John D. Billings, The history of the Tenth Massachusetts battery of light artillery in the war of the rebellion

[268] had nothing to compete with that, and knowing the accuracy with which mortar shells can be dropped within fortifications, we at once set ourselves to provide against such demonstrations. This we did by erecting bomb-proofs twelve feet square and five feet high, to secure both ourselves and the ammunition, in case such evidences of Rebel regard should multiply (which we may add in passing, they never did).

An interesting feature in our stay of nearly twelve days here was the opportunity it afforded of studying the phases of bullets in their passage through the air, and from these determining their source and distance from us. This we did by noting the differences in sound made by them under different circumstances. The bullets of the enemy could readily be distinguished from our own, and their relative distance from the earth was easily determined. Some of them in their passage through the air made a noise like the cry of a kitten. There was one phase in the development of this study by no means agreeable. It was when, on going to the spring in the rear to fill canteens, or walking about carelessly too far behind the works, one heard a sharp hiss, followed instantly by a dull thud in the earth. Then he knew a loud call had been made for him.

It was in this position that the Battery earned the sobriquet of ‘Saucy Battery,’ partly, it may be, on account of the advanced position it occupied in the line, and partly owing to the habit it had of intruding its shot into all suspicious occasions with greater or less accuracy.

For some days after the battle our dead and wounded lay between the lines where they fell, and, under a broiling sun, the former were becoming