About December the field pieces were taken away from our company and Capt. Porcher Smith's, and both were turned into infantry, and armed with old-fashioned Belgian rifles, probably the most antiquated and worthless guns ever put into a modern soldier's hands. But they were all our government had. These rifles could not send a ball beyond 200 yards, and at much shorter range their aim was entirely unreliable. This our men felt hard to stand, as they knew that at this period the Federal soldiers were being generally armed with breech-loading Springfield rifles, weapons which thirty years later were reckoned very formidable. We soon after were ordered back to James Island, where with Captain Smith's company we were again under the command of Maj. Edward Manigault. We were at once put on very arduous picket duty along the lines on the southwestern part of the island. The weather at this time I well recollect was unusually cold and wet, and with an insufficiency of food and clothing, our sufferings were severe. Men had got very scarce then, and the same relay had to be kept on picket week after week without relief, and the men would often have to stand guard on the outposts eight or ten hours on a stretch. On one occasion while another man and I were on sentry duty on the lines in the rifle-pits, at the break of day we saw the two Federal sentries on the other side of the intervening marsh desert their posts, and unarmed walk quickly toward us. When they got within about ten paces we halted them, and called our officer. As soon as he came up we turned them over to him. I always had a loathing for a deserter, and said to the men, "If I had my way I would have you given thirty-nine lashes each and sent back under flag of truce to your command, so you could be shot as you deserve." One of them twiggled his fingers on his nose and replied, "Ah, but you hav'n't got no say in the matter." While on duty on these outpost lines, the Federals frequently shelled us from their gunboats in Stono River. We did not mind the Parrott shells, but the shells from the Cohorn mortars on a mortar schooner were very trying. They would fall, apparently from the sky, and there was no dodging them. But fortunately none of them fell directly in the rifle-pits, but all exploded harmlessly in the field. All old soldiers know that mortar shells take a very mean advantage of a man.