Unfortunately, now and then, a poor fellow fell under the rain of iron or the whistling lead, hundreds were sickening, many were dying on those desolate sands.
And while the boys were enduring such mock warfare, the dear ones at home thought of them only as their soldiers. One of the war poets sang—
"We sit at home, nor feel that they
Who fight upon the distant plain
Are falling faster, day by day,
A harvest of the slain."
Indeed, there was little poetry in life among the sand hills, no music in the roar of old ocean, and no comfort with the fleas. The subject becomes tedious; and yet the boys of Co. G must be followed until the close.
The loss in the 157th on the second John's Island raid, was one man, a prisoner. A poor fellow nick-named "Lightning," who was considered mentally unsound. It is to be hoped the rebels did not regard that man as representing the regiment, whatever they might have thought of him as a representative of the Department in general.
As to the object of the expedition, history says, Gen. Foster was trying to draw troops to Charleston and thus relieve Gen. Sherman, who was advancing on his famous Atlanta campaign. The success of the movement is not known, but it is supposed troops were sent from the rebel army. Five thousand additional enemies would have added but little to the force before Sherman and his determined troops.
July 24th Co. G were temporarily detached to guard fifty rebel officers who had been sent down from the Northern prisons to be placed under fire on Morris Island. The brig Dragoon lay out in the stream at Hilton Head. It was the duty of Co. G to see that those officers did not escape. Among them were Gens. Gardner, the former commandant at Port Hudson; Ed. Johnson, a prominent officer; also Jeff Thompson. Archer and G. W. Stuart and a long list of colonels and subordinate officers.