ditch and shell h--l out of your old town." One night a voice said, "Is any of the boys of the 6th Missouri in the rifle pits over there?" "There's lots of 'em," was the answer. "Is Tom Jones there?" "He is," said our man, "Is that you Jim?" "Yes," came the answer, "and say Tom, can't you meet me between the lines? I've got a roll of greenbacks and I want to send them to the old folks in Missouri?" And so Yank Tom went out and met Rebel Jim, his brother, got the greenbacks, and after a brief visit returned safely to our picket quarters. And every night during the continuance of that long siege our numerous mortar boats down on the Mississippi tossed their cargoes of bombshells into the beleaguered city. When we watched them at night we first heard the distant thunder of the discharged mortar, and soon after saw the ponderous bomb mounting up into the sky, spinning out its fiery web along its wild track from its first appearance until it stood still for a second, then gracefully curved downward and dropped swiftly down, down into the doomed city, then as you listened, after a breath came the jarring report of its explosion. A detail of two men was made from my company one day to work on a mortar boat, and assisted in the work of firing the mortar. After charging the mortar they said all hands got into a skiff and rowed away, where they awaited at a safe distance until the gun was discharged by a time fuse or slow match, and then returned to reload. One of our men so detailed thoughtlessly laid his coat down in one corner of the mortar boat, where it lay all through the day, and when he picked it up at night it was a mass of ribbons and shreds, absolutely torn to pieces by the concussion of those fearful discharges. As the siege progresses all sorts of rumors get afloat in camp. One is that the Vicksburg people are reduced to eating mule meat. I would have kicked when it came to that. Also that Johnson was coming with 50,000 men to raise the siege. But the rumors made no difference; our 1300 cannon kept pounding away, and we dug rifle pits continually. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. THE CLOSING SCENES.