merits when vacancies occurred. Such words inspired both with a friendly rivalry for advancement. The day of battle came and found. one sick with pneumonia at Brooks' Station, Virginia, sixteen miles from the field of Fredericksburg. Knowing that absence from the ranks in the engagement might be misconstrued and result in being outranked by others in the promotion list, he hastened from a sick bed to find his own regiment, and failing to do this became mingled with another in the battle and came out both maimed for life and all chances for promotion forever gone. His comrade on that battleday won promotion on the field by volunteering to help man a battery and establish a dangerous picket line. In due time his reward came as Adjutant of the Twenty-fourth Michigan. While under twenty years of age, and having won an honorable record, he was cut down in the harvest of death, on the threshold of early manhood—a martyr to his country. Farewell, friend of our youth! May his comrades revere his memory as they pass his grave on the banks of the Huron.

CHAPTER XIII.

SIEGE OF PETERSBURG—1864

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PROGRESS OF THE CAMPAIGN — BROOKS' EXPEDITION.

ESS THAN two months had passed when this campaign against Richmond had cost the Union army over 65,000 men

in killed, wounded and missing, or more than the entire number in Lee's army during this period. This disparity resulted largely, as noted in the last chapter, from the Confederates fighting behind intrenchments, while the Union troops were the assaulting party against whom the hazards of battle are usually greatest. Witness Lee at Malvern Hill, Gettysburg and the Bloody Angle at Spottsylvania; Burnside at Fredericksburg, and Grant at Laurel Hill and Cold Harbor, not to mention examples in the wars of history.

The nation and world stood aghast at this deluge of blood. Gold, to some extent the barometer of national success or failure, reached its highest quotation, while criticism of the General of the age was shared not alone by those whose wishes were manifested by their oft lamenting expression, "If Lee only had the men."

But these sacrifices were required to save this nation. While ability managed the southern army, the statesmen of the South (if it had any) should have insisted, in the interests of humanity to their own people, that the war terminate after Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Port Hudson. But no, the "last ditch" must be reached, and their last man (their own persons excepted) must be sacrificed. Already "the cradle and the grave had been robbed" for recruits. Those loudest in the continuation of the war were not in it. Scarcely a man of the traitors who brought on this war and plunged the whole land into a sea of blood ever perished on the field. It is usually so.

The military resources of the South had to be exhausted, its armies subdued, annihilated or captured. Every man rendered useless to fight, brought the rebellion so much nearer its close. Grant knew this. He knew his available resources and his reserves. He knew

that even at that late day, foreign recognition of the Confederacy was possible and probable, unless the suppression of the rebellion be accomplished without delay. This required a large outlay of blood for the restoration of national authority, and he possessed the cool, indomitable fortitude to pursue a course and the course to that end, leaving political matters to others.

The terrible battles of the Wilderness, Laurel Hill, Salient at Spottsylvania, North Anna, Bethesda Church, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, each embracing several days of carnage-all fought inside of six weeks-caused no greater bloodshed than an equal number of battles of the war fought by other generals and covering a period of many months. Something had been accomplished. The insurgent army had been greatly reduced and hemmed in about Richmond and Petersburg never to come out again except for a chase and capture.

What is known as the Siege of Petersburg now began, having for one object an investment of the Eastern insurgent army in a firmer grasp, by a system of forts and intrenchments from which there was no escape, while General Sherman was exhausting the Western Confederates, without either Southern army receiving reinforcements from the other. And thus the close of this wicked, cruel and causeless rebellion was apparent.

After the Petersburg battle a company of thirty-two men from the regiments of the Iron Brigade, under Adjutant E. P. Brooks of the Sixth Wisconsin, was sent out to destroy some bridges at Roanoke on the Danville Railroad. The men were picked, well armed and mounted. On the morning of June 22, they found a Confederate officer at a house, “sick." They paroled him and rode on. At mid-afternoon the company halted at a farm house, dismounted and stacked arms for supper, without throwing out any guard. Soon after they were surprised by a demand from the paroled officer of the morning to surrender. He had gathered a lot of farmers who with shotguns went in pursuit. Deploying his squad over a hill so that only the heads of their horses and men could be seen, they appeared more numerous than they were. He demanded of the Brooks Company a surrender to his "superior force," which was complied with. All their horses, accoutrements and arms were taken from them and the whole command made prisoners of war. Five of this company belonged to the Twenty-fourth Michigan: Anthony Long, of A; Samuel W. Foster, of C; Shelden E. Crittenden, of F; George Martin, of G, and Corporal Frederick Bosardis, of I.

THE SIEGE. — PETERSBURG MINE. - PROMOTIONS.

During the coming months of the siege, the intermitting blasts of battle and the ebb and flow tide of war heaved around Petersburg like ocean swells. Occasionally there was an hour of stillness, but usually the air was broken, night and day, by the sharp concussions of nearer guns and the boom, boom of more distant ones.

During the next few weeks the Iron Brigade alternated with its fraternal Second Brigade in the rifle pits, about twice a week. When out of the trenches, the Twenty-fourth Michigan withdrew to the woods for a day or two of rest, glad of an opportunity to stand up

without getting a bullet through their heads. Monday, July 4, was remarkably quiet. Every few days a heavy detail was made when not in the rifle pits to work on the new forts and fortifications. On July 13, several of the fatigue party, while picking berries, were captured by the enemy, including Charles Martin, of G, of the Twenty-fourth. On Sunday, the 17th, several deserters came in and reported an intended attack that night on our lines. The Iron Brigade after dark moved out to near the front line, and in an hour had thrown up new works, but no enemy came, and at daylight they returned to camp. Tuesday, the 19th, was noted for the first rain fall in forty-three days. There had become a great dearth of surface. water. While in camp good water was obtained by digging wells a few feet in depth. By reason of the rain, the Iron Brigade did not relieve the Second Brigade in the rifle pits that night, but did so at 9 o'clock the next morning without disturbance from the enemy. On Sunday, the 24th, about six hundred from the Iron Brigade took up a railroad track and converted it into a wagon road.

Under one of the strongest of the Confederate forts a mine had been constructed, consisting of eight magazines in which were placed 8,000 pounds of powder. The magazines were connected with the Union lines 200 yards away by a tunnel four and a half feet high and the same in width. At 5 o'clock on the morning of July 30, the explosion occurred, when the fort, its guns and garrison of 300 men were blown up and annihilated. The explosion made an excavation in the ground two hundred feet long, fifty feet wide and thirty feet deep, and it was a signal for all the Union guns to open a heavy cannonade. A charge was made at the same time by the Ninth Corps troops, to capture a hill in the rear of the destroyed fort, which commanded the city of Petersburg. They went no further than the crater just formed, and a division of colored troops went forward to the charge of the hill. They pushed well up towards the crest but were twice repulsed and fled in confusion to the crater, where they and the Ninth were unmercifully slaughtered by the enemy. It was death to remain and death to try to escape. The Union loss was about 4,400 men and the Confederate $1,000-a most lamentable failure. In this affair the Iron Brigade occupied the first line of works and opened a musketry fire as the mine exploded within their view. During that night the Iron Brigade was relieved from the trenches. The Union dead and wounded were still lying between our lines and the ruined fort. The enemy refused a flag of truce for their relief.