d a stone fence about two hundred
yards distant.

My gun was one of the last to get into position, coming up on the left.
I was assigned the position of No. 2, Jim Ford No. 1. The Minie-balls
were now flying fast by our heads, through the clover and everywhere. A
charge of powder was handed me, which I put into the muzzle of the gun.
In a rifled gun this should have been rammed home first, but No. 1 said,
"Put in your shell and let one ram do. Hear those Minies?" I heard them
and adopted the suggestion; the consequence was, the charge stopped
half-way down and there it stuck, and the gun was thereby rendered
unavailable. This was not very disagreeable, even from a patriotic point
of view, as we could do but little good shooting at infantry behind a
stone fence. On going about fifty yards to the rear, I came up with my
friend and messmate, Gregory, who was being carried by several comrades.
A Minie-ball had gone through his left arm into his breast and almost
through his body, lodging in the right side of his back. Still he
recovered, and was a captain of ordnance at the surrender, and two years
ago I visited him at his own home in California. As my train stopped at
his depot, and I saw a portly old gentleman with a long white beard
coming to meet it, I thought of the youth I remembered, and said, "Can
that be Gregory?"

Then came Frank Preston with his arm shattered, which had to be
amputated at the shoulder. I helped to carry Gregory to a barn one
hundred and fifty yards in the rear, and there lay Bob McKim, of
Baltimore, another member of the company, shot through the head and
dying. Also my messmate, Wash. Stuart, who had recently joined the
battery. A ball had struck him just below the cheek-bone, and, passing
through the mouth, came out on the opposite side of his face, breaking
out most of his jaw-teeth. Then came my brother John with a stream of
blood running from the top of his head, and, dividing at the forehead,
trickled in all directions down his face. My brother David was also
slightly wounded on the arm by a piece of shell. By this time the
Louisianians had been "led up to where they could get at them," and
gotten them on the run. I forgot to mention that, as one of our guns was
being put into position, a gate-post interfered. Captain Poague ordered
John Agnor to cut the post down with an axe. Agnor said, "Captain, I
will be killed!" Poague replied, "Do your duty, John." He had scarcely
struck three blows