THE OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA—APPENDIX. 
253 
formed, with openings through which advances could be made, while 
outside of all a ditch was dug and an impromptu abatis constructed. 
When the troops remained in one position for any length of time, these 
earthworks were elaborated ; lines within lines were built, under the 
direction of engineers of the regular army, and formidable fortifications 
arose with curtains, bastions, lunettes, all manned with skilfully placed 
artillery. But besides these more pretentious works, the troops them¬ 
selves, finding the great advantage and security to be obtained, soon fell 
to building up others of their own accord ; and before the campaign was 
over, a regiment seldom halted for half-a-day without throwing up its 
own defences towards the enemy. Often this was done without order, 
and in the midst of battle, if a battalion was for half-an-hour disengaged; 
and, when picks and shovels were not at hand, the men dug up the 
earth with their bayonets and threw it out with their cups and split 
canteens. Sometimes it happened that these rude lines or even the 
more elaborate works, were stormed by one side or the other, and 
instantly reversed, and used against those who had constructed them. 
On the 12th of May, the entrenchments that Hancock carried did far 
more service to their captors than to Lee. 
This system prevailed in both armies and materially modified the 
character of the fighting. It protracted the duration of the battles, 
but made them less bloody, considering their length and the numbers 
engaged. It was, of course, especially favourable to Lee, who was 
enabled, at all times, to shelter himself, while Grant, always forced to 
assume the offensive, must always attack works, himself outside of 
cover. No one can appreciate the difficulties of the national general, 
nor the advantages of his enemy, or can properly understand the 
defence that the rebels were able to make against superior numbers, 
who fails to take into consideration this new and powerful element in 
the military situation. Grant, it is true, made himself as secure as Lee, 
and, whenever the rebels attempted an assault, they suffered the 
disadvantage which their adversaries more often experienced, and their 
losses were then in a ratio commensurate with Grant’s ; but, and this is 
the gist of the matter, as well as the history of the campaign, Lee did 
not attack, as a rule, and Grant did ; so that Lee enjoyed the advantages 
and Grant encountered the difficulties which the new system of earth¬ 
works developed .—BadeaiCs “Military History of U.S. Grant,” Vol. II., 
ch. xix., p. 321, etc. 
The Great Mine Explosion. —At dawn, on the 30th of July, a 
loud explosion, heard for thirty miles, took place on the lines near 
Petersburg, and a vast column of smoke, shooting upward to a great 
height, seemed to indicate the blowing up of an extensive magazine. 
Instead of a magazine, it was a mine which had thus been exploded ; 
and the incident was not the least singular of a campaign, unlike any 
which had preceded it. The plan of forming a breach in the Southern 
works, by exploding a mine beneath them, is said by Northern writers 
to have originated with a subordinate officer of the federal army, who, 
observing the close proximity of the opposing works near Petersburg, 
conceived it feasible to construct a subterranean gallery reaching beneath 
those of General Lee. The undertaking was begun, the earth being 
carried off in cracker boxes, and such was the steady persistence of the 
