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They lay down for a moment in a swamp, and the minie-balls sang like swarming bees, and split the blades of the grass above them. Then they charged, over ground that ran with human blood. In the trenches the bodies of dead and dying men lay three deep, and were trampled out of sight in the mud by the feet of those who fought.
Minié-balls whizzed about in the air or knocked up the dust from the street, and firing was now and then heard near by in uncertain directions, where perhaps the enemy were vexing our pickets. I believe it had been a helter-skelter day for us all, had the enemy got in then and attacked us in the midst of this confusion.
Maybe I'll never have a chance to tell them how much; but I'd go through it all for the old flag." Shortly after, accompanied by an officer, she went into the rifle-pits. The heat was stifling, and the minie-balls were whizzing. "Why, madam, where did you come from? Did you drop from heaven into these rifle-pits? You are the first lady we have seen here;" and then the voice was choked with tears.
As we go on, suddenly heads appear over the bushes less than a hundred yards in front, and we hear the vindictive whistle of Minié-balls above us. Our leader, calling upon us to fire, began himself to blaze away rapidly with his Colt's revolver. We huddled forward, with little care for order, and delivered some dozen Mississippi and Sharpe's rifles.
About this time the Fifth Virginia Regiment, which, through some misunderstanding of orders, had not been engaged, arrived on the crest of the hill, and I heard General Jackson, as he rode to their front, direct the men to form in line and check the enemy. But everything else was now in full retreat, with Minie-balls to remind us that it would not do to stop.
The rangers moved into the same lane, but on the left, and divided by the highway from the foot. Here we were entirely hidden from the town by a belt of small trees and bushes. Nevertheless, the enemy's round shot, tearing through the trees, still pursued, and the Minié-balls, though thrown from smooth-bored guns, sang above and far beyond us.
By beating Minie-balls out flat, then cutting the plates into square blocks or slugs, I prepared my ammunition, and in the first eleven shots killed nine quail on the wing. I was shooting for the pot, and shot to kill. From this camp our battery was ordered to occupy a fort on the west side of the river, near Rappahannock Station.
After spending the following day and night in "Camp Panic," we moved forward early on the morning of June 3 to the field of the memorable second Cold Harbor. Minie-balls were rapping against the trees as we drove through a copse of small timber to occupy a temporary redoubt in the line of breastworks beyond.
The Minie-balls were now flying fast by our heads, through the clover and everywhere. A charge of powder was handed me, which I put into the muzzle of the gun. In a rifled gun this should have been rammed home first, but No. 1 said, "Put in your shell and let one ram do. Hear those Minies?"
The crash of their volley was blinding and horses wore fairly shot to fragments; and the Major's horse, with its lower jaw torn off, had plunged madly away and left its rider hanging in the aforementioned grape-vine. After he had kicked himself loose, it was to find himself in an arena where pain-maddened horses and frenzied men raced about amid a rain of minie-balls and canister.
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