n the air.

But here I will allow Colonel F.W. McMaster, an eye witness, who
commanded Elliott's Brigade after the fall of that General, to tell
the story of the "Battle of the Crater" in his own words. I copy
his account, by permission, from an article published in one of the
newspapers of the State.

BY COLONEL F.W. McMASTER.

In order to understand an account of the battle of the "Crater," a
short sketch of our fortifications should be given.

Elliott's Brigade extended from a little branch that separated it
from Ransom's Brigade on the north, ran three hundred and fifty yards,
joining Wise's Brigade on the south. Captain Pegram's Virginia Battery
had four guns arranged in a half circle on the top of the hill, and
was separated from the Eighteenth and Twenty-second South Carolina
Regiments by a bank called trench cavalier.

The Federal lines ran parallel to the Confederate. The nearest point
of Pegram's Battery to the Federal lines was eighty yards; the rest
of the lines was about two hundred yards apart. The line called gorge
line was immediately behind the battery, and was the general passage
for the troops. The embankment called trench cavalier was immediately
in rear of the artillery and was constructed for the infantry in case
the battery should be taken by a successful assault.

The general line for the infantry, which has been spoken of as
a wonderful feat of engineering, was constructed under peculiar
circumstances. Beauregard had been driven from the original lines made
for the defense of Petersburg, and apprehensive that the enemy, which
numbered ten to one, would get into the city, directed his engineer,
Colonel Harris, to stake a new line. This place was reached by General
Hancock's troops at dark on the third day's fighting, and our men were
ordered to make a breastwork. Fortifications without spades or shovels
was rather a difficult feat to perform, but our noble soldiers went
to work with bayonets and tin cups, and in one night threw up a bank
three feet high--high enough to cause Hancock to delay his attack.
In the next ten days' time the ditches were enlarged until they were
eight feet high and eight feet wide, with a banquette of eighteen
inches high from which the soldiers could shoot over the breastwork.

Five or six traverses were built perpendicularly from the main trench
to the rear, so as to protect Pegram's guns from the enfilading fire
of the big guns on the Federal lines a mile to t