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CENTURY V35 N02: An Anecdote of the Petersburg Crater

An Anecdote of the Petersburg Crater.1

I was in Virginia in 1864, and the paragraph in General Grant’s Vicksburg paper describing the mine explosion and the frightened negro who was lifted “’bout t’ree mile” brings to my mind the mining of the Confederate works before Petersburg in the summer of 1864.  Among the prisoners captured was one whose face was greatly begrimed, and as he marched by he was saluted by a blue-coat with the remark, “Say, Johnny! Guess you got blown up.” “Well,” replied Johnny with an oath, “I should just say so ; but somehow I got the start of the other fellows, for when I was coming down I met the regiment going up, and they all called me a blasted straggler!”

Henry R. Howland.

Buffalo, September 7th, 1885

The Century Magazine, Volume 35, Number 2, p. 323:

CenturyMagVol35No02Page323

Source:

  1. Howland, Henry R. “An Anecdote of the Petersburg Crater” The Century Magazine, Volume 35, Number 2, p. 323
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