ch were now not more than fifty yards
apart, or our breastwork, "crack!" went a rifle, a dull thud, and
one of our men lay dead. It is astonishing how apt soldiers are
in avoiding danger or warding it off, and what obstacles they can
overcome, what work they can accomplish and with so few and ill
assortment of tools when the necessity arises. To guard against the
shells that were continually dropping in our midst or outside of
our works, the soldiers began burrowing like rabbits in rear of our
earthworks and building covered ways from their breastwork to the
ground below. In a few days men could go the length of a regiment
without being exposed in the least, crawling along the tunnels all
dug with bayonets, knives, and a few wornout shovels. At some of these
angles the passer-by would be exposed, and in going from one opening
to another, only taking the fraction of a second to accomplish, a
bullet would come whizzing from some unseen source, either to the
right or left. As soon as one of these openings under a covered
way would be darkened by some one passing, away a bullet would come
singing in the aperture, generally striking the soldier passing
through. So annoying and dangerous had the practice become of shooting
in our works from an unseen source that a detail of ten or twenty men
was sent out under Lieutenant D.J. Griffith, of the Fifteenth, to
see if the concealed enemy might not be located and an end put to
the annoyance. Griffith and his men crept along cautiously in the
underbrush, while some of our men would wave a blanket across the
exposed places in the breastwork to draw the Federal fire, while
Griffith and his detail kept a sharp lookout. It was not long before
they discovered the hidden "Yank" perched in the top of a tall gum
tree, his rifle resting in the fork of a limb. Griffith got as close
as he well could without danger of being detected by some one under
the tree. When all was ready they sighted their rifles at the fellow
up the tree and waited his next fire. When it did come I expect
that Yankee and his comrades below were the worst surprised of any
throughout the war; for no sooner had his gun flashed than ten rifles
rang out in answer and the fellow fell headlong to the ground, a
distance of fifty feet or more. Beating the air with his hands and
feet, grasping at everything within sight or reach, his body rolling
and tumbling among the limbs of the tree, his head at times up, at
others down, til