mpany E, Nelson Skeeles, of Fulton County, O., one of--the bravest
and best officers in the regiment. By his side lay First Sergeant
Lesnit, and next were the two great, powerful Shepherds--cousins but more
like brothers. One, it seems, was killed while supporting the head of
the other, who had just received a death wound, thus dying in each
other's arms.

"But I can't begin to think or tell you the names of all the poor boys
that we laid away to rest in their last, long sleep on that gloomy day.
Our Major was severely wounded, and several other officers had been hit
more or less badly.

"It was a frightful sight, though, to go over the field in front of our
works on that morning. The Rebel dead and badly wounded laid where they
had fallen. The bottom and opposite side of the ravine showed how
destructive our fire and that of the canister from the howitzers had
been. The underbrush was cut, slashed, and torn into shreds, and the
larger trees were scarred, bruised and broken by the thousands of bullets
and other missiles that had been poured into them from almost every
conceivable direction during the day before.

"A lot of us boys went way over to the left into Fuller's Division of the
Sixteenth Corps, to see how some of our boys over there had got through
the scrimmage, for they had about as nasty a fight as any part of the
Army, and if it had not been for their being just where they were, I am
not sure but what the old Seventeenth Corps would have had a different
story to tell now. We found our friends had been way out by Decatur,
where their brigade had got into a pretty lively fight on their own hook.

"We got back to camp, and the first thing I knew I was detailed for
picket duty, and we were posted over a few rods across the ravine in our
front. We had not been out but a short time when we saw a flag of truce,
borne by an officer, coming towards us. We halted him, and made him wait
until a report was sent back to Corps headquarters. The Rebel officer
was quite chatty and talkative with our picket officer, while waiting.
He said he was on General Cleburne's staff, and that the troops that
charged us so fiercely the evening before was Cleburne's whole Division,
and that after their last repulse, knowing the hill where we were posted
was the most important position along our line, he felt that if they
would keep close to us during the night, and keep up a show of fight,
that we would pull out and abandon