We passed over the hill and through a little skirt of woods.
The enemy were fortified right across the Franklin pike, in the suburbs of the town.

Right here in these woods a detail of skirmishers was called for.

Our regiment was detailed.

We deployed as skirmishers, firing as we advanced on the left of the turnpike road.

If I had not been a skirmisher on that day, I would not have been writing this today, in the year of our Lord 1882.
It was four o'clock on that dark and dismal December day when the line of battle was formed, and those devoted heroes were ordered forward, to "Strike for their altars and their fires, For the green graves of their sires, For God and their native land." As they marched on down through an open field toward the rampart of blood and death, the Federal batteries began to open and mow down and gather into the garner of death, as brave, and good, and pure spirits as the world ever saw.