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At the first shot they looked to see whence it came; the next, they dodged, and hugged close to their rifle-pit, and then discovering me, they returned the fire. Their first shots went wild, but they soon got the range, and began to strike the stone pile. I gave them a few parting shots from my Spencer, and went on into the woods. The skirmishing continued at close range, as before.
In a rifle-pit, on the brow of a hill overlooking the river, near Fredericksburg, were men who had exhausted their ammunition in the vain attempt to check the advancing column of Hooker's finely equipped and disciplined army, which was crossing the river. But owing to the heavy mist which prevailed as the morning broke, little or no execution had been done.
Westward, less bold and jagged, but still a mighty barrier in almost any other companionship, are the sister heights of Bolivar, scarred and seamed with earth-work and rifle-pit, and bristling with abattis and battery.
March in the country around was rare with jasmine and jonquils and patches of violets in the warming grass. Afterward he remembered especially one afternoon of such a fresh and magic glamour that as he stood in the rifle-pit marking targets he recited "Atalanta in Calydon" to an uncomprehending Pole, his voice mingling with the rip, sing, and splatter of the bullets overhead.
Giving the order to make the light trench of the rifle-pit class, where the earth is thrown outward and the men stand in the ditch they dig, in fifteen minutes by the watch the work was such that I reckoned it sufficient cover to repel an infantry attack, if it came.
All around the rude cabin which constituted the station, the boss had taken the precaution, when he first took charge, to dig a trench deep enough to hide a man, to be used as a rifle-pit in case the occasion ever offered. It was to one of these ditches that Little Cayuse betook himself, and the men followed the child's example, and took up a position on either side of him.
The trenches below me on White Boulders' front face, which had been unoccupied during the early portion of the day, now began to swarm with riflemen, whose weapons kept up a continuous roll, swelled from many a rifle-pit and redoubt away forward from the base of the elevation. Steadily the enemy advanced, working their way round on both wings within the captured fortresses.
He threw down his gun, and hastily piled rails together for a protection, and took refuge behind them. Night came on, dark and gloomy, the rain continued to fall, and the soldiers lay down on the water-soaked earth to take what rest they could. I made a comfortable bed, by leaning two rails against the rifle-pit. On these I bestowed myself, and drew over me my rubber blanket.
Art, science, and humanity are indebted to him for a material which serves the purposes of them all, and serves them as no other known material could. Some of our readers have been out on the picket line during the war. They know what it is to stand motionless in a wet and miry rifle-pit, in the chilling rain of a Southern winter's night.
Private B. McGregor, also of the same corps, finding that there were two Russians in a rifle-pit who considerably annoyed the troops by their fire, he, being in the advanced trenches, crossed the open space under fire, and taking cover under a rock, dislodged them, and took possession of the pit, whence he fired on the enemy.
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