alked about these until we became quite sentimental.

Several times it was suggested that we had better go to sleep, but we
talked ourselves wide awake. About two o'clock it was again suggested,
but Dan said he did wish we had something to eat first. This was a most
agreeable thought, and in discussing the same it was discovered that I
had a corncake, Dan had some coffee, and Beau some sugar. So we
resolved, before lying down, to go back under the hill, some fifty yards
behind the works, where a fire was kept burning or smoldering all the
time, and have a little supper of bread and coffee, which we proceeded
to do. We made up the fire, got water from the branch, warmed our
corncake, boiled the coffee, got out our tin cups, and sat around the
fire having a fine time. It was now about time for daybreak, though
still very dark. Dan proposed that we stroll up to the guns, and lie
down awhile. We walked slowly up! When we got to the guns all was still,
and quiet, as when we left, and I really believe we three were the only
men awake on that part of the line.

Before lying down Dan and I stepped to where our gun had been, and stood
a moment looking out through the dim light, which had hardly begun, of a
dark cloudy morning.

We had no object in this outlook, it was the instinct of a soldier to
look around him before going to sleep. It was, I think, the Providence
of God to an important result. For most fortunate indeed was it that we
took that glance out toward the front.

As our eye rested upon the edge of the wood out to our right front, we
caught a vague glimpse of movement among the trees. We called Barnes,
and stood together, watching keenly. Presently the air lightened a
little, and we could discern the dim figures of men moving about, just
within the woods. "Who are those men?" Dan asked. "Did either of you see
any of the troops pass out of the lines during the night?" "No, we had
not." "Then," he said, "I don't like this. Who can they be?" Just then
the cloud seemed to lift a little, more light shot into the landscape,
and, to our dismay, we clearly saw a line of men. Yes! no doubt now!
That was a battle line of Federals, formed there in the edge of the
woods, and just beginning to advance,--as silently as so many ghosts.
There they were, two hundred yards off marching swiftly for our line,
and everybody fast asleep in that line!

The horror of the situation flashed on us. The enemy would be
bayonetting our sleep