ng, that as time wore on, a stream of skedaddlers, small at
first, but rapidly increasing, was sweeping by the camp; and in a short
time crowds of able-bodied natives, driving their flocks and herds, and
followed by wagons heaped mountain high with their most precious household
goods, blocked up every road leading into the city, and showed that the
enemy were rapidly approaching.

Things, however, remained quiet, as far as we were concerned, but it was
only the quiet which portends the storm. A night alarm, caused by the
guard and pickets firing on spies escaping from the camp under cover of
the darkness, more spies, both male and female, in the guard-house, more
cattle, more scared natives rushing by as though a second exodus was at
hand, soon put us on the alert.

On Saturday, the 27th of June, that portion of the regiment not on picket
was hastily marched down the turnpike, and set at work throwing up a line
of rifle pits, to cover the road up which the enemy were now rapidly
advancing, report said, only four miles off; but as companies C (Capt.
Post), and G (Capt. Howland), had been previously sent some five miles
down the same road as pickets, and had not yet been driven in, we took
these figures with a slight discount. There was no question, however, but
that they were near enough, and we dug away for dear life, from eleven A.
M. to two P. M. (and the Sixty-ninth may be safely defied to produce a
bigger hole than we had finished at that time); and in consideration of
these unparalleled exertions, those in authority kindly allowed us to rest
our wearied limbs--by chopping down a good-sized forest, which interfered
with the range of the artillery.

Now, digging rifle pits in a hot sun is so very much like excavating a
sewer, that axe-work was fun itself compared with it, so the boys,
dropping their spades for axes, went to work with a _vim_, Col. Aspinwall
himself setting the example, while each company did its best to outdo the
others; and soon the big hickories, two and three feet in diameter, were
crashing in all directions, shaking the very ground with their fall. This,
by-the-by, was the "heavy cannonading at Harrisburg," which was
telegraphed on to the New York papers, where it greeted our wondering eyes
in print the next afternoon.

_Of course_ the people of the vicinity lent their experienced arms to
assist in obstructing the march of the enemy; the deputation of patriots
present, up to seven o'clock P. M