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      PERSONAL NARRATIVES

       OF EVENTS IN THE

      War of the Rebellion,

   BEING PAPERS READ BEFORE THE

 RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
       HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

      Fifth Series.--No. 8.


          PROVIDENCE:
   PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.
             1898.


   SNOW & FARNHAM, PRINTERS.




    BATTLE OF THE CRATER

              AND

 Experiences of Prison Life.

              BY
     SUMNER U. SHEARMAN,
 [Late Captain, Fourth Rhode Island Volunteers.]


         PROVIDENCE:
   PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.
            1898.

[Edition limited to two hundred and fifty copies.]




Battle of the Crater; and Experiences of Prison Life.


I have been asked by the Society under whose auspices we are gathered
to-night to tell you something of my personal experiences in the Battle
of the Mine, or of the Crater, as it is sometimes called, and to
supplement those experiences with some account of my life in a Southern
prison.

At the time of the battle I was captain of Company A, Fourth Rhode
Island Volunteers Infantry. The regiment to which I belonged was a
portion of the Ninth Army Corps, under the command of General Burnside.
The battle was fought on the 30th of July, 1864. But some months
previous, as far back as January, 1863, the regiment, as also the
corps, had been detached from the Army of the Potomac. Burnside, as you
know,