of sweet-clover blossoms. I had laid my head upon my arm, and shut my
eyes, and felt drowsiness come upon me, when something hurtled through
the air, and another gun boomed on the stillness. A shell, describing an
arc of fire, fell some distance to our left, and, in a moment, a second
shell passed directly over our heads.

"----!" said an officer; "have they moved a battery so close? See! it is
just at the end of this field!"

I looked back! At the top of the basin in which we lay, something
flashed up, throwing a glare upon the woody background, and a shell,
followed by a shock, crashed ricochetting, directly in a line with us,
but leaped, fortunately, above us, and continued its course far beyond.

"They mean 'em for us," said the same voice; "they see these lights
where the fools have been warming their coffee. Halloo!"

Another glare of fire revealed the grouped men and horses around the
battery, and for a moment I thought the missile had struck among us.
There was a splutter, as of shivering metal flying about, and, with a
sort of intuition, the whole regiment rose and ran. I started to my feet
and looked for my horse. His ears were erect, his eyeballs distended,
and his nostrils were tremulous with fright. A fifth shell, so perfectly
in range that I held my breath, and felt my heart grow cold, came toward
and passed me, and, with a toss of his head, the nag flung up the rail
as if it had been a feather. He seemed literally to juggle it, and it
flitted here and there, so that I dared not approach him. A favorable
opportunity at length ensued, and I seized the animal by his halter. He
was now wild with panic, and sprang toward me as if to trample me. In
vain I endeavored to pull him toward the saddle. Fresh projectiles
darted beside and above us, and the last of these seemed to pass so
close that I could have reached and touched it. The panic took
possession of me. I grasped my camp-bed, rather by instinct than by
choice, and, holding it desperately under my arm, took to my heels.

It was a long distance to the bottom of the clover-field, and the swift
iron followed me remorselessly. At one moment, when a shell burst full
in my face, half blinding me, I felt weak to faintness, but still I ran.
I had wit enough to avoid the high road, which I knew to be packed with
fugitives, and down which, I properly surmised, the enemy would send his
steady messengers. Once I fell into a ditch, and the breath was knocked
out