A SQUIRREL HUNT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
One of these incidents furnished an exhibition of coolness under fire and indifference to danger that had no parallel in all my term of service. About midday I heard several shots fired a short distance in my rear. Fearing that some excited soldier might fire wildly and shoot me in the back, I turned to investigate, and saw a member of the regiment standing in an exposed position and coolly and deliberately firing, not at the enemy, but at a squirrel he had discovered in the branches of the tree above our heads. Grape shot were tearing the limbs from their sockets, minies were making music in the air, or striking the oaks with a dull, dull thud, but that soldier, was oblivious to everything save a determination to have fried squirrel for supper. If I knew his name I cannot now recall it, nor do I remember whether the squirrel was included in the casualties of that day.