Today one month ago I left off my diary and in consequence I will have to give another detail of affairs, promiscuously, without reference to data. We remained a day or two after June 14th at Bermuda Hundreds, when it was found out that Grant had changed his base again and was moving his hoard again to Petersburg. This caused considerable excitement and we immediately got ready to move our quarters. Soon one morning, before the day, we abandoned our works, which in one hour after we left, were teeming with Yankees and we marched to Petersburg, where the enemy were already knocking away at our works, and had so far been successfully repulsed. As we arrived on the outskirts of town, we could hear the cannons booming forth from the works on the opposite side of town, together with the sharp crack of our rifles. We were not stopped in town a minute, not even to rest, but marched straight thru until we were in the vicinity of our works, when we were halted in a pine grove and bivouacked for the night. Here we remained for the greater part of the following day and I found out that I was in half mile of my Uncle Avery’s house. My old Aunt Sally sent us a nice snack of something to eat. They day after we got to Petersburg we marched to the breastworks and took our position just at Mr. Rive’s house, which the enemy had burned a day or two before in their raid. Here we were to support a battery. About dark that evening a terrific battle began on our left, boom after boom went from the big guns, intermingled with the most incessant rattle of musketry that I had ever heard. The Yankees were making desperate attempts to take our works, and we could hear distinctly the Yankees shout as they charged, and our boy’s defiant yell in return. It was a grand panorama and to those not engaged, but who expected to be at any moment, its as peculiarly interesting. To add to the excitement we saw crowds of our boys beginning to fall back in our front, and when they came up found out that it was a battery from Macon, Georgia, which had lost it’s guns. The enemy had succeeded in penetrating our lines here and captured their guns. This was bad news, and we confidently expected to move forward to retake the works, but no such order came and remained stationary. A while after dark, the firing ceased and we slept the rest of the night. In the morning we marched out and took position in the front line of works, but the works were badly constructed and enabled the enemy to flank fire the whole line, so we were compelled to throw up traverses. Here they shelled us all day and kill our Adjutant, J.W. Connor, and another man of Company A. At dark it was understood that we were to give up this line of works and fall back a short distance and build a new line, and a more contracted one. We had been started on picket, but were just posted when we were ordered back and immediately commenced leaving the works silently and secretly. As we got out into the Jerusalem Plank Road, a sharp fight was going on around Taylor’s house on top of the hill and we expected to march up to battle every moment, but we lay in the road until nearly day when we fell back to the top of the hill, this side of the branch, and marching half way between the Rive’s house, commenced throwing up breastworks, so here it may be said, commenced our life in the ditches. We worked with a will, and then dawn of day found us behind good breastworks. Our pickets were still in our front, and we could hear them and the Yankees skirmishing. We continued to improve our works until we had them completed. Nothing of importance took place that day but the morrow was the eventful day. The enemy’s sharpshooters began to bother us considerable and they kept busy putting their guns in position all day when they opened their batteries on us, raining shot and shell and between them and the sharpshooters, we lost several men wounded.
