could stand any fire that a Rebel could.

We were halted in a vacant lot, and sat down, only to jump up the next
instant, as some one shouted:

"There comes one of 'em!"

It was a great shell from the Swamp Angel Battery. Starting from a point
miles away, where, seemingly, the sky came down to the sea, was a narrow
ribbon of fire, which slowly unrolled itself against the star-lit vault
over our heads. On, on it came, and was apparently following the sky
down to the horizon behind us. As it reached the zenith, there came to
our ears a prolonged, but not sharp,

"Whish--ish-ish-ish-ish!"

We watched it breathlessly, and it seemed to be long minutes in running
its course; then a thump upon the ground, and a vibration, told that it
had struck. For a moment there was a dead silence. Then came a loud
roar, and the crash of breaking timber and crushing walls. The shell had
bursted.

Ten minutes later another shell followed, with like results. For awhile
we forgot all about hunger in the excitement of watching the messengers
from "God's country." What happiness to be where those shells came from.
Soon a Rebel battery of heavy guns somewhere near and in front of us,
waked up, and began answering with dull, slow thumps that made the ground
shudder. This continued about an hour, when it quieted down again, but
our shells kept coming over at regular intervals with the same slow
deliberation, the same prolonged warning, and the same dreadful crash
when they struck. They had already gone on this way for over a year,
and were to keep it up months longer until the City was captured.

The routine was the same from day to day, month in, and month out, from
early in August, 1863, to the middle of April, 1865. Every few minutes
during the day our folks would hurl a great shell into the beleaguered
City, and twice a day, for perhaps an hour each time, the Rebel batteries
would talk back. It must have been a lesson to the Charlestonians of the
persistent, methodical spirit of the North. They prided themselves on
the length of the time they were holding out against the enemy, and the
papers each day had a column headed:

"390th DAY OF THE SIEGE,"

or 391st, 393d, etc., as the number might be since our people opened fire
upon the City. The part where we lay was a mass of ruins. Many large
buildings had been knocked down; very many more were riddled with shot
holes and tottering to their fall. One night