Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/319

 Fortification and Siege of Port Hudson. 313

AN ATTACK ON THE FLEET,

On the 9th, Colonel de Gournay sent to Troth's landing one 24- pounder, one 20-pounder Parrott, one 12 pounder and one 6-pounder rifle pieces to fire on the gun-boats. Thirty rounds of ammunition were allowed for the larger guns arid fifty for the smaller — Captain L. J. Girard having command of one section. All but the two outer mortar boats were concealed by a neck of woods, but the Essex was lying close up, and the Richmond 2ind a gun-boat were at a short dis- tance. At four o'clock in the morning, by the dim light of a half moon, the fight commenced. At the end of two hours and a half we had fired away all our ammunition, and ceased fire; the enemy fol- lowed suit.

Our loss was one killed and no one wounded. None of our guns were injured.

Our weight of metal was not heavy enough to attack such vessels as the Richmond and Essex, and we could not get a position where we could reach the mortar boats with any effect.

On the same night occurred the first loss of life from the bomb- shells. A soldier, standing on the parapet of Battery No. 9, was struck about the neck by a descending shell, carrying him head fore- most through the wooden floor of the battery into the ground be- neath, leaving only his feet sticking out. On the afternoon of the 17th of May, a bomb-shell entered near the crest of a parapet, at the lower part of the fortification, burying itself in the ground under- neath a spot where four men of Colonel de Gournay' s command were sitting. The shell exploding, threw thein into the air, killing three and wounding the fourth. Two other soldiers lost legs by being struck with pieces of burstmg shells, and this is the entire chapter of casualties caused by forty- three days' bombardment

THE FIGHT AT PLAINS' S STORE.

On the 20th of May, the approach of General Augur's division was announced by some slight brushes with our cavalry pickets, and the same night General Banks commenced crossing the river with his army at Bayou Sara. On the 21st Colonel Powers, with a body of our cavalry, a few companies of infantry and Abbay's Mississippi battery of light artillery, were skirmishing pretty heavily all the morning near Plains's store with Augur's advance — General Dudley's brigade. To relieve Colonel Powers' s cavalry, and enable them to