Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[368] having been riddled with shot from both besiegers and besieged, and, over the broken cistern, the rebel and national soldiers held their tacit truce, a truce which neither ever violated.

Meanwhile, the heads of sap had reached the enemy's lines, on the Graveyard and Jackson roads, and in Ransom's front, as well as on the Baldwin and Hall's ferry roads. Mining had been resorted to, by both besiegers and besieged, and, on the Jackson road, Grant fired a heavy mine on the 25th of June. It extended thirty-five feet from the point of starting: fifteen hundred pounds of powder were deposited in three different branch mines, and seven hundred in the centre one; fuses were arranged so as to explode them all at the same instant, and the mine was tamped with cross-timbers and sand-bags. Troops were disposed so as to take advantage of any result. At three and a half P. M. the explosion took place, and a heavy artillery-fire opened along the line at the same moment. Huge masses of earth were thrown up in the air, and the ground was shaken as if by a volcano. As soon as the earth was rent, a bright glare of fire issued from the burning powder, but quickly died away, as there was nothing combustible in the fort. A few rebel soldiers were hurled into the air, one or two of whom came down alive, inside the national lines. The enemy, however, had detected the building of the mine, and, in anticipation of the explosion, removed most of his troops behind a new line in the rear. Counter-mining had also been resorted to by the rebels, and several sappers, who were in the lower shaft, were buried: all the troops in the neighborhood were jarred by the shock.