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at the road to be repaired or built, arms would be stacked, the companies sent to different points and divided into details, one to fell trees and cut them in suitable lengths; another to attend to the hauling, while a third would put them in place and cover with brush and dirt.
Wagon trains, constantly passing to the front and returning, made things lively all the time, and once in a while enabled the men to vary their work by helping to get a mule out of the mud.
So the siege went on. Day by day, the pick, the spade and the rifle were in active use. The exhausting labor in the trenches bore down its hundreds, while the bullets lay low a dozen.
Private Benjamin E. Morgan, of Company A, was wounded by the bursting of a shell while on picket, April 24.
The position of the camp was changed several times before the evacuation.
These camps were anything but comfortable.
The land was low and flat, water could be found almost anywhere at a foot below the surface.
Natural springs were seldom found and the water was muddy and impure.
Everything was filthy, and the frequent rains, followed by a broiling sun, caused much sickness.
It was not an uncommon thing to march half a company to the sick call.
While Lieutenant-Colonel Devereux was detailed for duty with the Engineer Corps, he superintended the erection of a tall signal tower, built of logs piled up cross-wise like a log hut, narrowing toward the top. This signal tower was a constant target for the enemy who sent their daily compliments in the shape of shells.
The Union artillery would reply and the duel was a progressive one.
The regiment was constantly employed working on intrenchments and picket duty, in addition to its road making.
It would move out of camp in the morning in light marching order, one day's rations in haversacks, and proceed to the extreme front, where small redoubts were built, with embrasures for guns, the rifle pits extending, to right and left, to similar works of the adjoining company.
The work would take all clay, the officer keeping watch for the smoke of the rebel guns, as their works could be plainly seen about a mile away across the marsh.
When a puff of smoke was seen, some one would call
Salem Press. Co., Salem, Ma., 1906.
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