At 8 p. m. we were relieved and returned to the trenches. Twelve hours' continuous fighting had rendered us hungry for rest as well as food, but our rations of both were destined to be short. The beef issued to us had been slaughtered so long and was so badly tainted that even a soldier's appetite had to reject it. Only the tallow or fat could be used and this was stuck on the end of a ramrod, placed in the flame until the outer surface was scorched and was then eaten with a relish that the rarest dainties of a royal table would not bring to me now. After a hasty lunch we were again on the tramp. The roads were very muddy, the march was obstructed by wagons in front and we made only 2 1-2 miles in four hours. There were frequent halts and at one of them Will Daniel and the writer, standing side by side in the mud, both fell asleep. After a time the company moved on, but neither of us awoke until jostled by other troops in passing us. This incident recalls the fact that on a forced march in Tennessee afterwards, I slept walking. The nap must have been a short one, but that I lost consciousness was proven by the fact that I dreamed of a young lady three hundred miles away.
A little after midnight we were halted on the crest of a ridge and thoroughly worn out we lay down to rest, invoking in our hearts if not upon our lips, blessings on the man that invented sleep.
INCIDENTS ON THE KENNESAW LINE.
On the next day, 19th, we were on reserve picket all day in the rain, but fortunately with no fighting to do. Relieved at midnight, we retired behind the trenches, as the writer hoped, for much-needed rest and sleep. My only blanket had been thoroughly soaked by the rain and knowing Gen. Johnston's predilection for changing base at night, I was in doubt whether to take the chance of securing such sleep as I could get in a wet blanket, or to build a fire, dry the blanket and fall into the arms of Morpheus like a gentleman. I chose the latter course, spent an hour in the drying process and then lay down, hopeful of a good night's rest. I had just fitted my angular frame to the inequalities of the ground, when the ominous "Fall in," Fall in.. fell like another wet blanket on my heart and hopes. Out into the mud and darkness we tramped, not knowing whither we went and caring, perhaps as little. We were finally halted near the base of Kennesaw Mountain and on the line we were to occupy for the next two weeks. Before dismissing the company Will Daniel said, "An attack is expected on this line at daylight tomorrow, and I have orders to fortify it. I am tired and I am going to sleep. You can entrench or not, as you choose, but I want you to distinctly understand that you have got to hold this line in the morning, breastworks or no breastworks."
Only one man remained awake to fortify and he dug his trench in the wrong direction. Fortunately the expected attack did not materialize next day and we found ample opportunity to entrench before it came on the 27th.
SLEEPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
The ground through which our trenches ran sloped upwards in our rear and as we were in range of the Federal skirmish line, the balls that missed the breastworks would strike the soil 20 or 30 feet back of them. On the night of June 25 I was sleeping under a shelter made of bark stripped from chestnut trees, with Will Dabney as bedfellow. About midnight I was awakened by his groaning and found that he had been wounded while asleep, the ball entering his arm above the elbow and stopping at the bone without breaking it. W. J. Steed was accustomed to use his shoes and socks as a pillow for his head, a habit growing possibly out of his daily effort as commissary to make both ends meet. He was a little surprised one morning to find that a minie ball had passed through his improvised pillow without disturbing his sleep. Geo. McLaughlin found one morning a minie imbedded in the heel of the shoe he had laid aside for the night. These cases might indicate that our Northern friends were rather partial to that kind of in-shoe-rance, but I am satisfied that George and "Phunie" would have preferred a different policy.
The fire from the skirmish line was so heavy one morning and the balls were flying around so carelessly that the company was ordered into the trenches. Frank Stone and I had not finished our breakfast and as Will Daniel had a personal interest in the meal, we secured his consent to continue our culinary operations. I was sitting by the fire cutting up a piece of beef for hash, when one of those careless minies struck my right arm near the wrist, ventilating the sleeve of my jacket and partially disabling my arm for ten days. As a souvenir of that temporary interruption to the hash business I have that minie filed away among other war curios.
THE VICTIM OF MISPLACED CONFIDENCE.
Our stay at Kennesaw was marked by another squirrel incident differing somewhat from that of June 18, already referred to. A short distance in the rear of our position a Confederate battery had been planted and between this and the enemy's batteries there were frequent artillery duels. So frequent were these engagements and so accustomed did we become to the noise of the guns that if asleep it failed to awake us, although our battery was only seventy-five yards away. On one of these occasions we were ordered into the trenches for protection from the shells. Sitting in the ditch with our faces turned rearward, some one in the ranks spied a squirrel in the branches of a tree standing near our battery. He was apparently crazed by the noise of the guns and the shriek of the shells flying around him. One of the Oglethorpes sang out to him, "Come down in the trenches—you'll be killed up there." I don't think the squirrel heard him, but the words had barely left his lips, when the little animal ran down the tree, struck a bee line for the trenches and leaped in among the men. As he made his way down the line, some one stamped on him and put an end to his race for life. I regretted his fate, not only on account of his grey uniform, but for the reason that if he was really seeking protection he had found himself the victim of misplaced confidence.