5. The men should be urged to the assault with a determination to succeed, and should rush to it without halting, and, mounting the parapet, take possession of the work and hold it against all attempts to recover it.

6. That the sharpshooters should keep up a continuous fire into the embrasure of the enemy's works and along the fort, so as to prevent the use of their cannon, and distract, if not prevent, the fire from all arms.

7. General Kershaw to advance to the assault on the right of the fort so soon as the fort was taken.

After this I proposed to General Longstreet that if he would delay the assault until daylight the next morning (the 29th) I would drive in the enemy's pickets that night and occupy a line with my sharpshooters which would command the enemy's works going beyond the line occupied by the enemy's sharpshooters, if such was found necessary in order to obtain eligible positions. He assented, and the assault was put off until daylight of the 29th. I then addressed the following circular to my brigade commanders:

CIRCULAR.]

GENERAL: The operations discussed to-day will take place to-morrow morning. I wish you to make the necessary preparations and advance your skirmishers to-night, so as to occupy the line of rifle-pits now held by the enemy and make them tenable for your men, so that your sharpshooters can open fire on the main rifle-pits of the enemy, and, firing into the embrasures of the main work, prevent them from using their cannon with effect when the main assault is made; and if an opportunity is offered, which may happen, we may dash at the main works. Further instructions will be sent, if any thought necessary. If any brigade commander is not fully informed, he is requested to make proper inquiries at once.

Copies of this circular were delivered to each brigade commander by my division inspector (Major Costin). I then reassembled my brigade commanders, and in discussion with them it was ordered that the sharpshooters should advance at moonrise, which took place at that date about 10 p.m.; and that they should choose and intrench a line so far beyond the rifle-pits of the enemy as was necessary to give command of their main works, and thus give more complete protection to the assaulting columns. The signal agreed upon for the assault was the opening of fire from Major Leyden's battery, which had been sunk in pits on the advance line of General Kershaw, near Armstrong's house. It was also ordered that the sharpshooters should open fire in the morning so soon as it was light enough for them to see. I ordered the assault in two columns, because there was considerable felled timber and much broken ground between the positions of Humphreys' brigade and that of Wofford's, and besides, I thought that the spirit of rivalry between the two brigades leading the assault (one being from Georgia and the other from Mississippi), united to their previous well-tried gallantry, would urge them to their work with accelerating dash and vigor.

I had been previously impressed by General Alexander,chief of artillery, of General Longstreet's staff (then colonel), that there was no ditch at the northwest angle of the work that offered any obstacle to the assault, and by General Longstreet himself that there would be no difficulty in taking the work so far as the ditch and up and on the outside without jumping and without apparent difficulty; and, as there could be no difficulty contemplated in running up the exterior slope of an earth-work, I was confident that there would be no difficulty in getting into the work, and that the obstructions offered by the work itself not be the obstacles to be overcome. But, to quote the words of Colonel Alexander before the general