Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 119, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1912 — BLOW UP CONFEDERATE FORT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BLOW UP CONFEDERATE FORT

Exciting Incident in Battle of Petersburg, Forty-Eight Years Ago, la Told by Veteran. The effect of a difficult engineering operation in the Civil war, involving the blowing up of Confederate fortifications, was witnessed forty-eight years ago by Frank D. Thompson, an architect of Oak Park, who was a cavalryman in the 13th Ohio volunteer regiment The explosion, which occurred early on the morning of July 30, 1864, provided an opening through the defenses of Petersburg, Va., which, however, the Union forces were unable to hold. “The Union army lay in-front of Petersburg,” said Mr. Thompson. "For weeks Col. Henry Pleasants of the engineering corps had been preparing to make a breach in the fortifications. From the river on one side and -around the town, almost to the river on the other side, the earthworks of the defenders extended, broken here and there by a fort Our earthworks were raised in some places not much more than 100 yards distant. The place chosen for making the breach was

There Was Force In the Explosion, j near the Petersburg cemetery. Here 1 our line was 133 yards from the walls] of the fort and was approached from! down the hill by a covered ditch. Beyond the line a tunnel had been driven Into the hillside, extending under the< fort, and at the end of the tunnel hadl bee placed four hoppers, each containing a ton of powder. The mine was to be exploded with a fuse laid along the tunnel. “We of the 13th Ohio knew nothing of what was going on. We. had been out on picket duty all day July 29 an# got back to the line In the afternoon. We were dismounted and sent with! our carbines through the covered way, to the line. It was about 9 o’clock inJ the, evening .when we took this posi~ tlon. Our only knowledge of what was: going to happen was our order to charge at the sound of the signal gun.j We expected this at 3 o’clock in the morning. Three .o’clock came and< passed and It was not until 6 that we heard the signal gun. “As we afterward found out the, fuse had been lighted, but had burned! only half the distance, not much more than a stone’s throw. There had been! a call for volunteers to go Into the] tunnel and light the fuse where it had burned out and one man was chosen: from among the many. He fired it and got safely out of the tunnel before the: explosion. “There was force in the explosion. The earth heaved under us we were so near, but it did more than heave at the fort. Ufa into the air went everything, earth and heavy timbers and the bodies of men, and before the debris had all fallen to earth we had covered the Intervening distance and were In the breach. The fighting was hard Inside the * wails. . The enemy drove us back, but we returned to the fight, only to be finally repulsed at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. At about this time I was shot and badly wounded, and lay on the field under the July sun and the stars that followed until, in the morning, I was taken up and carried to the hospital at City Point."

JDid They Run? General Sherman always said with pride that the army of the Tennessee Dover retreated. They started In at Memphis, and came out at Charleston and Wilmington in a fourth of the time that It took the army of the Potomac to see-saw back and forth between Washington and Richmond. One day after the war the general said that he was talking with a veteran from the army of the Potomac. The soldier was describing the big fight of Hooker at Chancellorsrille. j “Did the rebels run?" asked Sherman. “Did they run?” repeated the soldier. "Did the rebels run? Great Scott, I should say they did run* Why, general, they ran so fast that we had to run three miles to get out of their, way, and if we hadn't thrown away our guns they’d run all over us sure.” '