divisions of infantry, with the bulk of his cavalry, were holding the roads to Richmond.

Such a rapid concentration of the Confederates on the north side of the James had, as stated, early caused an abandonment of the first object of the expedition; but it manifestly increased, in a very high degree, the chances of the capture of Petersburg. Although but one infantry corps confronted this large Confederate force, Grant had the nerve to withdraw Mott's division, on the night of the 28th, and send it back to support Ord's Eighteenth Corps in the great assault which was preparing twenty miles away to the south. Mott's division was by this time nearly as large as Gibbon's and Barlow's combined, and its withdrawal left Hancock with only about eight thousand infantry and Sheridan's cavalry. His position on the 29th was therefore to be one of great peril. His line possessed no natural advantages whatever, and the troops he had left with him were but a fraction of what would have been required to hold it against a serious attack. To draw in that line would have been to invite a movement of the enemy, which could hardly have failed to disclose Hancock's weakness. Were the enemy even to suspect that weakness, they would pour down in overwhelming force and drive our troops into the river.

In the situation existing it was decided that the cavalry could best support the infantry by returning to the south bank during the night, and, leaving their

horses there in charge of every fourth man, recross the river and act during the day as infantry. Everything was to depend upon the enemy's not obtaining even a suggestion of the weakness of the remaining column. The most precise instructions were issued regarding the crossing of the cavalry to the south bank: not a man was to enter upon the bridge after the first break of day. Every subordinate commander was required to acknowledge the receipt of these instructions, and then headquarters, worn out by the exertions of the three preceding days, sank to rest. From the sound sleep into which I had fallen I was awakened by hearing my name called from the general's tent. Running in, I found Hancock tossing on his camp bed. "Colonel," he said, "I am anxious about the cavalry. Go to Sheridan and say to him that he must see to it that not a man goes upon the bridge after it is light." I jumped upon an orderly's horse and galloped to Sheridan's headquarters. As I approached, the first voice that challenged me was, not the sentinel's, not a staff officer's, but the voice of the great cavalryman himself. "Who's that?" I gave my message. "I was thinking of the same thing," was the reply. "Forsythe, go down to the bridge, and if General Kautz has not crossed, tell him to mass his division behind the woods." Forsythe and myself rode together toward the bridge. A division of cavalry was just entering upon it. Fifteen minutes more and the Confeder

ates, who had all night listened to the low, rumbling sounds and the dull jarring of the bridge, and from their lookouts had been straining their eyes to catch the direction of the movement, would have seen our troops passing to the rear, and in all probability would have swooped down upon our little force and driven it into the river. As it turned out, when it became light enough for them to see, what they beheld was our dismounted cavalrymen returning from the south side, with their carbines over their shoulders, looking for all the world like honest infantryseemingly the end of a column which had been crossing all night. The effect was complete. The Confederate leaders did not doubt that every brigade which could be taken from the Petersburg lines had been sent in haste across the James to force a passage into Richmond. This illusion, aided by the activity and audacity of our skirmish line under Miles, not only sufficed to save us from an attack which could hardly have failed to result in our destruction, but held the Confederate forces closely in place, twenty miles from Petersburg where the assault of the 30th of July was impending.

My story carries its moral. Here were the two men of the Potomac Army regarding whom it was popularly supposed that they won their successes by daring and brilliant strokes. Yet we see them lying awake at night, after great fatigues, to ponder the chances of a possible miscarriage. In how many

critical moments of the war did the disappointment of well-laid plans, if not disastrous defeat, result because able and skillful officers deemed their duty discharged when they had given the appropriate orders? This was not General Hancock's or General Sheridan's idea of a commander's work. They gave the right orders and then saw them executed; and it was to this, fully as much as to their more brilliant qualities, that the successes of these two chieftains were due.

It is no part of our task to tell the hideous story of the 30th of July. Hancock's expedition to the north bank of the James River had greatly depleted the garrison of Petersburg. Here, at daybreak, Elliott's salient and the regiment holding it were thrown a hundred feet into the air and a broad avenue was laid open for the advance of the three Union corps then in position before the city, while on both sides the Confederate lines shrank back in terror from the hideous fate of their comrades. Had adequate arrangements been made, and had the troops at hand been put in with even the lowest degree of vigor, noon of that day must have seen Petersburg in our power and a third of Lee's army lopped off at a blow. But the same fatal hesitation which had been shown by Burnside at Antietam and in the Wilderness here wasted the one hour needed to enable the Confederates to recover from their shock and surprise, to bring up artillery to command

66

the breach, and to wall it around with resolute and tenacious infantry. When at last the troops of the Ninth Corps went forward, it was uncertainly and timidly, for want of proper leadership and staff service, while large numbers huddled together in the crater," or deep chasm formed by the explosion, where they were ultimately captured. During this affair Mott's division held Ord's intrenchments to enable the Eighteenth Corps to be massed for assault. The remaining divisions of the Second, which had come in at daybreak after an all-night march from Deep Bottom, were held in reserve.

Between the 31st of July and the 11th of August the Second Corps remained in its old camps, in the neighborhood of the Deserted House, General Hancock being employed in the important duty of presiding over the court of inquiry appointed by the President to investigate the causes of the failure at the Mine. On the 10th of August General Grant telegraphed to Secretary Stanton: "I think it but just reward for services already rendered that General Sherman should be appointed a major genera, and W. S. Hancock and Sheridan brigadiers in the regular army. All these officers have proved the er worthiness for this advancement." So fully did these recommendations fall in with the feeling enterytained by the President and the Secretary of Wag that, with but an interval of two days, Sherman ancel Hancock were appointed respectively major generayl