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[340] on the morning of the 6th, and permanently disabling a rifled 24-pounder on the evening of the same day. This artillery practice was probably equal, if not superior, to anything which has ever been accomplished of the kind, the distance being from one thousand to fourteen hundred yards. Our guns on the river side were now reduced to seven, and the lower batteries were screened with brush, while the upper guns only engaged the Parrotts. We had been obliged to mask most of our guns on the land side for some time back, so many of them having been disabled. Every extra gun-carriage in the place had been used up, and those in service were all patched and repaired as much as they could be. There were a number of broken guns or pieces of ordnance without carriages, which were fastened upon blocks and put in masked positions where they could be used in cases of emergency. Most of them were crammed with bags containing a motley assortment of old bullets, nails, pieces of horseshoes, bits of iron chain, etc., which were to be fired in the face of a storming party, it being of little consequence whether the disabled guns were good for another discharge or not. On the evening of the 3d of July, a long line of troops was discovered bivouacking in line of battle opposite our left centre, and every one was confident that before daylight we would be attacked on every side, but the day wore on and everything was going on as usual, the sharpshooting commencing as soon as the fog lifted.
Richmond, VA. 1886.
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