The Rebs in front of us fired but little during the night,
they shelled our working party at the 6 gun battery close by us from the mortar
battery. In the Afternoon, I worked the men some. The Rebs were quieter than
usual all day, our batteries give them a few rounds in the evening. After dark
the mortar battery of the Rebs opens on our working party again. Several bombs
are thrown at it by our mortar batteries. Some think by the signs of the times
that the Jonnies are silently leaving the place, the news from Grant Sherman
& Thomas is good, in honor of which successes by order of Genl Canby a
salute of 100 guns is fired by the Gunboats & the land batteries. I am told
by those who had an opportunity to know, that during the cannonading the
evening of the 4th something blew up in Spanish fort throwing 5 men 10 or 15 ft
above the work. Men on picket that night say they said 16 men carried out of
the same fort & buried. The battery men say the cannonading killed &
wounded 100 rebels. I don't know how they get their information. I am relieved
at 8. P. M. by co "C" & march the co to camp, find supper ready.
Temp & I put up our tent gather bedding and retire at 11. P. M. at which
hour shells are flying freely on the right & centre.
SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, 33rd Iowa
Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 13, No. 8, April 1923,
p. 584-5
