While these beavers were gallantly wielding the pick and shovel, we, satisfied with our little bank of dirt, were getting ready for next day's work, by a good sound sleep. One of our boys did have misgiving about the strength of our defences. He went in the night, and woke up Sergeant Moncure and said, "Monkey, don't you think these works are very thin?" "Yes, Tom, they are," he replied. "You just get a spade, and go and make them just as thick as you think they ought to be; Good night!" He resumed his slumbers, and Tom, not an overly energetic person, walked away grumbling that "the work _was_ too thin, but he would be derned if _he_ was going out there, in the dark to work on them, all by himself," which he didn't. Somehow when we lay down this night we had gotten the impression that things were going to be rough, in the morning. They were! Just as the day dawn was struggling through the clouds, we were roused by the sound of several guns, fired in quick succession. We were on our feet instantly, and saw that all was ready for action. Shells came howling at us from batteries that we could discern in the dim light. We could see the light of their burning fuses, as they started out of their guns, and could trace their flight toward us by that. Some of them would strike the ground in front, and ricochet over us; some would crash into our work, with a terrific _thud_, and some went screaming over our heads,--very close, too, and went on to the rear to look after our Right Section guns, which were still by that farmhouse, where we had left them, the evening before. They knocked down several of the shelter tents our boys were sleeping under, and several of our fellows, there, had the narrowest kind of an escape. One shell "caromed" over three of the men, who were sleeping side by side, touching the very blanket that was over them. The Right Section boys needed no reveille that morning to get them out! They tumbled up with great promptness and moved round out of the line of fire. Fortunately none of them were actually hurt, just here. One fellow was sleeping with several canteens of water hanging right over his head. A bullet went through them. He was nearly drowned! =The Bloodiest Fifteen Minutes of the War= In our front, this artillery fire kept up for a while, then it stopped! The next moment, there was an awful rush! From every quarter their infantry came pouring on over the fields, and through the woods, yelling and firing, and coming at a run. Their columns seemed unending! Enough people to sweep our thin lines from the face of the earth! Up and down our battle line, the fierce musketry broke out. To right and left it ran, crashing and rolling like the sound of a heavy hail on a tin roof, magnified a thousand times, with the cannon pealing out in the midst of it like claps of thunder. Our line, far as the eye could reach, was ablaze with fire; and into that furious storm of death, the blue columns were swiftly urging their way.