front of Fort Mahon. At four o'clock precisely, and before daylight had tinged the eastern horizon, the charge 'all along the line' commenced. From the Appomattox River on the right to Hatcher's Run and Five Forks on the left (a distance of twenty miles) the ground rocked as though under the throes of a continuous earthquake. The enemy held to their intrenchments with the grasp of desperation; but the decisive day had come. Breaking their lines at sundry points, the attacking columns of the soldiers of the Union pressed through the narrow gaps, filed right and left, and poured a deadly fire upon such of the Confederate forces as did not flee or surrender. "Directly in front of Petersburg the enemy had been only partly dislodged as darkness and silence came on. But about midnight the city was found to be on fire at three distinct points, the lurid flames circling upward and lighting up the battle-field, covered by the dead, with a pale, yellow light. Lee had applied the torch to his public stores to prevent their falling into our hands, and his army was fleeing by the light of the conflagration from the doomed city. We rested on our arms on the field that night, and just before the morrow's dawn came the order to 'advance.' The men moved forward in silence, but with a determined tread, and sprang over the rebel intrenchments with a shout of triumph. Lo! the army which had been pronounced 'unconquered and unconquerable' had noiselessly retired : "Twixt night and morn, They folded their tents like the Arabs, "The pursuit was at once commenced. Entering Petersburg early in the morning, we formed a brigade line (for hasty inspection) on an elevated green, where the tender grass was then gracefully waving. Ours was the Second Brigade of the Second Division of the Ninth Army Corps, and was now in command of a New Hampshire colonel.1 The 1 Colonel Harriman. The division commander having been wounded, Brigadier-General S. G. Griffin had taken his place, and Colonel Harriman came to the command of the brigade, leaving that of his regiment to Captain Dudley. brigade consisted of the Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh New Hampshire, the Second Maryland, the Seventeenth Vermont, the Thirty-first Maine, the Fifty-sixth Massachusetts, and the One Hundred and Seventy-ninth and One Hundred and Eighty-sixth New York regiments, — nine in all, and constituting an army three times as large as the whole American force at Bunker Hill. As no Union soldier had stepped foot into this secession city, and no Union sentiment had been therein breathed for four long years, our ingress seemed, as one old negro expressed it, 'like a miracle of de Lord.' As we marched proudly through the principal street, with columns in perfect order, banners flying, and to the inspiring strains of Faust's quickstep (one of the best pieces of martial music ever composed), we flattered ourselves that we made no mean appearance. The few white persons who presented their faces, whether male or female, were silent and glum; but to the colored people, of every age and condition, the event was a jubilee which no pen can describe. "During this memorable Monday, April 3d, President Lincoln, who had been a looker-on two or three days at City Point on the James, came up on the military road, and passed over the battle-field into Petersburg. This was just eleven days before his assassination took place at Ford's theatre. "My line is broken in three places, and Richmond must. be evacuated.' This was Lee's dispatch to Jefferson Davis on Sunday the 2d. It found Davis in church, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon. It was handed to him amid an awful hush, for each member of the congregation was fully apprised of what was going on twenty miles off. 'I'll tell you what I heard that day : I heard the great guns far away, No word was spoken by Davis, but the whole assemblage felt that the message so hastily perused bore intelligence of doom. The Confederate chief immediately left the church, and the congregation was dismissed. The scene that followed I will not attempt to describe. Not only the 'President,' but the heads of departments as well, were plunged into utter consternation. Their dreams of glory were all dissipated, and their thoughts were centred intently on flight and refuge. They packed up with nervous hands and were off, firing the devoted city as they went, and reducing the better portion of it to smouldering ruins. The warehouses were all lapped up by the flames. The rams in the James (the Richmond and the Patrick Henry) were blown to the four winds. The great bridges leading out of the city - namely, the Danville Railroad bridge, the Petersburg Railroad bridge, and Mayo's immense structure all went down in ashes. Tongues of flame leaped from block to block, and from street to street. All the white population shared in the panic-such a panic as was not there known since the beginning of the world to this time. The 'government' went by railroad to Danville, Va., where Davis issued a manifesto that the prospects of the Confederacy were bright! that the sacred soil' of Virginia, in particular, must be held inviolate! and then hastened away to be captured in an attempted flight from the country. "The army of the Union pressed forward 'by the left flank' in pursuit of the flying enemy, over roads strewn with all manner of abandoned munitions, mule-teams, clothing, etc., which the Confederate army in its jaded condition could not get away with. The boys in blue kept up wild and triumphant cheering as they came hourly upon these evidences of demoralization and disaster. Much of the way, when the march extended into the night, our road was illumined by the blaze of incendiary fires; for, in spite of all efforts of the officers to save private property, barns, sheds, and unoccupied houses seemed to be fated, like the rebellion itself. "But I must not burden these columns with details. The pursuit was hotly prosecuted till Sunday morning, April the 9th. In the little village of Appomattox Court House there is a large square brick house with a portico in front, the residence of Wilmer McLean. 'Roses were budding in the garden, violets and daffodils were already in bloom, and the trees which shaded the dwelling were green with the verdure of summer.' Here the two commanders met to settle the terms on which Lee should surrender his army. At two o'clock of that calm Sunday afternoon, as the spring birds were chirping in the trees by the window, the terms offered by Grant were accepted, and the rebellion was dead." CHAPTER XVIII. THE ARMY DISMISSED. RETURN HOME. 1865. COLONEL HARRIMAN, after marching his brigade through Petersburg, on the 3d of April, passed on, and came to bivouac that night ten miles west of the city. The Union army being in pursuit of the retreating enemy, the brigade pushed forward the next day, making eight miles over bad roads, and halted for the night near Ford's Station, on the Southside Railroad. On Wednesday, the 5th, a march of twelve miles was made to Wellsville. On the 6th Nottoway Court House was reached. Here the brigade tarried one day, and resuming its march on Saturday, the 8th, reached Burkeville Junction, where it went into camp, and remained till April 14th, five days after the surrender of Lee. Meanwhile Colonel Herbert B. Titus, of the New Hampshire Ninth, having returned from a leave of absence, and being the ranking officer in the brigade, had taken command of it. Colonel Harriman, having resumed his place with the Eleventh, received orders to take his regiment to City Point, to protect transportation trains running between that place and Burkeville Junction. Arriving at the Point on the 15th of April, the regiment was met by the awful tidings that President Lincoln had been assassinated the day before that black Friday!—and a cloud of sorrow darkened every heart. During his stay of ten days at City Point, performing the duty assigned in sending a squad with each train, the colonel, accompanied by his son and another friend, made a day's visit to Richmond, and walked the streets where only a few days before had walked Abraham Lincoln amid the rapturous blessings of the poor-once |