day and night. The
rebel batteries responded at intervals of but a few minutes. This
position was also under a continual fire from rebel sharpshooters, their
balls reaching as far as the woods beyond with fatal effect.

The second day we were here, June 18th, William Rutter was mortally
wounded. He had picked up a piece of corn-cake in the field back of the
works. Some jesting remark was made about the cake and the rebel that
made it, when he said he would go out and get some more. He was sitting
in the pit beside me. He rose, still laughing, to carry out his purpose;
but as his head and shoulders were exposed above the pit, there was a
sharp "crash," and he grasped his left shoulder with his right hand and
uttered a smothered exclamation of pain. A large rifle ball had
penetrated and crushed the shoulder joint. He was taken back at once,
and the arm amputated. It was reported that he did not survive the
operation; but I have since learned that he lived till the 15th of July.
We lost a number of men in this way and on the picket line.

The pickets were changed during the night, usually between nine and ten
o'clock. This was the occasion for a lively time down on the line, in
which the artillery usually joined. Sometimes this picket firing, with
its accompaniment of booming cannon and screaming shells, would rise
almost to the dignity of a night battle. In front, from the picket pits,
rifles blazed and flashed with their crackling roar; and farther back,
the great guns belched forth their lurid flames, casting a momentary
glare over the weird scene. The gunners would range their guns before
dark, so as to give the rebels a good one when the time should arrive.
Every device was resorted to that would make this night-firing effective
and annoying to the enemy.

Not long after the siege began, and while we were yet at this point of
the line, we got a mortar-battery--two guns--into position. One clear,
calm evening, the Yankees proceeded to try a little of this new-fangled
music on our friends across the lines. The mortars were planted some
distance to the right, and in such a position that we had a fine chance
for observation. The line had been unusually quiet, as if the beauty of
the tranquil sunset hour had subdued for a season the fierce spirit of
war in the hearts of men. The sun's last ray had faded from hill-top and
tree, and twilight was settling down upon the scene, when we heard on
our right a strange, grumbling,