the troops, coming down the road with their
rifled guns and field mortars. Bushrod Johnston had filed to the left
of the road and gotten out of range, but the screaming shells kept up
a continual whiz through the ranks of Kershaw. The men hurried along
the road to seek shelter under a bluff in our front, along the base
of which ran a small streamlet. The greater portion of the brigade was
here huddled together in a jam, to avoid the shells flying overhead.
The enemy must have had presage of our position, for they began
throwing shells up in the air from their mortars and dropping them
down upon us, but most fell beyond, while a great many exploded in
the air. We could see the shells on their downward flight, and the men
pushed still closer together and nearer the cliff. Here the soldier
witnessed one of those incidents so often seen in army life that makes
him feel that at times his life is protected by a hand of some hidden,
unseen power. His escape from death so often appears miraculous that
the soldier feels from first to last that he is but "in the hollow of
His hand," and learns to trust all to chance and Providence.

As a shell from a mortar came tumbling over and over, just above the
heads of this mass of humanity, a shout went up from those farther
back, "Look out! Look out! There comes a shell." Lower and lower
it came, all feeling their hopelessness of escape, should the shell
explode in their midst. Some tried to push backwards; others, forward,
while a great many crowded around and under an ambulance, to which
was hitched an old broken down horse, standing perfectly still and
indifferent, and all oblivious to his surroundings. The men gritted
their teeth, shrugged their shoulders, and waited in death-like
suspense the falling of the fatal messenger--that peculiar, whirling,
hissing sound growing nearer and more distinct every second. But
instead of falling among the men, it fell directly upon the head
of the old horse, severing it almost from the body, but failed to
explode. The jam was so great that some had difficulty in clearing
themselves from the falling horse. Who of us are prepared to say
whether this was mere chance, or that the bolt was guided and directed
by an invisible hand?

Bushrod Johnston had formed on the left of the road; Kershaw marching
over the crest of the hill in our front, and putting his brigade in
line of battle on a broad plateau and along the foot hills of the
mountains on the