But here I will allow Colonel F.W.  McMaster, an eye witness, who commanded Elliott’s Brigade after the fall of that General, to tell the story of the “Battle of the Crater” in his own words.  I copy his account, by permission, from an article published in one of the newspapers of the State.

By colonel F.W.  McMASTER.

In order to understand an account of the battle of the “Crater,” a short sketch of our fortifications should be given.

Elliott’s Brigade extended from a little branch that separated it from Ransom’s Brigade on the north, ran three hundred and fifty yards, joining Wise’s Brigade on the south.  Captain Pegram’s Virginia Battery had four guns arranged in a half circle on the top of the hill, and was separated from the Eighteenth and Twenty-second South Carolina Regiments by a bank called trench cavalier.

The Federal lines ran parallel to the Confederate.  The nearest point of Pegram’s Battery to the Federal lines was eighty yards; the rest of the lines was about two hundred yards apart.  The line called gorge line was immediately behind the battery, and was the general passage for the troops.  The embankment called trench cavalier was immediately in rear of the artillery and was constructed for the infantry in case the battery should be taken by a successful assault.

The general line for the infantry, which has been spoken of as a wonderful feat of engineering, was constructed under peculiar circumstances.  Beauregard had been driven from the original lines made for the defense of Petersburg, and apprehensive that the enemy, which numbered ten to one, would get into the city, directed his engineer, Colonel Harris, to stake a new line.  This place was reached by General Hancock’s troops at dark on the third day’s fighting, and our men were ordered to make a breastwork.  Fortifications without spades or shovels was rather a difficult feat to perform, but our noble soldiers went to work with bayonets and tin cups, and in one night threw up a bank three feet high—­high enough to cause Hancock to delay his attack.  In the next ten days’ time the ditches were enlarged until they were eight feet high and eight feet wide, with a banquette of eighteen inches high from which the soldiers could shoot over the breastwork.

Five or six traverses were built perpendicularly from the main trench to the rear, so as to protect Pegram’s guns from the enfilading fire of the big guns on the Federal lines a mile to the north.  Besides these traverses there were narrow ditches five or six feet deep which led to the sinks.

The only safe way to Petersburg, a mile off, was to go down to the spring branch which passed under our lines at the foot of the hill, then go to the left through the covered way to Petersburg, or to take the covered way which was half way down the hill to Elliott’s headquarters.

At this point a ravine or more properly a swale ran up the hill parallel to our breastworks.  It was near Elliott’s headquarters where Mahone’s troops went in from the covered way and formed in battle array.