Isaac O. Best, History of the 121st New York State Infantry

[166] scampering to get out of the way by the men who were crowded around Hank King and Ben Jones who were issuing a cooked ration. The shell dropped close beside a sergeant of Company F who lay with his back against the breastwork and his legs sprawled out, fast asleep, unconscious of the danger. I jumped behind the upright tie and crowded myself into as small a space as possible, and glanced around. I saw the shell sizzing away, and the men about it and the sergeant asleep. It seemed as though it would never burst, as though it were spellbound. Finally it went off and the sergeant was badly hurt, being hit by many of the balls it contained. Ben Jones also received a wound in the seat of his pants, and it spoiled our rations which were upset by the rush to cover. The Rebs continued their mortar practice for some time longer, but did us no more mischief. Several men were hit by sharpshooters during the day, among them Captain Mather, a rifle ball passing through his head, inflicting a serious but not fatal wound. A large body of colored infantry passed by us going toward our right. They had been relieved by our troops. Some of them had been in battle the previous day and had lost considerably. As they passed by us, they kept up a running fire of talk. One old fellow had his pants torn and I asked him how it was done. “Oh, dere's war I got picked wid a piece ob shell.”

On the night of the 21st we were relieved by some troops of the Eighteenth Corps, and marched to the left of the army, taking position on the left of the Second Corps, in the thick woods covering the country. Just at evening we advanced a considerable distance to the front of our entrenchments, and finally began to get careless, thinking as we had gone so far, the Rebs had left our front. Coming to a large tree that had blown down, its