Major Wood, Fifteenth Indiana, thought he heard chopping last night, and imagined that the enemy was engaged in cutting a road to our rear.
Lieutenant Driscoll and party returned to-day. They slept on the mountains last night; were inside the enemy's picket lines; heard reveille sounded this morning, but could not obtain a view of the camp.
Have just returned from a sixteen-mile ride, visiting picket posts. The latter half of the ride was after nightfall. Found officers and men vigilant and ready to meet an attack.
Obtained some fine huckleberries and blackberries on the mountain to-day. Had a blackberry pie and pudding for dinner. Rather too much happiness for one day; but then the crust of the pudding was tolerably tough. The grass is a foot high in parts of my tent, where it has not been trodden down, and the gentle grasshopper makes music all the day, and likewise all the night.
Our fortifications are progressing slowly. If the enemy intends to attack at all, he will probably do so before they are complete; and if he does not, the fortifications will be of no use to us. But this is the philosophy of a lazy man, and very similar to that of the Irishman who did not put roof on his cabin: when it rained he could not, and in fair weather he did not need it.
SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 47-8
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