r word in
my life.

One of those ricochet cannon balls struck my old friend, N. B. Shepard.
Shep was one of the bravest and best soldiers who ever shouldered a
musket. It is true, he was but a private soldier, but he was the best
friend I had during the whole war. In intellect he was far ahead of most
of the generals, and would have honored and adorned the name of general
in the C. S. A. He was ever brave and true. He followed our cause to
the end, yet all the time an invalid. Today he is languishing on a bed
of pain and sickness, caused by that ball at Jonesboro. The ball struck
him on his knapsack, knocking him twenty feet, and breaking one or two
ribs and dislocating his shoulder. He was one of God's noblemen, indeed--
none braver, none more generous. God alone controls our destinies,
and surely He who watched over us and took care of us in those dark and
bloody days, will not forsake us now. God alone fits and prepares for us
the things that are in store for us. There is none so wise as to foresee
the future or foretell the end. God sometimes seems afar off, but He
will never leave or forsake anyone who puts his trust in Him. The day
will come when the good as well as evil will all meet on one broad
platform, to be rewarded for the deeds done in the body, when time shall
end, with the gates of eternity closed, and the key fastened to the
girdle of God forever. Pardon me, reader, I have wandered. But when my
mind reverts to those scenes and times, I seem to live in another age and
time and I sometime think that "after us comes the end of the universe."

I am not trying to moralize, I am only trying to write a few scenes and
incidents that came under the observation of a poor old Rebel webfoot
private soldier in those stormy days and times. Histories tell the great
facts, while I only tell of the minor incidents.

But on this day of which I now write, we can see in plain view more than
a thousand Yankee battle-flags waving on top the red earthworks, not
more than four hundred yards off. Every private soldier there knew that
General Hood's army was scattered all the way from Jonesboro to Atlanta,
a distance of twenty-five miles, without any order, discipline, or spirit
to do anything. We could hear General Stewart, away back yonder in
Atlanta, still blowing up arsenals, and smashing things generally,
while Stephen D. Lee was somewhere between Lovejoy Station and Macon,
scattering. And here was but a