t, "I see a shell coming this way," at the smoke of a
gun, and have everybody seeking shelter, when no sound of a shell would
follow, the missile having gone into the woods half a mile to our
right or left.

I grew more attached to Willis. If the Army of the Potomac had in its
ranks any better soldier than this big red-beaded sergeant, I never saw
him. He was ready for any duty, no matter what: to lead a picket squad
into its pits under fire; to serve all night on the skirmish detail in
place of a sick friend; to dig and shoot and laugh, and swear, in
everything he was simply superb. That I do not quote his cuss-words must
not be taken as an indication, that they were commonplace. Everything he
did he did with, his might, almost violently. He was a good shot, too,
within the range of the smooth-bore. The rebel pickets--most of
them--seemed to be better armed than we were; it was said that they had
received some cargoes of long Enfields--nine hundred yards' range,
according to the marked sights, and no telling how far beyond--by
blockade-runners. They could keep us down behind the pits while they
would walk about as they chose, unless a shell from one of our batteries
was flung at them, in which case they showed that they, too, had been
studying the dodging lesson. Willis was greatly disgruntled over the
fact that the rebels were the better armed, and frequently his temper
got the upper hand of him. A bullet went through his hat one day when he
was trying vainly to pick off a man in a rifle-pit; Willis's bullet
would cut the dirt a hundred yards too short; the Enfield Minie ball
would go a-kiting over our heads and making men far to our rear look
out. Sometimes Willis was very gloomy, and I attributed this condition
to his passion for Lydia, though, on such a subject he never opened his
mouth to me.

One dark rainy night, about the 21st, I believe, Willis and I were both
on the picket detail. It came my time for vedette duty, and Willis was
the sergeant to do the escort act. There had been skirmishing on this
part of the line the preceding day, but at sunset, or the hour for
sunset if the weather had been fair, the firing had ceased as we marched
up and relieved the old pickets. We were in the woods, the most of us,
but just here, on the right of our own detail, there were a few
rifle-pits in the open, the opposing skirmish, lines being perhaps four
hundred yards apart, and our vedette posts--we maintained them only at