Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/129

 Operations Before Petersburg. 119

conducting material ; the consequence was that when a heavy fire of coal was put in the whole mass of iron about the boilers became red-hot and nearly roasted the firemen, who had also got a tub of ice- water, of which they drank freely. The result was that we had to hoist them all out of the fire-room during the action, and Grimball headed a party to supply their place. But I will not detain the reader. We got through, hammered and battered though. Our smokestack resembled an immense nutmeg grater, so often had it been struck, and the sides of the ship were as spotted as if she had been pep- pered. A shot had broken our cast iron ram. Another had demol- ished a hawse-pipe. Our boats were shot away and dragging. But all this was to be expected and could be repaired. Not so on the in- side. A great heap of mangled and ghastly slain lay on the gun deck, with rivulets of blood running away from them. There was a poor fellow torn asunder, another mashed flat, whilst in the "slaugh- ter-house" brains, hair and blood were all about. Down below fifty or sixty wounded were groaning and complaining, or courageously bearing their ills without a murmur. All the army stood on the hills to see us round the point. The flag had been set up on a temporary pole, and we went out to return the cheers the soldiers gave us as we passed. The Generals came on board to embrace our Captain, bloody, yet game. This ends our second battle. We must fight an- other before we go to sleep on that 15th of July.

Operations Before Petersburg, May 6-1 1, 1864.

report of general johnson hagood.

Headquarters Hagood's South Carolina Brigade, Near Drewry's Bluff, Virginia,

May I J, 1864. Captain Foote, A. A. G. :

Captain, — I have the honor to report the operations of my brigade in front of Petersburg.

On the 6th instant the Twenty-first regiment and three companies of the Twenty-fifth under Major Glover, the whole under Colonel Graham, of the Twenty-first, arrived at Port Walthal Junction, upon which the enemy were then advancing, and in a very short time were engaged. Colonel Graham formed his line east of the railroad, at a