Ordered to return to Vicksburg, Battery E and other units crossed the battlefield at Champion Hill, scene of a Federal victory about two months earlier. Rice describes how rain had washed away the soil used to cover the corpses of Confederate dead, who had simply been tossed into ditches on the battlefield by Federal troops and covered with a layer of dirt. He also describes men kicking at skulls, bones and clothing protruding from the half-opened graves.