n the Norfolk railroad, and we held this
position in the open fields under a July sun for six weeks, the regiments
changing position every week. Our food was miserable--musty meal and
rancid Nassau bacon. Our bread was cooked at the wagon yard on canal, west
side of Petersburg. When the bread had been cooked twelve hours it would
pull out like spider-webs. We were on picket or fatigue duty nearly every
night. One-third had to stand to arms all the time, and from 2:30 a. m.
all had to stand to arms until sunrise. The two lines were on an average
five hundred yards apart.

On the 11th of July, while working on a covered way to the rear, I was
wounded in the left arm above the elbow, the ball grazing and bruising the
inside of the arm. I was disabled and sent back to field hospital for a
few days, during which time I caught measles. Then after a week in the
trenches I was sent back to the hospital at Richmond. The men were now
breaking down faster under the awful strain and bad fare; many were taking
typhoid fever, and nearly all had dysentery. A train load of sick and
wounded were being shipped to Richmond every day.

I left on the 28th of July. It was known that the Yankees were undermining
our works, and we were tunneling all around to meet them, but our tunnel
at the Crater missed them about fifty feet. On the 30th the Crater was
exploded under Elliott's South Carolina Brigade, formerly Walker's, on our
right. I shall not attempt a description of that memorable event farther
than to say Ransom's Brigade, commanded by Colonel Rutledge of
Twenty-fifth, held its position and helped to retake the lost ground,
though none of our historians seem to be advised of that fact. Up to this
time, Lieutenant Grigg, Perry Ross, Arthur Blanton and Alexander Kennedy
had been wounded, and soon after Starlin Jones was mortally wounded. When
I convalesced I found John Carter and Dobbins Wesson in the same ward with
typhoid fever, and I went to see them every day. One evening when I
called, Carter said he was glad to see me, that he wanted to talk with me,
for he was going to die. I tried to encourage him, but he said he could
not live long. He said he was not afraid to die, that he had always tried
to live right, and that it was a great consolation that he had never done
anything that would reflect on his people left behind. Thus, before the
rising of another sun, a good and true man passed to his reward. A few
days after when I visited W