"The enemy, coming up upon the left of the fourth gun, it was sometime before we could get a fair shot at them. It will be remembered that the fourth gun was some distance in front of the main line, occupying a single redoubt, and, in order to protect the cannoneers from the enemy’s skirmishers, occupying on our left higher ground than we did, our left salient was heightened so we could not fire over it. They charged in line of battle but, for some reason, they changed into column—the head of the column was not over twenty yards from the muzzle of the fourth gun, doubled charged with canister, when we fired the first shot. When using canister the flame from the gun seems to go much farther than when using any other projectile, and it looked to me as if the flame from our gun ran half way down their line. We fired seventeen rounds of canister into that column and its advance was stopped. Lieutenant Carter, seeing this charge before we did, he being stationed some distance to our right, and thinking we were asleep, sent a cannoneer to wake us up. We could not fire any sooner, but when we did get to work we went in a hurry. An officer told me that we fired the first eleven shots in one minute. Our boys showed no signs of wavering, but stood firmly to their posts and made the “prettiest fight” on record.
The enemy were charging at “a right shoulder shift,” and did not fire at all. Many a blue coated Federal was left on the field, and a good number came into our lines, surrendering."
From: "A Diary of the War, Or What I Saw of It"
William S. White