heels as high as the trail would allow. The effect
was, that when the gun fired it simply jerked back against this rail
pile, and rested in its place, and so we were saved all the time and
labor of running up. We found that we could fire three or four times as
rapidly, in this way. So that a chocked gun was equal to four in a
fight. We found this simple device of immense service! We were told by
the knowing ones that we ran the greatest possible danger. The ordnance
people said that if a gun was not allowed to recoil it would certainly
burst. But we didn't mind! A device that saved so much labor, and
enabled us to deliver such an extraordinarily effective fire on the
battlefield, we were bound to try. We found it acted beautifully. We
then _knew_ the guns _wouldn't_ burst for we had tried it.

We used it afterward in every fight. The instant we were ordered into
position, two or three cannoneers would rush off and get rails, or a
log or two, to chock the guns. And on two or three very desperate
emergencies, during this campaign, this device enabled us to render very
important service. It made a battery equal to a battalion, and a good
many other batteries took it up, and used it. I believe it added greatly
to the effectiveness of our artillery in the close-range fighting of
this campaign.

Well! even with this relief, the labor of working our guns in this
furious and prolonged fight was fearful! At last the welcome order,
"Section cease firing" was given. We limbered up, and drew the guns a
short distance to the side, out of the line of fire, and utterly
exhausted, we cannoneers, threw ourselves right down on the plowed
ground beside the guns, and slept like the dead.

In the meantime, while we had been fighting out in that field, events
were taking place near us, of which we, absorbed in the work before us
and deafened by the roar of our guns, had taken little notice at the
time. As had been described, there was a body of woods some distance off
to our right, and another, to our left. When we went into position we
had not seen any of our troops, and did not know of the presence of any,
near us. We thought we were without support, but as I intimated some
time back, we were better off than we knew.

=Barksdale's Mississippi Creeper=

It seems, that before we came on the ground, Barksdale's Mississippi
Brigade, which had been marching behind us, had filed off the road, and
while we were up on the hill with the cavalr