[707] thousands of men's lives also. But we fooled away the time; we stood and chaffed one another; and the cannon in our front roared and the musketry rolled. Then we marched. We were in high spirits. We marched free. Every enlisted man in the Second Corps knew that we had outmarched the Confederates. We knew that some of our troops were assaulting the Confederate works at Petersburg. The booming of the cannon cheered us. We were tired, hungry, worn with six weeks of continuous and bloody fighting and severe marching; but now that we, the enlisted men of the Second Corps, knew that at last a flank movement had been successful, we wanted to push on and get into the fight and capture Petersburg. We knew that we had outmarched Lee's veterans, and that our reward was at hand. The Second Corps was in fine mettle. On all sides I heard men assert that Petersburg and Richmond were ours; that the war would virtually be ended in less than twenty-four hours.Night came. The almost full moon arose above the woods, and gold-flecked the dust column which rose above us. We had heard heavy firing about sundown, and judged that we should be drawing near the battle-line. We entered a pine woods, and there we met a mob of black troops, who were hauling some brass guns. They had attached long ropes to the limbers, and, with many shouts, were dragging them down the road. Some of them bore flaming torches of pine knots in their hands. They sang, they shouted, they danced weirdly, as though they were again in Congo villages making medicine. They were happy, dirty, savagely excited, but they were not soldiers. As we, the Second Corps, met these victorious troops, the eager infantrymen asked: “Where did you get those guns?” They replied: “We ‘uns captured them from the rebels to-day.” “Bah!” an infantry sergeant, who was marching by my side, exclaimed; “you negroes captured nothing from Lee's men. The city is ours. There is not a brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia ahead of us.” And we all exclaimed: “The city is ours! We have outmarched them!” And we strode on through the dense dust clouds, with parched throats, footsore and weary. Not a grumble did I hear. But with set jaws we toiled on, intent on capturing Petersburg before the Army of Northern Virginia got behind the works. It was: “March, march, march! No straggling now. It is far better to march to-night than to assault earthworks defended by Lee's men to-morrow. Hurry along! hurry, hurry, hurry!” And we marched our best. We passed a group of soldiers who wore the distinctive badge of the Second Corps, cooking by the roadside, their muskets stacked by their fire. We asked how far it was to the battle-line. “Only a few hundred yards,” they replied. Then we asked what Confederate troops were ahead of us. They answered, with a scornful laugh:
