Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[214] carriages which appeared so slender as to be in danger of being broken by a single recoil. Other batteries *had ten-, twenty-, and thirty-pounder Parrott and four and one-half-inch guns in place ready for work. Others had eight-and ten-inch mortars. The next morning I continued my visits and found near the center of our position-directly in front of Sumner's corpswith a field battery having epaulements for six guns, my friend Lieutenant Edmund Kirby in charge; he had just recovered from a serious attack of typhoid fever.

My next ride for information was made May 1st. It was along the front and to examine our first parallel, which was a trench twelve feet wide and three feet deep, the dirt being thrown toward the enemy. All along the parallel were openings in the embankment for batteries of siege guns. This trench was parallel to the enemy's works and 1,500 yards from them. Accompanied by my brother and aid, Lieutenant Howard, I continued back of the parallel eastward as far as the York River, and we took a good look at the waiting gunboats, some of which had come up the river to cooperate in the siege. We looked at each other and inquired: “How soon shall we do something”

From day to day we read and wrote letters and had plenty of time to visit each other, as well as to study the slowly growing constructions. Occasionally the enemy would toss a shell over to our side, and now and then roll a ball of iron along our road with motion too swift to touch. A skirmish somewhere on the front line occasionally came off, and sometimes we were startled into abnormal activity by a false alarm; but on the whole we had a long and peaceful sojourn near Yorktown.