"The fighting had assumed a terrific onslaught from the pouring of shot and shell from the Confederates' fortifications; after Jones had discharged thirty-eight rounds with his Springfield rifle, Jones received a gunshot wound from the enemy's breastworks, a minnie ball passing straight through his left foot, felling him to the ground; he suddenly raised himself and hobbled on one foot to a tree, leaning against it for support. He continued firing several more rounds, then becoming weak and faint he turned to hop a few steps to a small stream for water; as he did so, the explosion of a bomb shell from the Confederates' fortifications blew Sergeant Jones high in the air, landing him on his back thirty feet distant, on the frozen ground, on the elevated bank across the creek; comrades hurried to his aid, finding him unconscious and blood gushing from his side, which was mutilated in a terrible manner. After examining him they passed on, reporting their comrade dead, the shell cutting a ghastly hole in his right side, tearing a large portion of his hip bone away - but he was only unconscious. Jones thought, when the shell struck him, that he was cut literally in two, but when he came to, he was surprised to find that he had only lost part of his right hip and was awake to the fact that the shot and shell were flying thick, ploughing the ground around him, one ball bearing through the sleeve of his coat, and a bombshell whistling through the air, striking the ground close to him, throwing flakes of frozen dirt on him. Realizing he was in imminent danger, being in direct line of the enemy's artillery and sharpshooters, although completely paralyzed from his waist down, yet with his energy and will power, he reached his hands over his shoulders, with his head upturned clinching to the grass, frozen hubbles and twigs; in this manner he pulled himself on his back, head first, down to the bank of the creek; he was still in danger. In order to further shield himself, with his head turned up stream, he caught hold of a weeping willow limb overhanging the water, then pulled until his wounded and paralyzed body and limbs rolled into the swift current of the stream; there he clung with one hand with a deathly grip to the willow twig, and the other hand under his head holding it up to keep his mouth and nose above the water, while the gushing stream of icy water swayed his wounded body to and fro. It was a terrible shock, and risk, to gain a place of safety, from the firing line, and as time passed on, growing weak and numb in the icy water, what could he do? To be continued.........Connie