by our guns, talking, when a twenty pounder Parrott
shell came grazing just over our guns, passed on, and about forty yards
behind us struck a pine tree, about two and a half to three feet in
diameter. The shell had turned. It struck that big tree sideways, and
cut it entirely off, and threw it from the stump. It fell in an upright
position, struck the ground, stood, for an instant, and then, came
crashing down. It was a very creepy suggestion of what that shell might
have done to one of us. A few moments after another struck the ground
right by us and ricochetted. After it passed us, as was frequently the
case, we caught sight of it, and followed its upward flight until it
seemed to be going straight up to the sky. Stiles said "There it goes as
though flung by the hand of a giant." Beau Barnes, who was _not_
poetical, exclaimed, "Giant be darned; there ain't any giant can fling
'em like that." He was right!

Strange how the most trivial incidents keep their place in the memory,
along with the great events, amidst which they occurred! I remember the
fall of that tree, and the remark about that shell, and a small piece of
pork which an Arkansas soldier gave me, and which, in jumping to the
guns, I dropped into a mudhole, and never found again, though I fished
for it diligently in the muddy water, and a _pig_, which was calmly
rooting around near our guns, under fire, and which we watched, hoping
he would be hit, so that we could get his meat, before the infantry did,
to satisfy our wolfish hunger, just as distinctly as the several fierce
battles which were fought that day.

About five o'clock the Federal guns on the hill in our front broke out
again into a furious fire. It was a warning! We knew it meant that the
infantry were about to charge again. We got to our guns, and the Texans
stood to their arms. It seems that the balance of Hancock's Corps had
got up, and now, with Warren's, and part of Sedgwick's Corps, formed in
our front, Grant was going to make the supreme effort of the day, to
break our line.

_What we saw_ was that far down in the woods, heavy columns of men were
moving; the woods seemed to be full of them. The pickets, and our guns
opened on them at once. The next moment they appeared, three heavy lines
one close behind the other. As they reached the edge of the woods, our
lines were blazing with fire. But on they came! The first line was cut
to pieces, only to have its place taken by the next, and the