"You've hit him! you've hit him!" exclaimed several.
The fellow straightened up, whirled about, as if angry, and flung his shovel from him as far as he could, and then sat down. In about a minute after he began gradually to throw up his hands, and then fell over backward on the ground, evidently dead, where he remained, as he had fallen, during the rest of the day. The next morning his body had been removed.
On another occasion, two companies of the 20th Ohio were engaged at digging in the approaches to the rebel Fort Hill, and were subjected to a very annoying fire from a squad of about fifteen rebel sharp-shooters, stationed in a ditch, not accessible, at that time, to our artillery.
I was sent for, and requested to bring my rifle and see if I could silence them. A place had been fixed for me near where the companies were at work, considerably in advance of any other sharp-shooter. I worked a long time at them, during which time I hit several. After awhile there was but one to be seen; the rest had either been disabled or so badly frightened as to have laid down in the bottom of the ditch for safety. I kept up a fire at the single individual for some time. My balls would strike the ground close to him, and then he would swing his hat in defiance or return my shot. Twice he put his balls within an inch of my head; once a sliver from the timber under which I shot was knocked off and struck me on the head, hurting me considerably. Another ball hit a bayonet that I had placed in the dirt to rest my rifle upon, and, glancing upward, just missed my head.
A Lieutenant came along, and I told him what I had been doing. He got upon the earth-works where I was, and, seeing the defiant rebel, asked me to let him try his hand at him. He fired several shots, but with no better success than I had had.
By that time it was nearly night, and I had fired at the squad forty-eight shots, so I concluded to give up the shooting of the defiant man as a bad job.
The next day the ditch was unoccupied; the experience of the day before had evidently satisfied them.
On another occasion, while I was engaged in sharp-shooting, General McPherson and General Logan came into the fortifications, and were watching a party of ten or twelve rebels engaged in digging a ditch. They called me, and General McPherson said:
"Bunker, can you shoot into that ditch yonder, where those men are at work? They have been shooting at them with the Parrot rifles, and haven't thrown any shot in there yet."
"Yes, I think I can."