escaping from this position to Battery No. 9, informed Captain Stone that if he would not fire upon them there were between 200 and 300 of the enemy who could come in. This arrangement was promptly effected. No other advance appears to have been made upon this battery.

Captain Jones, of the Eleventh Massachusetts Battery, occupying Fort Friend, with six 3-inch rifle pieces, promptly manned his guns upon the first alarm, and about half an hour afterward was enabled, by the dawning of day, to distinguish the before-mentioned body of the enemy moving from Fort Stedman toward Fort Haskell. He immediately opened fire upon them; at the same time he discovered a line of skirmishers advancing toward the hill upon which his fort is situated, and as the line of skirmishers arrived at the ravine in front of the fort, discharged canister into them, which had the effect of checking their advance until the regiment of Pennsylvania troops, encamped near the fort, formed, advanced, and drove back the line. From this commanding position Captain Jones continued to direct a most destructive fire into and around Fort Stedman upon any body of the enemy which made its appearance. Upon the first alarm two sections of light 12-pounders, one of Battery G, First New York Artillery, under Captain McClellan, and the other of the Nineteenth New York Battery, under Lieutenant Losee, being in park near Meade's Station, were at once hitched up, and taking position on the crest of the hill in front of the station opened fire upon the enemy's skirmish line, which by this time had advanced, to the ravine between this hill and Fort Stedman. Soon this line of skirmishers fell back to a line nearer to Fort Stedman. The two sections above mentioned were, by my directions, placed farther to the front for the advantage of shorter range. While taking up this position the enemy opened upon them from two of the pieces of Fort Stedman, which by this time they had run out to the rear. Their fire, however, inaccurate and straggling and did no injury, and was soon silenced by the fire of artillery concentrated upon that point.

As soon as the haze of the morning cleared away sufficiently to enable the artillery to direct their fire with accuracy, all the pieces (in addition to those before mentioned), from Battery No. 4 around to Fort Morton, that could be brought to bear upon Fort Stedman, opened, and concentrating a fire of about thirty pieces upon and around the fort, soon made the place untenable. The cross-fire from Fort Haskell and Battery No. 9 upon the open ground between Fort Stedman and the enemy's line of works tore through the masses of the enemy as they retired and made the passage so hazardous as to deter many from attempting it, and several hundred of the enemy were thus cut off and with but little resistance fell into the hands of the infantry, which at this time (about 7.30 a.m.) advanced in line and reoccupied the fort and line. Upon the first information of the capture of Fort Stedman, I dispatched a request to Brevet Brigadier-General Wainwright, commanding artillery, Fifth Corps, to send me such batteries as he had available, which he did with great promptness, four batteries arriving just at the moment of the reoccupation of our works, and therefore unable to participate in the repulse of the enemy.

During the whole occurrence the enemy kept a most vigorous fire of artillery along his whole line, which was replied to by all our batteries from the Appomattox to the Jerusalem plank road. The enemy temporarily disabled two of the guns in Fort Stedman by pounding the vents; otherwise no damage was sustained by the pieces while in their possession; they did not succeed in carrying any of them off. As far as I could