A SUMMER DAY ON THE FIRING LINE.
It was a day in June, but neither a perfect nor a rare June day. For two weeks and more it had rained almost continuously. Every day or two Jabe Poyner, the weather prophet of the company, had said, "Well boys, this is the clearing up shower." And still it rained and rained and rained until Poyner's reputation on this line had gone where the woodbine twineth. In the early morning of the 18th there was another of Jabe's clearing up showers and at its close the boys were lying on the wet ground, a hundred yards in rear of the breastworks, awaiting orders. They had amused themselves for a time by shooting pebbles at each other, when Bill Byrd's foot was struck and he said, "Boys, don't shoot so hard—that one hurt." Looking down at his foot, he found that another partner had entered the game as it had been hit by a minnie ball from the skirmish line.
The firing had begun at daylight and was growing heavier. At 8 a. m. six companies of the regiment were ordered to the front to reinforce our skirmish line, which was being pressed back. "Over the breastworks, Oglethorpes," sang out Lieut. Daniel, and we went over with a yell. Advancing and deploying under fire, we reached a position within 250 yards of the Federal line and having no rifle pits, we availed ourselves of such protection as the larger forest trees afforded. Selecting a post oak, I had been there only a little while when the man on my right, belonging to another company, was shot down. The woods were very thick in my front and not relishing the idea of being killed with such limited opportunity of returning the favor, I shifted my position to the leeward side of a red oak, twenty or thirty feet to the left where the woods were more open and a Federal rifle pit in front was only partially hidden from my view. The diameter of the tree about covered my own and there for twelve hours, in a drizzling rain, I cultivated the acquaintance of that oak more earnestly perhaps than I had ever fostered a personal friendship. For that day at least it was "my own familiar friend in whom I trusted," and if on bidding it adieu, I had met the owner, my prayer to him would have been,
Woodman spare that tree,
Mar not its noble shape,
Today it sheltered me
From "minnie" and from "grape."
All day long leaden messengers were knocking at the door of my improvised breastwork in search of my long and lank anatomy. It was barked and scarred and torn from the root to twenty feet above my head. Twice the bark was knocked into my eyes and once a ball striking at the foot of the tree filled them with dirt. On one of these occasions I must have flinched a little as George Harrison, who was cultivating friendly relations with the next tree on my right, turned anxiously and asked if I was shot.
The Federal line as a rule stuck rather closely to their pits and not feeling authorized to waste my ammunition I fired only when there was a blue target in sight. Some of the boys, less careful of their cartridges expended 80 or 90 rounds during the day. John Carroll, ten feet to my left, kept firing when I could see no game, and I said to him, "John, what are you shooting at?" "Well," he said, "they are down that way." Before the day was ended some of them "down that way" had shot him through the thigh, and the poor fellow died of the wound.
In addition to the incessant infantry fire, which made small lead mines of the friendly oaks, the Federal artillery, not wishing to be lacking in social attentions, complimented us at short intervals with volleys of grape. These came over us like the whir of a covey of overgrown partridges, but fortunately flew high, causing more nervousness than execution.
Ninety thousand rounds of ammunition were fired on Hardee's line alone that day and our friends on the other side expended probably an equal or larger number. There was no intermission for lunch. Our rations were nearly half a mile away and the Northern exposure of the route towards them somehow dulled our appetites. There are several incidents that come back very vividly today from that twelve hours' fright in the woods.