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

[157] themselves without support on either flank for many hours. After the enemy had given up their attempt to regain the works, the 96th Pennsylvania went into the front line, supported immediately in the rear by the 2d Connecticut. Then came our regiment, then the 5th Maine. (The dead were buried where they fell in shallow graves.) We skirmishers assembled, and returned to our regiment, as soon as the charge was over, and lay on our arms in line of battle during the night. The next day we relieved the 96th Pennsylvania whose commanding officer, Major Lessig, said that in the continuous fire they had fired 90,000 rounds of ammunition.

We continued the firing, the Rebel line being but a short distance in our front, and we could plainly see any movement on their side. We fixed head logs on the works and built sheltered outlooks with ammunition boxes filled with dirt, rigged decoys for the Rebels to fire at and would fire at their puffs of smoke. This firing was kept up day and night. At night someone in a tone of command would shout “Forward, double quick, charge,” and a volley would run along the Rebel rifle pits in our front in answer. The men not in the trenches lay in line of battle in rear of the works. In the pines occasionally a man would be wounded by a ball striking in the top of a tree and glancing down. One of our men, Webster, of Company I was wounded in this way. He was lying on his back against a pine, reading his Bible, when a bullet struck him in the eye, destroying it and passing through the roof of his mouth into it, from which he spat it out. Another was struck on the brass plate of his cross belt and seriously hurt. A number of others received lesser injuries.

On the third of June we formed for a charge. We were in the trenches when Generals Wright