April 13. — Rather a stirring accompaniment to your scribbling pencil to have a furious cannonade going on within two or three miles, —to have fresh in your memory the sharp skirmish which took place on the very spot where you are seated, only a few hours-ago; and all the time to have the Second Massachusetts Battery harnessed up in the road, with the men on the horses and seats; to know that when they whip up we shall be ordered in, and that our business will be to support this battery through thick and thin, — the thick, just at the present, being most probable. It is early in the afternoon. The hot sun beats down upon us, who have stacked our arms here in this shadeless cane-field, and seated ourselves among the furrows. Perhaps we shall have time to eat a hard tack and make a hasty cup of coffee before we start.
To-day is Monday. Saturday, we embarked at Brashear City, leaving a fine, airy, roomy camp for —
“Fall in!”
