Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1869-03-31

He's under that big cotton wood there;
we've covered him with his rubber,
and We'll fetch him away before dark.
Three hit yesterday-every one of 'em
in the head-but 1 guess they'll all
live. One killed, one wounded the
day before; and that's the way it goes.
Goodbye to you; give 'em as good as
they send, as l reckon we've been
doing"
They went down and we ascended.
Our quarters were on the bare ground,
under the branches, varied occasional
ly by the refuge of hole tunnelled in
the soft sand. When it rained land
whoever has been out in a rain in
Louisiana will not be apt to confound
that deluge with the showers of this
latitude) we sat or stood grimly with
our ponchos about us, and philosophi-
cally grinned and bore it; being only
solicitOus that the arms and ammuni-
ton should be kept free from damp
ness.
'For, after all, the best thing one can do,
When it is raining, is.to let IL rain"
When the sun shone bright and hot,
as it did most of the time, we swell
tered and perspired in that sitting hot
rain, and still possessed ourselves in
patience. There is a quality in the
heat of that climate which we do not
have here in the north-the quality of
IUeight, if may so express my idea
The atmosphere is not only close and
sultry, but it seems heavy, also; it is
a heat which seems to rest oppressive
ly on you, and to have a body denser
than that of mere air. Some effects
of this dreadful heat well remember.
Animals were sometimes killed and
dressed, three miles to the rear, and
the meat sent up for the use of the
troops; but what came to us was, with
very few exceptions, spoiled and fly
blown, But the greatest annoyance,
next TO the enemy's bullets, was the
swarming insect life that infested the
situation. If 1 had ever supposed
that 1 had seen any quantity of flies
before at Port Hudson, l learned my
mistake. They assailed US in great
black clouds; fierce and agile fellows,
every one of them, biting as persistent
ly and about as painfully as mosqui-
toes. A single grain of sugar thrown
on the ground would instantly bait a
cubic inch of them; and some of the
boys found amusement, during pauses
in the firing, in slaughtering handfuls
of the pests by the agency of a cart
ridge, covered over with a thin coat
ing of sugar, and ignited at the oppOr-
tune moment.
But as to these rifle pits. The read
er will, of course, understand that the
whole combative force of the army
was not disposed as a skirmish line on
the crests of these ridges. A detail
from each regiment was sufficient to
man the rifle pits, which were the
advanced posts-the regiments lying
down the ravine far enough TO be tol-
erably secure from flying balls. And
yet nobody was entirely safe; we ate,
slept, and moved about in the very
shadow of death, and the almost in
eessant whistle of rifle balls, and the
occasional dull thud of a round shot
into the opposite slope of the ravine,
were constant warnings of our peril.
Two men of my regiment, lying at
ease near the bottom, laughing and
chatting gunconcernedly, were crushed
and mangled out of human shape by a
great steelpointed shot dropping in a
short curve upon them. Soldiers sit
ting or lying at rest in places where
no possible danger could have been
imagined, were searched out and
smitten down, dead or wounded, by
stealthy balls, coming so unexpectedly
that no one could tell whence they
were. Certain paths leading from one
regiment TO another, or down the slope
to the little stream, and certain stand
ing places behind the hill, which
seemed perfectly protected, were
marked and summed; for the effects
of the hostile bullets had shown that
these places were Zealously watched,
and covered by the rebel sharp-shoot-
ers. One place was pointed out to me
where SeUen of our men had been hit
in two days; and a pest house could
not, thereafter, have been more scru-
pulously avoided than this spot, where
the fallen trunk of a tree crossed a
ditch, and which at last earned the
significant name, dead Mans
Bridge"
The rifle pits were in reality chain
of miniature forts, three rods apart,
followed out near the top of the ridge.
By cutting down the inside face from
the top, easy standing room was made
for six men. There was room for more
in each pit, but the motions of loading
and firing require much elbow room,
and a detail of six was found sufficient
for most of them. After this excava-
ton had been made log was procured,
hewn flat on one side, cut with three
or four loop-holes, each not more than
half as large as the hand, and then the
log was placed on the parapet. Such
was the rude but effective engineering
of the rifle pits.
1t was in these little rallying points
that the fighting at Port Hudson was
carried on-excepting, of course, the
work of the artillery, which was al
most incessant, and terribly destruc-
tive, and the slaughter of the two as
saults. The rifle pits were constantly
occupied, the details being relieved
every twelve hours and the vigilant
watch that was kept up for a human
tdrget was almost painful in its activi-
ty. The common reader might sup
pose that, in a situation where the
combatants were so well sheltered, the
casualties would be few. They were
in fact appalling in their frequency
The constant practice of the rifle pits
madeexcellent marksmen of men who
had rarely used q gun before: and