e right in the camp a woodpecker was sounding his "long roll"
just as I had heard it beaten by his Northern brothers a thousand
times on the trees in the Otter Creek bottom at home.

Suddenly, away off on the right, in the direction of Shiloh church,
came a dull, heavy "Pum!" then another, and still another. Every
man sprung to his feet as if struck by an electric shock, and we
looked inquiringly into one another's faces. "What is that?" asked
every one, but no one answered. Those heavy booms then came thicker
and faster, and just a few seconds after we heard that first dull,
ominous growl off to the southwest, came a low, sullen, continuous
roar. There was no mistaking that sound. That was not a squad of
pickets emptying their guns on being relieved from duty; it was the
continuous roll of thousands of muskets, and told us that a battle
was on.

What I have been describing just now occurred during a few seconds
only, and with the roar of musketry the long roll began to beat in
our camp. Then ensued a scene of desperate haste, the like of which
I certainly had never seen before, nor ever saw again. I remember
that in the midst of this terrible uproar and confusion, while the
boys were buckling on their cartridge boxes, and before even the
companies had been formed, a mounted staff officer came galloping
wildly down the line from the right. He checked and whirled his
horse sharply around right in our company street, the iron-bound
hoofs of his steed crashing among the tin plates lying in a little
pile where my mess had eaten its breakfast that morning. The horse
was flecked with foam and its eyes and nostrils were red as blood.
The officer cast one hurried glance around him, and exclaimed: "My
God! this regiment not in line yet! They have been fighting on the
right over an hour!" And wheeling his horse, he disappeared in the
direction of the colonel's tent.

I know now that history says the battle began about 4:30 that
morning; that it was brought on by a reconnoitering party sent out
early that morning by General Prentiss; that General Sherman's
division on the right was early advised of the approach of the
Rebel army, and got ready to meet them in ample time. I have read
these things in books and am not disputing them, but am simply
telling the story of an enlisted man on the