On the morning of the 30th of July, everything being in readiness, the fuse was placed, and at 3.30 o’clock the light was applied.  Before this terrible “Crater,” soon to be a hollocu of human beings, were massed Ledlie’s, Potter’s, Wilcox’s, and Ferrero’s Divisions, supported by Ames’.  In the front was Ferrero’s Division of negro troops, drunk and reeling from the effects of liquor furnished them by the wagon loads.  This body of twenty-three thousand men were all under the immediate command of Major General Ord.  On the left of Burnside, Warren concentrated ten thousand men, while the Eighteenth Corps, with that many more, were in the rear to aid and support the movement—­the whole being forty-three thousand men, with eight thousand pounds of gun-powder to first spring the mine.  General Sheridan, with his cavalry, was to make a demonstration in our front and against the roads leading to Petersburg.  Hancock, too, was to take a part, if all things proved successful—­fifty thousand men were to make a bold dash for the capture of the city.  Immediately over the mine was Elliott’s Brigade, consisting of the Seventeenth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-third, Twenty-second, and Eighteenth South Carolina Regiments.  At 3.30 o’clock the fuse was lighted, and while the Confederates, all unconscious of the impending danger, lay asleep, this grand aggregation of men of Grant’s Army waited with bated breath and anxious eye the fearful explosion that eight thousand pounds of powder, under a great hill, were to make.  Time went on, seconds into minutes.  The nerves of the assaulters were, no doubt, at extreme tension.  Four o’clock came, still all was still and silent.  The Federal commanders held their watches in hand and watched the tiny steel hands tick the seconds away.  The streaks of day came peeping up over the hills and cast shadows high overhead.  The fuse had failed!  A call was made for a volunteer to go down into the mine and relight the fuse.  A Lieutenant and Sergeant bravely step forward and offered to undertake the perilous mission.  They reach the mouth of the tunnel and peer in.  All was dark, silent, sombre, and still.  Along they grope their way with a small lantern in their hands.  They reach the barrel of powder placed at the junction of the main and the laterals.  The fuse had ceased to burn.  Hurriedly they pass along to the other barrels.  Expecting every moment to be brown into space, they find all as the first, out.  The thousands massed near the entrance and along Taylor’s Creek, watched with fevered excitement the return of the brave men who had thus placed their lives in such jeopardy for a cause they, perhaps, felt no interest.  Quickly they placed new fuse, lit them, and quickly left the gruesome pit.  Scarcely had they reached a place of safety than an explosion like a volcano shook the earth, while the country round about was lit up with a great flash.  The earth trembled and swayed—­great heaps of earth went flying in the air, carrying with it men, guns, and ammunition.  Cannon and carriages were scattered in every direction, while the sleeping men were thrown high in the air.