e enemy,
Lee's last attempt at offensive operations.

This position, which was on the eastern side of the city of
Petersburg, was gallantly attacked and captured in the early morning;
troops were at once called from all parts of the Union line and
hurried to the point of action, but the fort was retaken before the
Second Connecticut reached the scene, and the regiment was then moved
to the southwest of the city before Fort Fisher, a general assault of
the whole extensive line having been ordered by Grant to develop the
weakness that Lee must have been obliged to make somewhere to carry
out his plan against Fort Stedman. The attack succeeded in gaining and
holding a large share of the Confederate picket line, a matter of
great importance.

The Second Connecticut advanced to the charge late in the afternoon
"as steadily as though on a battalion drill," the regimental history
relates. It captured a line of rifle pits and kept on "under a
combined artillery and musket fire. The air was blue with the little
cast iron balls from spherical-case shot which shaved the ground and
exploded among the stumps just in rear of the line at intervals of
only a few seconds. Twenty of the Second Connecticut were
wounded--seven of them mortally--in reaching, occupying, and
abandoning this position, which, proving entirely untenable, was held
only a few minutes. The line faced about and moved back under the same
mixed fire of solid shot, spherical case, and musketry, and halted not
far in front of the spot whence it had first moved forward. Other
troops on the right now engaged the battery and captured the rest of
the picket line, and after half an hour the brigade again moved
forward to a position still further advanced than the previous one,
where a permanent picket line was established."

The week following this eventful day, which began with the capture of
one of the Union works, and ended with substantial gains along their
front, saw intense activity on all sides. The abandonment of
Petersburg by Lee was now plainly imminent, and the preventing of his
army's escape was the paramount object. The whole vast field of
operation about the besieged city became a seething theater of
complicated movement, and the Second Connecticut, under frequent
orders for immediate advance, was formed in line at all hours of the
day or night, and excited by a thousand rumors and orders given and
revoked, but it did not finally leave its quarters during t