f the ground,
Ferrero decided upon his methods of advance,--not to go
directly in the crater formed by the explosion, but rather
upon one side of it, and then to take the enemy in flank and
reverse. When he informed his officers and men that they
would be called upon to lead in the assault, they received
the information with delight. His men, desirous of emulating
their comrades of the Third Division of the Eighteenth
Corps, felt that their cherished hope,--the opportunity for
which they had prayed,--was near at hand; the hour in which
they would show themselves worthy of the honor of being
associated with the Army of the Potomac. They rejoiced at
the prospect of wiping off whatever reproach an ill-judged
prejudice might have cast upon them, by proving themselves
brave, thereby demanding the respect which brave men
deserve. For three weeks they drilled with alacrity in the
various movements; charging upon earthworks, wheeling by the
right and left, deployment, and other details of the
expected operations. General Burnside had early expressed
his confidence in the soldierly capabilities of the men of
the Phalanx, and now wished to give them an opportunity to
justify his good opinion."

His white troops, moreover, had been greatly exposed throughout the
whole campaign, had suffered severely, and had been so much under the
fire of the sharpshooters that it had become a second nature with them
to dodge bullets. The negro troops had not been so much exposed, and had
already shown their steadiness under fire in one or two pretty severe
skirmishes in which they had previously been engaged. The white officers
and men of the corps were elated with the selection made by General
Burnside, and they, too, manifested an uncommon interest in their
dark-hued comrades. The demeanor of the former toward the latter was
very different from that of the other corps, of which that particular
army was composed. The 9th Corps had seen more service than any other
corps in the Army of the Potomac. Its operations in six States had given
to the men an experience calculated to destroy, very greatly, their race
prejudice; besides a very large portion of the regiments in the corps
came from the New England States, especially Massachusetts, Vermont and
Rhode Island, where race prejudice was not so strong; consequently the
treatment of the men in t