FALL OF A SHELL AT THE CORNER OF MY CAVE--MUSIC--CASUALTIES OF THE DAY.
I was sitting near the entrance, about five o'clock, thinking of the
pleasant change--oh, bless me!--that to-morrow would bring, when the
bombardment commenced more furiously than usual, the shells falling
thickly around us, causing vast columns of earth to fly upward, mingled
with smoke. As usual, I was uncertain whether to remain within or run out.
As the rocking and trembling of the earth was very distinctly felt, and
the explosions alarmingly near, I stood within the mouth of the cave ready
to make my escape, should one chance to fall above our domicile. In my
anxiety I was startled by the shouts of the servants and a most fearful
jar and rocking of the earth, followed by a deafening explosion, such as I
had never heard before. The cave filled instantly with powder smoke and
dust. I stood with a tingling, prickling sensation in my head, hands, and
feet, and with a confused brain. Yet alive!--was the first glad thought
that came to me;--child, servants, all here, and saved!--from some great
danger, I felt. I stepped out, to find a group of persons before my cave,
looking anxiously for me; and lying all around, freshly torn, rose bushes,
arbor-vitae trees, large clods of earth, splinters, pieces of plank, wood,
&c. A mortar shell had struck the corner of the cave, fortunately so near
the brow of the hill, that it had gone obliquely into the earth, exploding
as it went, breaking large masses from the side of the hill--tearing away
the fence, the shrubbery and flowers--sweeping all, like an avalanche,
down near the entrance of my good refuge.
I stood dismayed, and surveyed the havoc that had been made around me,
while our little family under it all had been mercifully preserved. Though
many of the neighboring servants had been standing near at the time, not
one had been injured in the slightest degree; yet, pieces of plank,
fragments of earth, and splinters had fallen in all directions. A portion
of earth from the roof of my cave had been dislodged and fallen. Saving
this, it remained intact.
That evening some friends sat with me: one took up my guitar and played
some pretty little airs for us; yet, the noise of the shells threw a
discord among the harmonies. To me it seemed like the crushing and bitter
spirit of hate near the light and grace of happiness. How could we sing
and laugh amid our suffering fellow beings--amid the shriek of death
itself?
This, only breaking the daily monotony of our lives!--this thrilling
knowledge of sudden and horrible death occurring near us, told to-night
and forgotten in to-morrow's renewal!--this sad news of a Vicksburg day! A
little negro child, playing in the yard, had found a shell; in rolling and
turning it, had innocently pounded the fuse; the terrible explosion
followed, showing, as the white cloud of smoke floated away, the mangled
remains of a life that to the mother's heart had possessed all of beauty
and joy.
A young girl, becoming weary in the confinement of the cave, hastily ran
to the house in the interval that elapsed between the slowly falling
shells. On returning, an explosion sounded near her--one wild scream, and
she ran into her mother's presence, sinking like a wounded dove, the life
blood flowing over the light summer dress in crimson ripples from a
death-wound in her side, caused by the shell fragment.
A fragment had also struck and broken the arm of a little boy playing near
the mouth of his mother's cave. This was one day's account.
I told of my little girl's great distress when the shells fell thickly
near us--how she ran to me breathless, hiding her head in my dress without
a word; then cautiously looking out, with her anxious face questioning,
would say: "Oh! mamma, was it a mortar tell?" Poor children, that their
little hearts should suffer and quail amid these daily horrors of war!
The next evening, about four o'clock, M----'s dear face appeared. He told
us that he had heard of all the danger through which we had passed, and
was extremely anxious to have us out of reach of the mortar shells, and
near him; he also thought we would find our new home on the battle field
far superior to this; he wished us to go out as soon as possible. As at
this hour in the evening, for the last week, the Federal guns had been
quiet until almost sundown, he urged me to be ready in the shortest time
possible; so I hastened our arrangements, and we soon were in the
ambulance, driving with great speed toward the rifle pits.
O the beautiful sunlight and the fresh evening air! How glowing and
delightful it all seemed after my incarceration under the earth! I turned
to look again and again at the setting sun and the brilliant crimson glow
that suffused the atmosphere. All seemed glad and radiant: the sky--the
flowers and trees along our drive--the cool and fragrant breeze--all, save
now and then the sullen boom of the mortar, as it slowly cast its
death-dealing shell over the life we were leaving behind us.
Were it not for the poor souls still within, I could have clapped my hands
in a glad, defiant jubilee as I heard the reports, for I thought I was
leaving my greatest fear of our old enemy in the desolate cave of which I
had taken my last contemptuous glance; yet, the fear returned forcibly to
me afterward.