Headquarters of the Field Officer of the Trenches

Officers and men gather before a sandbag bombproof — a drum on the sand, a heavy shell stood upright like a gatepost, one man in white shirtsleeves — at the headquarters of the field officer of the trenches.

The post was real and dangerous: a rotating command over the advanced works, close enough to the enemy to be shot at by name. The almanac's siege entries carry one holder of such a charge — Lieutenant Colonel Purviance of the 85th Pennsylvania, commanding the special guard of the advanced trenches — killed by a fragment of his own side's shells in the bright moonlight of 30 August 1863.