Monday. No more signs of a battle than there have been for a week back. I may as well finish up my snake story, for there is nothing else in the air. The wind-up was the most exciting part of it. I dreamed about it as soon as I was asleep. Many of us have bush houses to sleep in. Bill Snyder and I were partners in one. We had set up poles against our big tree, and covered them with weeds and bushes, leaving a hole on one side to crawl in. I crawled in first and was soon asleep. Just as Bill was crawling in, the snake, which I had seen coming for me for hours, it seemed to me, made a jump and landed on me. I jumped, and at the same time gave a yell that aroused the whole regiment, and the boys say was heard on the picket lines. I went clear over Snyder, who grabbed, and got hold of me just as I was diving into the bushes outside. The first I knew I was being shaken so my teeth rattled. It was some time before we got settled down again. The snake let me alone after that. The boys say the snake did come, and it was to pay me for lying so about him. The Rebs made a move last night farther to the left, and came outside their works in quite a body. After a short but rather sharp skirmish they went back and staid there. The mail has come and I had six letters and three papers. Good news from home, or at least no bad news. Am glad enough to hear from them and to know they are well. One letter was from John, and from its tone he is well and feeling fine. The 150th is still in Baltimore.
June 9, 1863.
Tuesday. All quiet yet. Now and then a shell comes out of the rebel works, I suppose to let us know they are still there. We are waiting for the signal to go at them. Things have settled down, as if the troops were all in position. I went down along the left wing to-day, but could see nothing but soldiers. There are enough here to take Port Hudson, if numbers can do it, and why it isn't done none of us can imagine.
June 10, 1863.
Wednesday. There has been considerable firing along the lines both to the right and left of us. From all I can find out, we, on the center, are the nearest to the rebel works of any, and our batteries are able to keep them inside. Both to the right and left there seems to be a strip of disputed ground, occupied by both sides, who are entrenched in rifle pits, which each side keeps pushing forward, and it is the fighting over these that we hear most every night. Last night they fired on our position for a while, and at one time they came so fast my bedfellow left me and went back with the regiment. But my old tree had not failed me yet, and I was not going back on it, so I staid and slept like a baby through what, by the looks of the trees and limbs, was quite a sharp cannonading.
June 11, 1863.
Thursday. About three this morning one of the hardest showers we have had broke right over us, and we were nearly drowned. So much water ran down the tree that I thought I was going to be washed away. So I crawled out and found that by standing up I did not catch half as much water as when lying down. But a little more or less made no difference, for I was soaked as wet as water could make me. The lightning was something awful and the thunder beat even the bombardment on the day of the fight. The lightning lit up the woods in great shape, and between flashes it was blackness itself. As soon as it was over and daylight came, we stripped and wrung the water out of our clothes, after which we had some hot coffee, which made it all right again. The batteries kept up their five-minute firing just as if the sun shone, and about the usual number of replies were made by the Johnnies.
A detail from Company B and another from Company H had a wrangle over a spring where the Rebs had been getting water in the night. One of Company H was badly wounded. Deserters come out every morning, and all tell the same story, that Port Hudson is ours just as soon as we are a mind to go and take it.
A Wisconsin regiment marched past our quarters to-day going towards the left. Next the colors was a man with a pole like a flagstaff, on the top of which was a board about three feet square. The board was set on a slant and the staff appeared to run through it for a foot or so, and ended up with a short crosspiece, upon which sat a live eagle. He looked like a hawk, only larger. He had a chain on one leg, the other end of which was fast to his perch. Sometimes he would rise as high as the chain would allow, and fly along, no faster than the man walked. I quizzed one of the men, who said the eagle was given the regiment before it left home and that they had kept it with them ever since. That a man was detailed to carry and care for it, who had nothing else to do. There is something mysterious going to happen soon. Loads and loads of cotton bales are being piled up to the left of our position, and hundreds of picks and shovels and axes are stacked up near the cotton. I guess they are going to bury it.