else done. On the 19th and 22d, when the assaults were made on
the lines, I watched the soldiers cooking on the green opposite. The
half-spent balls coming all the way from those lines were flying so thick
that they were obliged to dodge at every turn. At all the caves I could
see from my high perch, people were sitting, eating their poor suppers at
the cave doors, ready to plunge in again. As the first shell again flew
they dived, and not a human being was visible. The sharp crackle of the
musketry-firing was a strong contrast to the scream of the bombs. I think
all the dogs and cats must be killed or starved, we don't see any more
pitiful animals prowling around.... The cellar is so damp and musty the
bedding has to be carried out and laid in the sun every day, with the
forecast that it may be demolished at any moment. The confinement is
dreadful. To sit and listen as if waiting for death in a horrible manner
would drive me insane. I don't know what others do, but we read when I am
not scribbling in this. H. borrowed somewhere a lot of Dickens's novels,
and we reread them by the dim light in the cellar. When the shelling
abates H. goes to walk about a little or get the "Daily Citizen," which is
still issuing a tiny sheet at twenty-five and fifty cents a copy. It is,
of course, but a rehash of speculations which amuses half an hour. To-day
we heard while out that expert swimmers are crossing the Mississippi on
logs at night to bring and carry news to Johnston. I am so tired of
corn-bread, which I never liked, that I eat it with tears in my eyes. We
are lucky to get a quart of milk daily from a family near who have a cow
they hourly expect to be killed. I send five dollars to market each
morning, and it buys a small piece of mule-meat. Rice and milk is my main
food; I can't eat the mule-meat. We boil the rice and eat it cold with
milk for supper. Martha runs the gauntlet to buy the meat and milk once a
day in a perfect terror. The shells seem to have many different names; I
hear the soldiers say, "That's a mortar-shell. There goes a Parrott.
That's a rifle-shell." They are all equally terrible. A pair of
chimney-swallows have built in the parlor chimney. The concussion of the
house often sends down parts of their nest, which they patiently pick up
and reascend with.

_Friday, June 5th, 1863. (In the cellar.)_--Wednesday evening H. said he
must take a little walk, and went while the shelling had stopped. He never
leaves m