Mail was to leave the camp at 12 today; sat down to write a
letter before I was ½ through was detailed to take charge of a squad of 30 men
with spades for fatigue & report with them at Div Hd. qtrs. I reported with
the detail at 11. A. M. some mistake had been made with reference to the detail
as the A. A. G. expicted my detail to have axes. waited with the men until he
rode to Brig. Hd. qtrs to ascertain how the mistake had occurred, he returned
at 12, M. & ordered me to report at a two gun battery. on the left &
near Spanish fort. I found the battery & put the men to work to finish it.
The 1st Ind heavy Artilery mount 2 30 lb Parrots here while we are at work.
These guns are intended to play on the Rebel water battery which annoys us more
than all their other guns, while we were at work a staff officer rode around
giving orders for all the batteries around the whole line to open out at 5 P.
M. & fire 40 ronds to each gun, with intervals of 3 mins. finished the
battery a little before 4. but had to hold the detail to tear down a breastwork
in front of it which was to come down just before time to open out, at 20 mins
before 5 Capt of Battery ordered the work down, men all worked lively as there
was danger of the Rebs firing on the party, two men having been wounded here
yesterday. Just 3 mins before 5 finished that job & falling the men in
started for camp about ¾ mile distant & if the Rebs replied to our
batteries in point blank range, had not advanced from the battery more than 200
yds until the whole part of our line was ablaze, walked fast to camp. Rebs did
not reply & no accidents occurred. after arrived in camp the Jonnies lifted
a few shot over, they tried to sharpshoot our gunners from their fort &
sent the balls uncomfortably close. The 33d Mo. & 35th Iowa & 12th Iowa
moved in this evening again to our camp our Brig is ordered to the left to fill
the places of these Regts. At 8. P. M. fall in & move in the darkness with
a little sprinkle of rain 1 mile to the left of our camp, find very poor
quarters, lie down almost anywhere for the night.
SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa
Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923,
p. 583-4
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