October 23 — Still on picket. To-day we had an alarm at the front, caused by the explosion of a shell which some of our outer pickets found and threw in the fire just to see whether it would explode; and sure enough they saw, for the shell exploded with a report similar to a cannon, and sowed the fire and iron fragments around like a young volcano. The explosion stirred up a lively scene for a while among the reserve pickets. We rushed to our guns with the full expectation of seeing a Yankee battery appear over a hill about a mile in our front and open on us, but when we learned the cause of the sudden alarm all anticipations of a Yankee advance were expelled and quietude again reigned along our picket line.
Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.
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