Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[508] line; could not ride in rear of Hoskin's Battery, on account of the trees and limbs felled by the shells. From top of the mountain the vast panorama is ever changing. There are now large trains to the left of Lost Mountain and at Big Shanty, and wagons are moving to and fro every where. Encampments of hospitals, quartermasters, commissaries, cavalry and infantry whiten the plain here and there as far as the eye can reach. Our side of the line looks narrow, poor and life-less, with but little canvas in spots that contrasts with the green foliage.

The usual flank extension is going on. Troops on both side move to left, and now the blue smoke of the musket discloses the line by day trending away, far away south toward the Chattahoochee, and by night it is marked, at times by the red glow of the artillery, amidst the spark-like flash of small arms that looks in the distance like innumerable fire-flies.

At 10 A. M. opened fire on the enemy from the guns on Kennesaw. Enemy replied furiously, and for an hour the firing was incessant. Received an order to hold Ector's brigade in reserve. In the afternoon considerable firing, and all the chests of one of my caissons were blown up by a shell from the enemy, and a shell from one of the chests killed a gunner. They have now about forty guns in my fronts, and when they concentrate their fire on the mountain at any one place, it is pretty severe, but owing to our height, nearly harmless. Thousand of their parrot-shells pass high over the mountain, and exploding at a great elevation, the after-part of the shell is arrested in its flight, and falling perpendicularly, comes into camp, and they have injured our tents. Last night I heard a peculiar “thug” on my tent, and a rattle of tin pans, and this morning my negro boy cook put his head into my tent and said: “See here, Master Sam, them ‘fernal Yanks done shot my pans last night. What am I going to do ‘bout it?” A rifle ball coming over the mountain had fallen from a great height, and, perforating the pans, had entered the ground.