and horrors become the common things of life. These young men
did nothing of the kind. With a light remark suggested by the idea of
such a party wanting to rob them of their dinner, they moved the pan a
little, and finished their meal. This done, they examined further, and
found it to be the half-buried remains of a rebel soldier. On a scrap of
paper they found the name, company, regiment, and State. The paper also
contained a request for the burial of the body. They prepared a grave
and buried him. Then as a matter of courtesy and humanity, one of them
went out between the lines and was met there by a rebel soldier, to whom
he related the circumstances, and requested him to join in this becoming
duty by preparing a properly inscribed head-board. This was cheerfully
done, and the board set up at the grave. In passing to and fro between
the lines other dead were found, and these, too, were decently interred.

The days passed on pleasantly, and without special incident. No videttes
were kept out, except in the night. None were needed, as the ground was
open and level between us and the enemy. There was no picket firing, and
we had a very comfortable time of it. We could watch the artillery
"practice," which took place almost every evening, between the batteries
on our right, without any apprehension that they would practice on us.

One evening I sat on the rifle-pit, watching this. Scores of the men
were doing the same, or were idling the time away as suited them best.
The sun had sunk from sight; but as the shells would burst over the
rebel redoubt, which was then the mark of our artillerists, they seemed
balls of silver, in the rays of the sun, now invisible to us. Then they
would expand, and roll away in little snowy cloudlets, almost before the
sound of the explosion would reach us. Suddenly a great column of smoke
shot upward from the redoubt; dark at first, but turning to a silver
whiteness, as the rays of the sun touched it. A sound that seemed to
shake the earth came rumbling through the air. A shell had reached and
exploded the magazine. A laugh, with a cheer here and there, ran along
our heavy picket-line. The rebels called out: "Stop laughing, Yanks!"
"Stop that laughing!"

Whether this would have resulted in an outbreak between the pickets, is
uncertain; but a moment later a shell came screaming across, about ten
feet above the pits, passing a few rods to my right. Thinking this was
but introductory, the men