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As the saps in front of Bainbridge's and Duryea's batteries drew every day nearer to the bastion and the priest-cap, the working parties were harassed and began to be greatly delayed by the unceasing fire of the Confederate sharp-shooters.
Bearing to the right from the Jackson road, the men moved by the flank and cautiously, availing themselves of every advantage afforded by the timber or the irregularities of the ground, until they gained the crest of the ridge at points varying from twenty to fifty yards from the works near the north face of the priest-cap.
The sap in front of Bainbridge's battery, No. 8, was advanced about twenty yards during this day, and the parallel in front of the priest-cap extended to the left eleven yards; work was greatly retarded by a heavy rain in the night.
It was about seven o'clock, and the fog had lifted, when Weitzel advanced to the attack on the right face of the priest-cap. The 12th Connecticut and the 75th New York of his own brigade were deployed to the left and right as skirmishers to cover the head of the column.
At one point where the path ran close to Westring-park proper, the park on higher ground, a grass-bank seven feet high dividing them, he saw a-top of the bank in caftan, priest-cap, and phylacteries, taking snuff Baruch Frankl. Hogarth skipped up, and stood before the Jew, having drawn his face- cloth well forward. "What's the row?" asked Frankl. "Could you give a poor man a job?" "You a Jew?"
The rest of Gooding's brigade followed, next came Fearing's, then Ingraham's under Ferris. In rear of the column was posted the artillery under Nims. At a point on the crest of the ridge, ninety yards distant from the left face of the priest-cap, Paine's advance was checked.
When at last the sap had, with great toil and danger, been carried to the crest facing the priest-cap, and only a few yards distant, the trench was rapidly and with comparative ease extended toward the left, in a line parallel with the general direction of the defences.
The main approach led from Duryea's battery No. 12 toward the priest-cap, following the winding of the ravines and the contour of the hill.
Dwight was to take two regiments, and, with a pair of suborned deserters for guides, was to try and find an entrance on the extreme left of the works near the river. But the main attack was to be made by Grover on the priest-cap.
The mine shaft, begun the day before, was carried about twenty-seven feet underground, directly toward the salient. The cavaliers were finished. During the 7th, although there is no report for that day, the shaft for the mine under the priest-cap was finished, the chamber itself excavated and charged with about twelve hundred pounds of powder, and the mine tamped with sand-bags.
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