he town, I saw
one of our boys who was enjoying General Pope's General Order No. 10 to
the full. He was floating along down the street still able to keep his
feet, but not his balance. He had on a white masonic apron and a bright
red scarf under his belt. As we passed him he halted, faced to the front
and presented arms with so much swiftness he lost his balance and went
sprawling out on the sidewalk. Poor fellow, he meant all right; he wanted
to be very respectful and very military, but was a little too top-heavy to
carry the thing out well. He had, I expect, been to the fire. When out
foraging on the south side of the river one time, I came across in one of
the huts of the negro quarters, quite a handsome young mulatto woman with
her children. They were all quite well dressed. The children, however,
were noticeably lighter in color than their mother. She was evidently the
favorite domestic of the house and was as bitter a Yankee hater as any of
the white women. She declared the colored people did not want to be
niggers for the Yankees. I wondered if I could not understand why she was
content with her life there.

There was picket firing most of the time and two hot engagements during
the eighteen days of the siege. On November 17th, General Sanders was
heavily engaged on the extreme left over next to the river. November 29th,
Longstreet attacked Fort Sanders furiously. That fort was only a little
way round to our left but we were not engaged. The Johnnies got something
of a surprise in that attack. When the siege begun it was all wood in
front of the fort; but by the time of the attack the trees had all been
cut down, leaving the stumps three to four feet high, then telegraph wire
was strung from stump to stump all along the front. When the Johnnies
reached that part of the field they were very badly broken up and lost
much of their force. That was the first place where telegraph wire was
used as an obstruction to an advancing column, so far as I know. Eight or
ten months later at Petersburg barbed wire was used extensively, and in
the present war in Europe we hear a great deal about its being used.

The night of the 23d, our boys were driven from their rifle pits down in
front of the main line of fortifications. The next night about three
o'clock we were routed out and went down to the left of the rifle pits,
and at daylight made a charge and took them back again. There was another
regiment went with us on that charg