Suddenly a terrific explosion shook the foundations of the earth, and the heavy timbers of the fort and tons of earth were lifted skyward. The next moment the dust and smoke hid everything from view. General Logan and his men pushed into the breach, hoping to effect an entrance before the Confederates had recovered from the shock; but a glittering wall of bayonets met them, and they were pushed back inch by inch. All that afternoon and evening hand-grenades were tossed back and forth as in a game of baseball; but an entrance could not be made. A strange incident occurred at the blowing up of Fort Hill, which is perhaps without a parallel. There was at the time of the explosion a slave boy about eighteen years old working with others in the Confederate tunnel. This boy was lifted up with timbers and tons of earth, and thrown into the Union lines. He fell among the men of Williams’s Battery of Ohio. When the men ran to pick him up, he exclaimed with terror, “Is you Yanks goin’ to kill me?” “Oh, no; we don’t kill colored folks,” was the prompt reply. “Oh, golly, I went up free miles.” “Could you see anything?” was asked. “When I’se goin’ up,” he said, “’most eberything was comin’ down, and when I’se comin’ down ’most eberything was goin’ up.” “Who commanded Fort Hill?” inquired one of the gunners. “My massa,” replied the boy. “Where is your massa now?” “’Fore God, genl’men, I can’t tell you; he was goin’ up when I’se comin’ down.” Pictures of the boy were preserved by Williams’s Battery, taken soon after the explosion, showing the boy in the patched tow garments he wore in his wild flight for liberty. General Logan kept him at his headquarters for some time. I saw him there many times. After the war he went to Washington with them I think, and remained some years. GETTING 2,000 SICK AND WOUNDED OUT OF HELENA, ARK. On the 10th of August, 1863, accompanied by my secretary, Miss Mary Shelton, now Mrs. Judge Houston of Burlington, Iowa, I started on my return trip to Vicksburg, with a heavy shipment of hospital supplies. The _Van Phul_, the steamer on which we took passage at St. Louis, reached Helena, Ark., on the 16th of August. When the boat landed at that post, we found, on inquiry, that there were over two thousand sick and wounded there, and so stopped over with a part of our supplies, the rest going on to Vicksburg, where I had a covered barge that had done duty on the Yazoo River during the siege, but which was then lying at the wharf of Vicksburg. We found the hospitals at Helena, if they may be called hospitals, in a dreadful condition. The Methodist and Baptist churches were crowded with very sick and severely wounded men.