374 NortH Carotina Troops, 1861-’65.

of Elliott’s South Carolina Brigade, and Wieseger’s Virginia
Brigade, all under command of Major-General Mahone.
The intervening space was raked by the artillery and mus-
ketry of the enemy, but a quick dash through the storm of
shot and shell restores the line to the right and left of the
Crater, from which a white handkerchief is soon hoisted, and
the battle is over.

The severest loss to the enemy is in and around the Crater,
for into this frightful gap where their troops were massed in
great numbers, our mortar guns had been playing for some
time, while the surface of the ground was here commanded
by the Fifty-sixth and other infantry regiments of the two
Carolinas and the artillery. The writer from what he saw
during and immediately after the battle, estimated their loss
at fully 3,000, and a few days thereafter before making his
notes obtained a Northern paper putting the loss at 5,000.
Ours, all told, is only about 500, as the distance charged
across is very short, and otherwise we have had the advantage
of position since their first mad rush was over. Among oth-
ers we mourn the loss of Major W. S. Grady, our “Rough
and Ready,” who led the Twenty-fifth, and Lieutenant-Colo-
nel Flemming, who fell at the head of the Forty-ninth.
Major Grady’s splendid constitution and vitality bore him
up for thirty days in spite of his nine severe wounds. The
eight field pieces of artillery brought up between this gap and
Petersburg, and continuing in this fight to the finish, I was
informed, were those of Latham’s North Carolina and Ram-
say’s North Carolina Batteries, while Wright’s Battery and
the remaining guns of Pegram under those two officers, were
served effectively on the disputed line. -

Conjointly with this attempt on Petersburg, General Grant
has to-day made an equally fierce assault upon Fort Harrison,
where he found General Lee in his usual attitude ready to
meet him. This had taken every available man from the
south side of the James river, so that our only means of check-
ing Burnside’s advance, at the Crater, was by reducing the
line of battle to a skirmish line on either side of the captured
section, and with the surplus thus formed and Mahone’s addi-
tion of one brigade, about one-fifth of the forlorn hope, crush-

Firry-SixtH REGIMENT. 375

ing them before they discovered our weakness. We have
been crediting Grant with more courage than generalship.
In this instance he has shown both; but at both points he has
been met by equal courage and greater skill, and his superior
numbers have availed him nothing. The dead lay thicker
on this field than any before seen by the writer, and he thinks
that the negroes came in with the desperate belief that they
were to receive no quarter from their friends in the rear or
the foes in their front, and thus continued the struggle after
all hope of escape was over. This is inferred from conver-
sation with negroes wounded on the field.

A heavy cavalier line is next constructed in rear of the Cra-
ter, despite the continued attentions of the enemy to retard
it. Sharpshooting and mortar-shelling go on briskly. Upon
our parapets we make loop-holes with sand bags and gabions,
and also used blocks of wood with iron facings for the rifle-
men. Occasionally a man is struck through the little port
hole made for his rifle.

STATE ELECTION.

The first Thursday in August, 1864, the North Carolina
regiments vote in the trenches under fire for Governor. The
candidates are the incumbent, Zebulon B. Vance, and William
W. Holden, editor of the North Carolina Standard. We feel
toward Vance that he is one of us, by former comradeship,
and his able administration, doing so much for his State
troops in the field. So that the vote is overwhelmingly in his
favor. The path of public safety lay in keeping our people
united to the end, whatever that might be. The credit for
this most illustrious part of his whole carcer he generously
divides with his two chief counsellors in his Chapel Hill ad-
dress on the life of Governor Swain.

LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.

Now for days we have incessant rains; great sickness fol-
lows, and disease from the exposure is claiming more victims
than the missiles of death. The writer finds himself fre-
quently in command of the regiment in the changes thus oc-
easioned, but for a greater portion of the time we are under