Friday, June 17th.
At 5 A. M. the regiment formed in line and marched to a point said to be within a mile and a half of Petersburg, into the streets of which we can look, where we remained for the rest of the day. Captain Jones, of Company D, commanding the Coehorn Mortar Battery, which is not now with the regiment, was killed to-day by a sharpshooter, and I learn that Sergeant Jones, of my company, who was missing after the Spottsylvania fight, was then taken prisoner. While laying out our camp and receiving our much-needed rations, Companies A, B, F, G and H, now numbering about five hundred men, were detailed as a working party to build a line of rifle pits in front of Gen’l Barlow’s position and as near as possible to the rebel outer line, at a point not far from the City Point Railroad. As soon as it became sufficiently dark to partially conceal our movements, we shouldered our muskets and, under command of Major Williams, marched about through the woods until we reached a ravine, into which opened a deep trench or run-way, dry at the time, which came directly down from the rebel lines and formed a sort of covered way, offering complete protection on either side, but so straight that a solid shot traversing it lengthwise would probably have killed every man in it. Up this narrow defile, gradually growing more and more shallow, we crept as noiselessly as we could until we reached a point some twenty yards from the enemy’s line, when we clambered out and, extending to the right and left in single file a few feet apart, began, each man for himself, to sink holes and gradually connect them, until by daylight we had constructed a very respectable rifle pit. An occasional but harmless shot at an officer as his outline was seen against the sky, indicated that our presence was known, but the limited number of shots convinced us that the force in our immediate front was small, as subsequent events proved it to be.
