ar and some
hard tack in my haversack, ready for an emergency. It stood me in good
stead just then, for I alone had something besides fighting for lunch.
I nibbled my hard tack, and ate my sugar with comfort and satisfaction,
for I don't believe three men of our regiment were hurt by this
artillery fire upon us, which had been kept up with more or less fury
for two or three hours.

One of the little episodes of the battle happened about this time. We
noticed that a Confederate, seated on one of the abandoned cannon I
have mentioned, was leisurely taking an observation. He was out of
range of our guns, but our First Lieutenant got a rifle from a man who
happened to have one, took deliberate aim, and Johnny Reb tumbled.

But soon after noon the Confederate forces were ready to hurl
themselves on our lines. There had been more or less fighting on our
right all the time, but now Johnston had collected his troops and
massed them in front of the Union army's left. Language is inadequate
to give an idea of the situation. Cannon and musketry roared and
rattled, not in volleys, but in one continual din. Charge after charge
was made upon the Union lines, and every time repulsed. By
concentrating the main body of his troops on our left, General Johnston
was superior there to us in numbers, and there was no one upon whom we
could call for help. General Lew Wallace had not taken the precaution
to learn the roads between his division at Crump's Landing and the main
body, and he and his 7,000 men were lost in the woods, instead of being
where they could support us in this our dire extremity. The left wing
of our brigade was the Hornet's Nest, mentioned in the Southern
accounts of the battle. On the immediate right of my regiment was
timber with growth of underbrush, and the dreadful conflict set the
woods on fire, burning the dead and the wounded who could not crawl
away. At one point not burned over, I noticed, after the battle, a
strip of low underbrush which had evidently been the scene of a most
desperate contest. Large patches of brush had been cut off by bullets
at about as high as a man's waist, as if mowed with a scythe, and I
could not find in the whole thicket a bush which had not at some part
of it been touched by a ball. Of course, human beings could not exist
in such a scene, save by closely hugging the ground, or screening
themselves behind trees.

Hour after hour passed. Time and again the Confederate hordes threw
t