"Sergeant, you take charge of this young cabbage-head after the regular drilling is over and drill him like blazes for about three extra hours," which the sergeant accordingly did. In spite of his greenness and his peculiarities, however, Henry had good stuff in him and the making of a brave soldier. He was known as a dead-shot and a good soldier, although still retaining some of his peculiarities. Among others he insisted upon wearing a coonskin cap and was known throughout his company as "Old Coonskin." He soon showed such qualities of courage and self-reliance that in spite of his early record he was gradually promoted until by the time his regiment reached Vicksburg, which the Union Army was then besieging, he was a second lieutenant. The siege of Vicksburg was a long and tedious affair. The investing forces did not have sufficient artillery to make such a breach in the defenses of the Confederates that a successful attack could be made. The besiegers out in the wet and mud wearied of the slow process under which the encircling lines were brought closer and closer and longed for more active operations. Lieutenant Foster especially, just as formerly he had protested against the interminable drilling, now chafed against the enforced inaction of the troops. Finally he made up his mind that he at least would get some interest out of the siege. As one of the best shots in his regiment, he had no difficulty in being detailed for sharp-shooting duty. One dark night, loaded with ammunition and with a haversack of provisions and several canteens of water, he crawled out into the space between the Union lines and the defender's ramparts. The next morning, to his comrades' intense surprise, they found that Old Coonskin had dug for himself a deep burrow like a woodchuck close to the enemy's defenses and had thrown up a little mound with a peep-hole. There he lay for three days picking off the Confederates and scoring each successful shot with a notch on the butt of the long rifle which he had obtained especial permission to use. At first the Confederates could not locate the direction from which the fatal shots kept coming. When they did discover Foster in his burrow, volley after volley was directed at his refuge, but he kept too close to be hit and at regular intervals men who showed themselves on the ramparts were kept dropping before his unerring fire. At the end of the third day, the Confederates had learned their lesson and there were no more shots to be had and once more Old Coonskin began to be bored. It finally occurred to him that if he could in any way gain possession of a height which would allow him to shoot over the ramparts, he could make the Confederate position very uncomfortable. There was no tree or hill, however, near by which would lend itself to any such idea. Accordingly the third night Foster crawled back again to his regiment and spent a day in resting and reconnoitering and receiving the