sapling standing between us and the cannon; the ball by that means was depressed, and instead of going over us came directly for us and into our midst. Every one who saw it thought, as I did, that the ball was coming straight at him. I rolled over to avoid it; I heard the dull thud of its striking and a scream of agony, and I stood up and looked. That ball had struck and carried away the life of Morris Bird, a private of Company H, and the only son of a widowed mother. I saw a private of the 4th Virginia, which regiment was sheltered there with us also, rise to his feet to fire his gun, when one of our cannon balls took off his head, and it was a clean decapitation, too. The enemy shelled us incessantly the rest of the day after we gained this position, and it cost us many brave men. One close call of an exploding shell knocked me senseless and took off the right arm of Louis Cazean, a private of my company. They told me afterwards that poor Cazean, when he lifted up the fragments of his shattered right arm dangling from the white cords and tendons, said, "Boys, I'd give five hundred dollars if that was my left arm instead of my right." When I regained my senses I found Sergeant Whitcomb of my company bathing my head with water and trying to force some commissary whiskey down my throat. He didn't have near as much trouble getting the whiskey down me after I came to and found out what it was. For a long time the rumbling in my head was deafening and painful, but gradually subsided and the concussion left me a whole skin and with no deleterious effects. And the day wore on until night closed in upon us, and then we lay down and slept on our arms accoutered as we were. Through some bungling, when the other regiments were ordered to retire during the night to the rear of the Walnut hills, my regiment was omitted from the list, and when we received our order to fall back in the morning we had to go out under the fire of the 25,000 enemies. That blunder cost us some brave men; for the rebels availed themselves of the splendid opportunity to fire upon our retiring lines. We had failed to take Vicksburg by assault, notwithstanding the bravery of our men; notwithstanding that many stands of colors were planted on the enemy's works; Sergeant Griffith with eleven men of the 22nd Iowa regiment entered a fort of the enemy, and his men all fell in the fort except the sergeant, who captured and brought off thirteen confederate prisoners, and Captain White of the Chicago Mercantile battery immortalized himself by carrying forward one of his guns by hand to the ditch, and double shotting it, fired into an embrasure of the work, disabling an enemy's gun in it and cutting down the gunners.