Two days later the Southerners renewed the battle and now thirty cannon poured volley after volley upon the Fifth and Ninth corps. The dashing Mahone again came forward with his usual impetuousness, but the blue line finally drove Lee's men back. And so the Weldon Railroad fell into the hands of General Grant. Hancock, with the Second Corps, returned from the north bank of the James and set to work to assist in destroying the railway, whose loss was a hard blow to General Lee. It was not to be expected that the latter would permit this work to continue unmolested and on the 25th of August, A. P. Hill suddenly confronted Hancock, who entrenched himself in haste at Ream's Station. This did not save the Second Corps, which for the first time in its glorious career was put to rout. Their very guns were captured and turned upon them. In the following weeks there were no actions of importance except that in the last days of September Generals Ord and Birney, with the Army of the James, captured Fort Harrison, on the north bank of that river, from Generals Ewell and Anderson. The Federals were anxious to have it, since it was an excellent vantage point from which to threaten Richmond. Meanwhile Grant was constantly extending his line to the west and by the end of October it was very close to the South Side Railroad. On the 27th there was a hard fight at Hatcher's Run, but the Confederates saved the railway and the Federals returned to their entrenchments in front of Petersburg. The active struggle now ceased, but Lee found himself each day in more desperate straits. Sheridan had played sad havoc with such sources of supply as existed in the rich country to the northwest. The Weldon Railroad was gone and the South Side line was in imminent danger. The Southerners were losing heart. Many went home for the winter on a promise to return when the spring planting was done. Lee was loath to let them go, but he could ill afford to maintain them, and the very life of their families depended upon it. Those who remained at Petersburg suffered cruelly from hunger and cold. They looked forward to the spring, although it meant renewal of the mighty struggle. The Confederate line had been stretched to oppose Grant's westward progress until it had become the thinnest of screens. A man lost to Lee was almost impossible to replace, while the bounties offered in the North kept Grant's ranks full. [Illustration: MAHONE, "THE HERO OF THE CRATER" COPYRIGHT, 1911, REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.]