was advancing on us from a camp to our left. As the men now in
the captured fort were in a disorganized state I made, with the
aid of other officers, every effort to withdraw the surplus men
for the purpose of formation and to relieve it of a too crowded
condition for defence. We also tried to man the guns of the fort.
Before we were prepared the enemy was upon us in a counter charge,
and the fort, with its guns, was lost, and some of our men were
taken; the greater number, however, escaped to a position still
within the captured lines. In this affair not many were killed or
wounded. The final ordeal was now on us. From the fort again came
shot, shell, and rifle-balls on our unprotected men. Under cover
of the fire of the before-mentioned captured artillery (having, by
that time, discovered an ample supply of ammunition) we succeeded
in making a somewhat confused formation, and again charged the
fort. The resistance was obstinate, but it was now light enough
to distinguish friend from foe. Though of short duration, the most
determined and bloody fight of the day took part on the ramparts
of and in this fort, resulting in our again taking it, and with it
its guns and most of the Confederate division. The brave Colonel
Prentiss as he led a storming column over the parapet of the fort,
was struck by a ball which carried away a part of his breast-bone
immediately over his heart, exposing its action to view. He fell
within the fort at the same moment the commander of the Confederate
battery fell near him with what proved to be a mortal wound. These
officers, lying side by side, their blood commingling on the ground,
there recognized each other. They were brothers, and had not met
for four years. They were cared for in the same hospitals, by the
same surgeons and nurses, with the same tenderness, and in part by
a Union chaplain, their brother. The Confederate, after suffering
the amputation of a leg, died in Washington in June, 1865, and
Colonel Prentiss died in Brooklyn, N. Y., the following August.

Our hard fighting and bloody work for the day ended with the struggle
just described. We, a little later, with others of the corps,
swept to the left to the vicinity of Hatcher's Run, carrying
everything before us. We then, with the other divisions of the
corps, turned back towards Petersburg, reaching an inner line of
works by 10 A.M.

General Parke with the Ninth Corps made a vigorous assault in front
of Fo