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THE OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA—APPENDIX. 
workmen that a gallery five hundred feet long, with lateral openings 
beneath the conferates works, was soon finished, and in these lateral 
recesses was placed a large amount of powder. 
All was now ready, and the question was how to utilize the explosion. 
General Grant decided to follow it by a sudden charge through tlie 
breach, seize a crest in rear, and thus interpose a force directly in the 
centre of Lee’s line. A singular discussion, however arose, and caused 
some embarrassment. Should the assaulting column consist of white or 
negro troops ? This question was decided, General Grant afterwards 
declared, by “ pulling straws or tossing coppers ”—the white troops 
were the fortunate or unfortunate ones—and on the morning of July 
30th, the mine was exploded. The effect was frightful, and the incident 
will long be remembered by those present and escaping unharmed. 
The small Southern force and artillery immediately above the mine 
were hurled into the air. An opening, one hundred and fifty feet long 
sixty feet wide, and thirty feet deep, suddenly appeared, where a 
moment before had extended the confederate earthworks ; and the 
federal division, selected for the charge, rushed forward to pierce the 
opening. The result did not justify the sanguine expectations which 
seem to have been excited in the breasts of the federal officers. A 
Southern writer thus describes what ensued. The “white division 
charged, reached the crater, stumbled over the debris , were suddenly 
met by a merciless fire of artillery, enfilading them right and left, and 
of infantry fusillading them in front; faltered, hesitated, were badly 
led, lost heart, gave up the plan of seizing the crest in rear, huddled 
into the crater, man on top of man, company mingled with company ; 
and upon this disordered, unstrung, quivering mass of human beings, 
white and black—for the black troops had followed—was poured a 
hurricane of shot, shell, canister, and musketry, which made the hideous 
crater a slaughter pen, horrible and frightful beyond the power of words. 
All order was lost ; all idea of charging the crest abandoned. Lee’s 
infantry was seen concentrating for the carnival of death ; his artillery 
was massingto destroy the remnants of the charging divisions ; those who 
deserted the crater, to scramble over the debris and run back, were shot 
down ; then all that was left to the shuddering mass of blacks and 
whites in the pit was to shrink lower, evade the horrible mitraille, and 
wait for a charge of their friends to rescue them or surrender.”—“ Life 
o f General R. E. Leef J. E. Cooke , p. 421. 
“ Raids ” in America and in Europe.— “ Well may the heart of 
many a soldier throb, when he reads, how in America great masses of 
cavalry made marches a week long, through immense tracts of country, 
over mountain and valley, through rivers and woods. A raid means an 
incursion made by a large mass of cavalry, during which this force is 
not only made for a time independent of the regular command of the 
army, but is unable to count upon any daily support from the latter, 
and is thus absolutely detached and left to itself, while its 
communications with its own Wops are necessarily often temporarily 
cut by the enemy ; being thus situated it proceeds, obeying the good 
pleasure of its leaders, to execute the duty which it may have been 
intended to carry out. ... I cannot possibly accept the conclusion 
that because raids were possible and useful in America, it must be 
advisable to employ them in Europe. In the American Civil War of 
