Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/56

 50 Southern Historical Society Papers.

all right, he looked back at us and sang out " Who-eeh " as cheerily as if he had treed a coon instead of been face to face with death a second before. An answering cheer and a laugh went up from the boys on the line, and the incident was the next minute forgotten.

Just before the shelling commenced, I was sitting on the ground among some low bushes with pencil and paper, writing upon my knee what I thought might be my last letter to my wife. The pickets had been for some time keeping up a dropping and unin- teresting fire as they would catch a glimpse of each other. Presently, one after another, two or three minies dropped in the bushes near, and as each one seemed to cut a little closer, I thought a sharp- shooter with a telescopic rifle, which we understood the " Yankees " were using, had perhaps been attracted by my white paper and it would be safest to move. I did so, and getting upMeaned against an oak tree, something larger than my body, which stood near, but the next minute I thought the earth had opened and that I and the tree were falling into it. As soon as I could shake myself together and rub some burnt powder out of my eyes, I realised that a shell had burst against the tree right behind me, the pieces striking the ground all around, throwing sand and leaves all over me. The concussion was so great, that I had to pass a hand over each limb and feel my- self all over before I could be sure that I was not wounded, during which investigation Lieutenant Cowley ran up and congratulated me on being alive, saying that as he knew where I had been sitting a minute before and hearing the shell explode at the spot, he had come expecting "to pick up what was left of me."

After that fierce artillery duel was over, there was no further pas- sage at arms between the opposing forces on this part of the line, except the continuous but irregular firing between the pickets, which lasted until it got too dark to see.

And now we on the picket line tired out with the constant activity of the day and the cramped position which most of the time we were forced to keep in the narrow, single rifle-pits looked anxiously for the appearance of the "relief." Independently of the physical strain that the picket has to endure, the sense of responsibility, as he feels himself to be the eyes and ears of the army, is an intense mental tax, that no one but he who has experienced it can realize.

But there was no rest for us that night. Instead of the " relief" came an orderly with a squad heavily loaded with ammunition, and these were the orders he brought : Said he, " Colonel Edgar says you are to keep your company on the picket line all night,