Saturday, June 4th.
Morning found us still at work on’ the redoubt, and after finishing that and assisting in building other earthworks rendered necessary because the enemy’s sharp- shooters prevented our using that one by picking off our cannoneers, I went to turn over to Lieut. Hamlink, our Battalion Adjutant, the shovels, axes and pick-axes with which we had been at work. The sharpshooters were very troublesome at that point also, and their missiles were constantly singing about our ears. Hamlink, rather ostentatiously as I thought, sat down upon a stump to count the tools while I stood just inside the end of a breast-work, and on my cautioning him that he was unnecessarily exposing himself, he replied, a little contemptuously, “Oh! the bullet isn’t run that is to hit me.” Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when a ball furrowed his cheek and barked his shoulder, thus contradicting his assertion, and he hurriedly left me to turn over my tools to somebody else. Shortly after this incident two men just to my left, who were incautiously looking over the breastworks, were shot in the face. One was killed instantly, and though the other received the ball between the eyes, it traversed his skull over the top of his head and beneath his scalp, and made its exit at the back of his neck, stunning him at first but not seriously interfering with his going to hospital without assistance five minutes afterwards.
About 1 P. M. my company returned to its gopher-hole camp and was permitted to remain there for the rest of the day making up for lost sleep.
