s about half-past eight o'clock. And both
Mahone and Mr. Bernard were mistaken in stating that the great firing
and retreat of soldiers was the result of the Virginian's charge,
whereas at this time Mahone's Brigade was at the Jerusalem plank road.
Moreover, when Mahone did come up his eight hundred men could not
create one-fourth of the reverberation of the Seventeenth Regiment,
Ransom's Brigade, and the thousands of the enemy. Besides Mahone's
men's fighting was confined to the ditches, and they used mostly the
butts and bayonets instead of the barrels of their muskets. No it
was the fire of Elliott's men, Ransom's men, the torrent of shells
of Wright's Battery and the enemy, Ord's men, and the four thousand
negroes, all of them in an area of one hundred yards. The part of the
line spoken of by Generals Delavan Bates and Turner and others as
the Confederate line were mere rifle pits which the Confederates held
until they had perfected the main line, and then gave up the pits.
They were in the hollow, where the branch passes through to the
breastworks.

Now the tumultuous outburst of musketry, Federal and Confederate, and
the landslide of the Federals, was beyond doubt before I went out to
Elliott's headquarters on the order of General Johnson.

For two hours before this Meade had been urging Burnside to rush to
the crest of the hill until General B. was irritated beyond measure,
and replied to a dispatch: "Were it not insubordination I would say
that the latter remark was unofficer like and ungentlemanly." Before
this time Grant, Meade and Ord had given up hope. They had agreed
to withdraw, hence the positive order to withdraw my troops from the
enemy's line at 9.15.

Now this must have been before Mahone came up, for there is no
allusion to a charge by any Federal General at the court of inquiry.
With the 8.30 charge made at the hollow, there was a synchronous
movement made by General Warren on the south of the "Crater," but at
8.45 he was informed that it was intended alone for a reconnoissance
of the two-gun battery.

At 9.15 General Warren sends dispatch: "Just before receiving your
dispatch to assault the battery on the left of the 'Crater' occupied
by General Burnside the enemy drove his troops out of the place and I
think now hold it. I can find no one who for certainty knows, or seems
willing to admit, but I think I saw a Rebel flag in it just now, and
shots coming from it this way. I am, therefore, if th