Some time before daylight on the morning of the 19th we were quietly aroused and instructed to prepare our breakfasts without noise or unnecessary fire or light. Every man of my company proceeded, by the aid of twigs and dry leaves, to make just fire enough on the protected slope of the hill, to boil his tin cup of coffee and broil a slice of diaphragm um et swinum for the morning meal. We did not at first know what the program for the day was, but before we had dispatched our breakfast it was whispered to us by those who claimed to have access to headquarters that we were scheduled to charge the enemy's works in the early morning. I hadn't had a good view of the Vicksburg fortifications the day before, and now in the first faint light of the morning, while the men were eating and making preparations for the charge, I crept cautiously out on the crest of the hill, and so far as I could without exposing myself, contemplated the defenses against which we had to charge. Three strong bastioned forts on the right, center and left on high grounds within a line of entrenchments and stockades confronted us. It required but a brief inspection to satisfy me that more than likely we wouldn't go into town that day. I confess that my observations did not in any great measure increase my confidence in our ability to take the place by assault. When I returned to my company I saw many of the boys entrusting their valuables with hasty instructions to the few lame and sick ones, who must needs stay behind and care for the company effects while we were gone. I felt like turning over my stuff also, but happened to recollect I had no valuables. From the outlook I was satisfied very many of us would not answer to roll call that night, and I felt that I might be one of the silent ones. A more beautiful May morning than that of the 19th I had never seen. The pickets had ceased firing, the birds sang sweetly in the trees, and the cool morning breeze was fragrant with the perfume of flowers and shrubs. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful morning as that would bring such an eve as followed it. When the sun was well up then the various bodies of our troops were quickly marched to their respective positions in what was to be the charging line. My regiment was marched forward and to the right of our night's position, to the base of the last range of the Walnut hills, and we were instructed then that when all of our batteries fired three volleys in rapid succession our whole assaulting column was to move forward and charge the enemy's works. The space intervening between our line and the enemy's fortification over which we must pass was badly cut up by ravines and hills and covered by brush and fallen trees. When the signal for the general assault came my regiment, the 113th Illinois, belonging to Giles A. Smith's brigade of Blair's division and Sherman's army corps, was among the first to make a determined attack. While