July 12th and 13th. Regiment on duty in the trenches. The firing has been very light, and entirely suspended at times. For the first time since the opening of the campaign the enemy has been friendly, even to the extent of sitting upon the rifle-pits and talking across to our men. Some have waved papers, and have come half way to our lines to proffer an exchange. It soon transpired that their object was to obtain northern papers for intelligence concerning the rebel invasion of Maryland under General Early, and the destruction of northern property. Their anxiety was very great; but we received imperative orders forbidding any exchange of papers, or holding any communication with the enemy. Captain Smith fired upon some men of another regiment who went out to exchange papers, and refused to obey his orders to return. At night artillery and mortar firing was resumed. At midnight we were relieved.
July 14th and 15th. In the pine woods. Many rumors in circulation of an immediate attack to be made from our front. The work of constructing forts and batteries goes on night and day. At half-past eight P.M., on the 15th, we relieved the Seventeenth Vermont in our old position in the trenches. The night was dark and misty, and the enemy kept up an incessant firing. Corporal Albert Foskett, Company H, was wounded and taken to the rear. The sick belonging to the Ninth Corps were removed to the hospital at City Point,—a fact which caused other rumors of attack to be circulated.
July 16th. The regiment was in command of Captain Ames, as Captain Smith was detailed as division officer of the trenches.
July 17th. The regiment was exposed to a very close fire throughout the day. The mortar shells dropped all around us, the practice being unusually good. Private Jerry Harrigan, of Company K, was mortally wounded. The only consolation while we are under this trying fire is that our practice is as good as the enemy's.
July 18th. In the woods. Captain Barker, who was wounded at Cold Harbor, June 3d, returned to duty, with a commission as Major,—vice Draper, who has been commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel,—and assumed command of the regiment. Lieutenant Marshall, who was wounded at the Wilderness, also returned to duty, with a commission as Captain, and was assigned to Company A. In leaving the trenches this morning private Leonard A. Chapman, of Company K, was fired at by a sharp-shooter and instantly killed.
July 19 and 20th. The weather was rainy, rendering the trenches very uncomfortable. A large fort, called "The Fourteen-Gun Battery," has been constructed in our division line, and garrisoned by a regiment of Connecticut Heavy Artillery.
July 21st. Private Martin Maynard, of Company D, was wounded in the leg and suffered amputation. There has been no change in our tour of duty. The system has been reduced to a science; so, also, has been the hostility of the enemy. Notwithstanding the strong condition of our works, and the great improvements constantly made, the watchful sharp-shooters of the enemy have unerring aim upon the loop-holes, and the least exposure on the part of any of our men is sure to draw a murderous fire. In the rear we are out of the range of their sharp-shooters, but exposed to the chance shots which every moment are sent into the woods.
July 22d. To-day Captain Morse, who was severely wounded at Spottsylvania, returned to duty and resumed command of Company C. Lieutenant Davidson also returned from the hospital. Private Judson Maynard, of Company H, was wounded July 23d. The regiment went to the front at night, and resumed its duty in the trenches. To-day the mine was completed, and our comrades of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania are rejoicing. In spite of obstacles and discouragements the great work has been successfully accomplished. The men report that they can distinctly hear the enemy in the fort over their heads. With proper tools the work which has consumed four weeks could have been performed in ten days. Colonel Pleasants received many congratulations on the success of his undertaking. His report of his operation is intensely interesting. The main gallery is five hundred and ten feet long, with two lateral galleries,—the left thirty-seven feet, the right thirty-eight feet in length, averaging about four and one-half feet high by the same width, and will require eight magazines, four in each lateral gallery, or about twelve thousand pounds of powder. Eighteen thousand cubic feet of earth have been excavated. Whatever may be the result of the explosion, and the attack which may be made, there can be no doubt of the great success which has crowned the determined efforts of Colonel Pleasants and his hard-working regiment.
July 24th. A regiment of colored troops was at work all day building a new covered way through our camp in the woods, which necessitated a change of some of our quarters and bomb-proofs. Captain Smith on duty as brigade officer of the day. A heavy storm set in and the rain poured in torrents nearly all the night, and the weather was very cold. The men were soaked and chilled, and it was a rough night to stand at a loop-hole and watch. The sufferings of the troops in the front lines during this siege—from hunger, thirst, protracted watching, constant danger, from burning heat by day and chills by night, from sudden changes in the temperature that rack the strongest frames, from the numberless exposures and hardships and privations—can never be adequately portrayed. They will live, however, in the memories of those who endure and survive them.