nkee guard not fifty yards off.
Said I, "Boys, let's fire into them and run." We took deliberate aim and
fired. At that they raised, I thought, a mighty sickly sort of yell and
charged the house. We ran out, but waited on the outside. We took a
second position where the railroads cross each other, but they began
shelling us from the river, when we got on the opposite side of the
railroad and they ceased.

I know nothing about the battle; how Grant, with one wing, went up the
river, and Hooker's corps went down Wills valley, etc. I heard fighting
and commanding and musketry all day long, but I was still on picket.
Balls were passing over our heads, both coming and going. I could not
tell whether I was standing picket for Yankees or Rebels. I knew that
the Yankee line was between me and the Rebel line, for I could see the
battle right over the tunnel. We had been placed on picket at the foot
of Lookout Mountain, but we were five miles from that place now. If
I had tried to run in I couldn't. I had got separated from Sloan and
Johnson somehow; in fact, was waiting either for an advance of the
Yankees, or to be called in by the captain of the picket. I could see
the blue coats fairly lining Missionary Ridge in my head. The Yankees
were swarming everywhere. They were passing me all day with their dead
and wounded, going back to Chattanooga. No one seemed to notice me;
they were passing to and fro, cannon, artillery, and everything. I
was willing to be taken prisoner, but no one seemed disposed to do it.
I was afraid to look at them, and I was afraid to hide, for fear some
one's attention would be attracted toward me. I wished I could make
myself invisible. I think I was invisible. I felt that way anyhow.
I felt like the boy who wanted to go to the wedding, but had no shoes.
Cassabianca never had such feelings as I had that livelong day.

Say, captain, say, if yet my task be done?
And yet the sweeping waves rolled on,
And answered neither yea nor nay.

About two or three o'clock, a column of Yankees advancing to the attack
swept right over where I was standing. I was trying to stand aside to
get out of their way, but the more I tried to get out of their way,
the more in their way I got. I was carried forward, I knew not whither.
We soon arrived at the foot of the ridge, at our old breastworks.
I recognized Robert Brank's old corn stalk house, and Alf Horsley's fort,
an old log house called