The days passed on pleasantly, and without special incident. No videttes were kept out, except in the night. None were needed, as the ground was open and level between us and the enemy. There was no picket firing, and we had a very comfortable time of it. We could watch the artillery "practice," which took place almost every evening, between the batteries on our right, without any apprehension that they would practice on us. One evening I sat on the rifle-pit, watching this. Scores of the men were doing the same, or were idling the time away as suited them best. The sun had sunk from sight; but as the shells would burst over the rebel redoubt, which was then the mark of our artillerists, they seemed balls of silver, in the rays of the sun, now invisible to us. Then they would expand, and roll away in little snowy cloudlets, almost before the sound of the explosion would reach us. Suddenly a great column of smoke shot upward from the redoubt; dark at first, but turning to a silver whiteness, as the rays of the sun touched it. A sound that seemed to shake the earth came rumbling through the air. A shell had reached and exploded the magazine. A laugh, with a cheer here and there, ran along our heavy picket-line. The rebels called out: "Stop laughing, Yanks!" "Stop that laughing!" Whether this would have resulted in an outbreak between the pickets, is uncertain; but a moment later a shell came screaming across, about ten feet above the pits, passing a few rods to my right. Thinking this was but introductory, the men dived for the pits, and the laugh was suddenly and indefinitely postponed. Then a general "ha-ha" rose from the rebel pickets, and good nature was restored. Some time in July I was taken sick with fever. I stayed a day or two at the surgeon's tent, but can not remember much about what occurred. I gave away every thing I had. Fortunately I gave my gun to Joe Bovard, who took care of it. I remember nothing of this, but he told me so afterward. I have also an indistinct recollection of being sent away in an ambulance, of being very sick at City Point, of the dull, dreamy indolence of convalescence. I was then sent to Davis' Island, New York. I improved rapidly during the voyage. I was here but a few days when I received a furlough, to report at Philadelphia, September 10th. The patriotic people of Pittsburg had ample and generous arrangements to care for the sick and wounded soldiers that passed through their city. Arriving there weak and dispirited, a gentleman met me at the train, and took me to a place where every convenience and comfort was provided. I had looked so long on the forbidding, bloody front of war, that it was a most pleasing revelation to discover that back here was the warm, loving heart of Peace. CHAPTER X.