Well! even with this relief, the labor of working our guns in this furious and prolonged fight was fearful! At last the welcome order, "Section cease firing" was given. We limbered up, and drew the guns a short distance to the side, out of the line of fire, and utterly exhausted, we cannoneers, threw ourselves right down on the plowed ground beside the guns, and slept like the dead. In the meantime, while we had been fighting out in that field, events were taking place near us, of which we, absorbed in the work before us and deafened by the roar of our guns, had taken little notice at the time. As had been described, there was a body of woods some distance off to our right, and another, to our left. When we went into position we had not seen any of our troops, and did not know of the presence of any, near us. We thought we were without support, but as I intimated some time back, we were better off than we knew. =Barksdale's Mississippi Creeper= It seems, that before we came on the ground, Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, which had been marching behind us, had filed off the road, and while we were up on the hill with the cavalry, had quietly, and silently passed into that body of woods to our right, unseen by the enemy. Along the front edge of that wood ran an old rail fence, covered all over with the luxuriant vine known as "Virginia Creeper." Wide open fields extending in front. Soon, the ground behind that fence was covered with another sort of "creeper," not as good a "runner" as that on the fence, nor as "green," but just as tough of fibre, and as hard to "hold on" when it had once fixed itself,--the "_Mississippi_ Creeper." Silently, as ghosts, the Brigade glided in behind that fence, and lay low, and waited. Right here, was where the Federals' idea of _quietly_ occupying the Spottsylvania line was going to prove a snare. They had not the dimmest suspicion that we were ahead of them, and between them and that line. They came on, with guileless confidence, and walked right into trouble. Presently, a line of battle with columns of troops behind came marching across the fields upon the concealed Mississippians. Nearer and nearer they came, unsuspecting any danger, till they got nearly up to the fence. One man had actually thrown his leg over the rail to mount. Suddenly! as lightning out of a clear sky, a blinding sheet of flame flashed into their very faces. Then, after one volley, swiftly came the dreadful, venomous roll of musketry, the Mississippians loading and firing "at will," every man as fast as he could. It was just as if "the angel of death spread his wings to the blast and breathed in the face of the foe as he passed."