tire line of
breastworks, and had changed their base. They were fortifying upon our
left, about five miles off from their original position. The battlefield
was covered with their dead and wounded soldiers. I have never seen so
many battle-flags left indiscriminately upon any battlefield. I ran over
twenty in the charge, and could have picked them up everywhere; did pick
up one, and was promoted to fourth corporal for gallantry in picking up
a flag on the battlefield.

On the final charge that was made, I was shot in the ankle and heel of my
foot. I crawled into their abandoned ditch, which then seemed full and
running over with our wounded soldiers. I dodged behind the embankment
to get out of the raking fire that was ripping through the bushes,
and tearing up the ground. Here I felt safe. The firing raged in front;
we could hear the shout of the charge and the clash of battle. While I
was sitting here, a cannon ball came tearing down the works, cutting a
soldier's head off, spattering his brains all over my face and bosom,
and mangling and tearing four or five others to shreds. As a wounded
horse was being led off, a cannon ball struck him, and he was literally
ripped open, falling in the very place I had just moved from.

I saw an ambulance coming from toward the Yankee line, at full gallop,
saw them stop at a certain place, hastily put a dead man in the ambulance,
and gallop back toward the Yankee lines. I did not know the meaning of
this maneuver until after the battle, when I learned that it was General
McPherson's dead body.

We had lost many a good and noble soldier. The casualties on our side
were frightful. Generals, colonels, captains, lieutenants, sergeants,
corporals and privates were piled indiscriminately everywhere. Cannon,
caissons, and dead horses were piled pell-mell. It was the picture of a
real battlefield. Blood had gathered in pools, and in some instances had
made streams of blood. 'Twas a picture of carnage and death.

AM PROMOTED

"Why, hello, corporal, where did you get those two yellow stripes from on
your arm?"

"Why, sir, I have been promoted for gallantry on the battlefield, by
picking up an orphan flag, that had been run over by a thousand fellows,
and when I picked it up I did so because I thought it was pretty, and I
wanted to have me a shirt made out of it."

"I could have picked up forty, had I known that," said Sloan.

"So could I, but I knew that the strag