charged upon by our
cavalry, were for an instant in confusion, but got into their works and
opened fire on our friend with long ears. The mule not liking that kind of
a reception whirled about and came cantering back to his comrades again.
As the mule came prancing back, it dawned upon the Johnnies what had
really happened and they began to laugh, our boys hearing them joined in
and for an instant a perfect roar of laughter and shouts rang along both
lines. In that way, under those conditions the siege went on; under those
conditions we lived. To stay in those trenches in that terrific heat, with
not a breath of fresh air, in the dirt--for every spear of grass had early
disappeared--was a thing only the most hardy could endure. I early formed
the habit when we were in the second line, of rising a little while before
daylight in the morning and going down to a little stream in our rear and
taking a bath. And it was while returning from one of those trips, the
morning having got a little advanced, I was hit by a sharpshooter. The
ball passed through my left thigh about half way from my hip to my knee,
passing just behind the bone from the right side to the left. I crawled
back to a place of cover. Then some of the boys came with a stretcher and
carried me back to the place where the ambulances were kept. From there I
was taken in an ambulance back to the hospital, in the rear of the
fighting line some mile and a half or two miles away.

Along most of the line there was little picket firing. Men moved about
exposing themselves to considerable extent. But in front of the 9th Army
Corps there was continuous firing from the beginning. The third division
of the 9th Army Corps was a division of negro troops. The Confederates
knew this and resented it and in this way took their revenge, although the
negro division was not present until after the mine explosion.

CHAPTER X

LIFE IN THE HOSPITAL

That ride in the ambulance. Emory Hospital. The woman with my Mother's
name. The dreadful death rate. President Lincoln's Second Inauguration.
Booth's Ride. Doing clerical work in Philadelphia. Discharged.

July 30, 1863, my twenty-third birthday, found me in a field hospital a
little way to the rear of the 9th Army Corps, whither I had been taken the
day before after being wounded.

About daybreak we heard the report caused by the mine explosion, and then
the roar of the artillery that followed. Early in the forenoon a train