we had fought
that day, and the soldiers were ordered to fortify. The Second and
Third on the left were on an incline leading to a ravine in front of a
thicket; the Fifteenth and Twentieth, on the right of the Third, were
on the brow of a plateau; in front was the broad old field, through
which we had marched to the first advance; the Third Battalion,
Eighth, and Seventh, on extreme right, were on the plateau and fronted
by a thicket of tall pines.

As nearly all regimental commanders had been killed since the 6th of
May, I will give them as they existed on the 1st of June, three weeks
later:

Second--Major Wm. Wallace.
Third--Lieutenant Colonel W.D. Rutherford.
Seventh--Captain James Mitchel.
Eighth--Major E.S. Stackhouse.
Twentieth--Lieutenant Colonel S.M. Boykin.
Third Battalion--Captain Whitener.
Brigade Commander--Colonel James Henagan.

Grant stretched his lines across our front and began approaching
our works with his formidable parallels. He would erect one line of
breastworks, then under cover of night, another a hundred or two yards
nearer us; thus by the third of June our lines were not one hundred
yards apart in places. Our pickets and those of the enemy were between
the lines down in their pits, with some brush in front to shield them
while on the look out. The least shadow or moving of the branches
would be sure to bring a rifle ball singing dangerously near one's
head--if he escaped it at all. The service in the pits here for two
weeks was the most enormous and fatiguing of any in the service--four
men being in a pit for twenty-four hours in the broiling sun during
the day, without any protection whatever, and the pit was so small
that one could neither sit erect nor lie down.

Early on the morning of the 3rd of June, just three days after our
fiasco at Cold Harbor, Grant moved his forces for the assault. This
was to be the culmination of his plan to break through Lee's lines or
to change his plans of campaign and settle down to a regular siege.
Away to our right the battle commenced. Heavy shelling on both sides.
Then the musketry began to roll along in a regular wave, coming nearer
and nearer as new columns moved to the assault. Now it reaches our
front, and the enemy moves steadily upon our works. The cheering on
our right told of the repulse by our forces, and had a discouraging
effect upon the Federal troops moving against us. As soon as their
skirmish line made it