My musings were suddenly interrupted by a soldier exclaiming, “Look!” and as I cast my eyes in the direction indicated, I saw a long line of bayonets rising over the top of a hill about six hundred yards distant. This force was a brigade of infantry; and as they reached the top of the elevation, our skirmish line fired on them from their hidden position behind trees. The enemy could not see them; and as our company of cavalry was in plain view, they fired at us across the corner of the “Fraley field.” We did not have a man hit, but they got several of our horses. A bullet struck the handle of my saber. Another cut a twig from a bush within a few inches of my face, and a flying splinter struck me just above my left eye, and naturally I thought it was a bullet. The pain was so severe and I was so blind that I felt sure that the eye had been destroyed; but a comrade, after examining the wound, assured me that it was only a scratch. As our company was an escort to a general officer, our commander would not permit us to return the fire, but turned and moved us briskly over the hill out of view of the enemy. Our presence here, so far in front of our battle line, was due to the fact that General Bragg had sent us with Gilmer, his chief of artillery, to select a route for the guns, as he had to bring them into action through a dense growth of timber. Soon after we had left the hill where the enemy had fired on us we met the Confederate line of battle going into action. This was the grandest, most solemn and tragic scene I had ever witnessed. The sun was just coming up over the hilltop, its bright rays touching the half-green forest with a golden beauty that could not but charm the eye and thrill the heart even in the presence of death. It was one of those rare mornings that, in a deep woods, casts a charm of mingled silence and wild music. In this sunlit antechamber of carnage there were bird songs and the tongueless voices of whispering waters--timid, blended melodies of uncounted centuries that here had sounded their glad chorus to all the mornings of the springtime since trees first grew and rains first fell, since mosses first floored the virgin valleys and primal grasses climbed the fresh slopes of the new-born hills. The intermittent firing had ceased, and the restful music of nature was broken only by the tramp of men and horses. Youth, young manhood, and the middle-aged were mixed in these advancing columns of the South’s best blood, and the unspoken thought upon every face was that many were marching to certain death. This line, the first in the Confederate advance, unrolled as it moved until it reached a maximum length of nearly three miles, covering the entire approach to the Federal Army. The unevenness of the ground and other natural obstacles sometimes broke the continuity of the line, but the gap was soon closed as the militant host swung forward.