Each man found what shelter was nearest.  I was behind a tent.  The Yankee skirmishers were just beyond a little valley, behind trees on the opposite hill, about two hundred yards from us.  I could see them looking out from behind the trees and firing.  I took good aim at one and pulled the trigger; his bullet came back at me; I loaded and fired; I saw him no more, but I could see the smoke shoot out from the side of the tree and hear his bullet sing.  I thought that I ought to have hit him; I saw him again, and fired, and missed.  Then I carefully considered the distance, and concluded that it was greater than I had first thought.  I raised the sliding sight to three hundred yards, and fired again at the man, whom I could now see distinctly.  A man dropped or leaped from the tree, and I saw him no more; neither did I see again the man behind the tree.

We had had losses.  Veitch and Crawford had been shot fatally; other men slightly.  The sun was shining hot upon us.  The brigade was behind us, waiting for us to dislodge the skirmishers.  Suddenly I heard Captain Haskell’s voice ordering us forward at double-quick.  We ran down the hill into the valley below; there we found a shallow creek with steep banks covered with briers.  We beat down the briers with our guns, and scrambled through to the other side of the creek in time to see the Yankees run scattering through the woods and away.  We reached their position and rested while the brigade found a crossing and formed again in our rear.  I searched for a wounded man at the foot of a tree, but found none; yet I felt sure that I had fired over my man and had knocked another out from the tree above him.

We advanced again, and had a running fight for an hour or more.  At length no Yankees were to be seen; doubtless they had completed the withdrawing of their outposts, and we were not to find them again until we should strike their main lines.

Now we advanced for a long distance; troops—­no doubt Jackson’s—­could be seen at intervals marching rapidly on our left, marching forward and yet at a distance from our own line.  We reached an elevated clearing, and halted.  The brigade came up, and we returned to our position in the line of battle—­on the left of the First.  It was about three o’clock; to the right, far away, we could hear the pounding of artillery, while to the southeast, somewhere near the centre of Lee’s lines, on the other side of the Chickahominy perhaps, the noise of battle rose and fell.  Shells from our front came among us.  A battery—­Crenshaw’s—­galloped headlong into position on the right of the brigade, and began firing.  The line of infantry hugged the ground.

Three hundred yards in front the surface sloped downward to a hollow; the slope and the hollow were covered with forest; what was on the hill beyond we could not see, but the Yankee batteries were there and at work.  A caisson of Crenshaw’s exploded.  Troops were coming into line far to our right.