If ever two guns were worked for all they were worth, those were! I don't believe any two guns, in the same time, ever fired as many shots as those two "Napoleons" did. We kept them just _spouting canister_! Several times _three canisters_ were fired. Billy White, "No. 2," had only to reach down for them, and he would have loaded the guns _to the muzzle_ if "No. 1" had given him time. The gun got so hot that, once, in jumping in to put in the friction primer, the back of my left hand touched it, and the skin was nearly taken off. The sponge was entirely worn off the rammer, so "No. 1" stopped sponging out the gun, and only rammed shot home. We fired so fast that the powder did not have time to ignite in the gun. After firing the gun, "No. 4" could hardly get the "primer" in before the gun was loaded, and ready to fire again. So it went on! It was fast and furious work! And the bullets sounded like bees buzzing above our heads. I felt a sharp pain, then a numbness in my right hand. I glanced at it, and saw that the back of it was cut open, and bleeding. I had to pull the lanyard with my left hand the rest of the fight. I supposed a bullet had done it, but was disgusted to see blood on one of the rails, which chocked our gun, and find that this rail had worked loose, and, when struck by the recoiling gun wheel, had flown round and struck my hand, and disabled it. So, it was not an "honorable" wound, even though received in battle, as it was not done by a missile of the enemy. Minute after minute, this hot work went on. The enemy, in coming over our works, and sweeping around, was thrown into disorder, so that they advanced on us in a confused mass. In this mass our canister was doing deadly work, cutting lanes in every direction. Still on they came; getting slower in their advance as the canister constantly swept away the foremost men. The men in front began to flinch, they were within thirty yards of us,--firing wildly now. One good rush! and their bayonets would have silenced our guns! But they could not face that hail of death any longer; they could not make that rush! They began to give back from our muzzles. At that moment, the Texans having rallied under the bank, forty yards to our right, and rear, came leaping like tigers upon their flank. The Texans were perfectly furious! It was the first time during the whole war that they had been forced from a position, under fire, and they were mad enough to eat those people up. A screaming yell burst out, a terrific outbreak of musketry, a rush, with the bayonets, and the inside of our work was clear of all, save the many dead, and wounded, and six hundred prisoners. We ran our gun instantly back to its place, in the works, and got several shots into the flying mob, outside. Then all was gone, and we were ready to drop in our tracks, with the exhausting work of the ten minutes that we had held the foe at bay.