor, I am going home. I am not afraid to die. I don't know how the valley will be when I get to it, but it is all bright now."

Then, gathering up his waning strength, he repeated the verse often sung by the soldiers, who, amid all the whirl and excitement of the camp and battle-field, never forget those whom they have left behind them,-mother, sister, father, brother. Calmly, clearly, distinctly he repeated the lines, the chorus of the song:

"Soon with angels I'll be marching,

With bright laurels on my brow;

I have for my country fallen,

Who will care for sister now?"

-

The night wore away. Death stole on. He suffered intense pain, but not a murmur escaped his lips. Sabbath morning dawned, and with the coming of the light he passed away.

"I die content," said Wolfe, at Quebec, when told that the French were fleeing.

"Stand up for Jesus," said Dudley Tyng, in his last hours: words which have warmed and moved thousands of Christian hearts.

"Let me die with my face to the enemy," was the last request of General Rice, Christian, soldier, and patriot, at Spottsylvania; but equally worthy of remembrance are the words of Edward M. Schneider,-boy, student, youthful leader of the desperate charge at Petersburg. They are the essence of all that Wolfe and Tyng and Rice uttered in their last moments. His grave is near the roadside, marked by a rude paling. The summer breeze sweeps through the sighing pines above the heaved-up mound. Mournful, yet sweet, the music of the wind-harp; — mournful, in that one so young, so full of life and hope and promise, should go so soon; sweet, in that he did his work so nobly. Had he lived a century he could not have completed it more thoroughly or faithfully. His was a short soldier's life, extending only from the peaceful shades of Andover to the intrenchments of Petersburg; but O, how full!

Will the tree of Liberty prematurely decay, if nourished by such life-giving blood? It is costly, but the fruit is precious. For pain and anguish, waste and desolation, we have such rich recompense as this, such examples of patriotic ardor, heroic