A division of negro troops were hurried in and the sight of them drove the Southerners to desperation. It took but a moment's grim charge to hurl these black regiments back into the pit on the bodies of their fallen white comrades. The crater became a butcher's shambles. When the smoke cleared four thousand more of Grant's men lay dead and wounded in the grave in which had been buried three hundred grey defenders. Lee's losses were less than one third as many. Grant asked for a truce to bury his dead and from five until nine next morning there was no firing along the grim lines of siege for the first time since the day Petersburg had been invested. So confident now was Lee that he could hold his position against any assault his powerful opponent could make, he detached Jubal Early with twenty thousand men and sent him through the Shenandoah Valley to strike Washington. Grant was compelled to send Sheridan after him. In the meantime he determined to take advantage of Lee's reduced strength and cut the Weldon railroad over which were coming all supplies from the South. Warren's corps was sent on this important mission. His attack failed and he was driven back with a loss of three thousand men. He entrenched himself and called for reinforcements. Hancock's famous corps was hurried to the assistance of Warren. John Vaughan's regiment was now attached to Hancock's army. As they were strapping on their knapsacks for this march, to his amazement Julius suddenly appeared, grinning and bustling about as if he had never strayed from the fold. His clothes were in shreds and tatters. "Where have you been all this time, nigger?" John asked. "Who, me?" "And where'd you get that new suit of clothes?" "Well, I'm gwine tell ye Gawd's truf, Marse John. Atter dat Cold Harbor business I lit out fur de odder side. I wuz gittin' 'long very well dar wid General Elliot in de Confederacy when all of er sudden somfin' busted an' blowed me clean back inter de Union. An' here I is--yassah. An' I'se gwine ter stick by you now. 'Pears lak de ain't no res' fur de weary no whar." John was glad to have his enterprising cook once more and received the traitor philosophically. Lee threw A. P. Hill's corps between Warren and Hancock's advancing division. Hancock entrenched himself along-the railroad which he was destroying. Hill trained his artillery on these trenches and charged them with swift desperation late in the afternoon. The Union lines were broken and crushed and the men fled in panic. In vain "Hancock the Superb," who had seen his soldiers fall but never fail, tried to rally them. In agony he witnessed their utter rout. His trenches were taken, his guns captured and turned in a storm of death on his fleeing men. He lost twelve stands of colors, nine big guns and twenty-five hundred men. As the darkness fell General Nelson A. Miles succeeded in rallying a new line and stayed the panic by a desperate countercharge.