Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/346

 340 Southern Historical Socieft/ Fapers.

on the morning of the 6th, and permanently disabhng a rifled 24- pounder on the evening of the same day. This artillery practice was probably equal, if not superior, to anything which has ever been ac- complished of the kind, the distance being from one thousand to four- teen hundred yards.

Our guns on the river side were now reduced to seven, and the lower batteries were screened with brush, while the upper guns only engaged the Parrotts. We had been obliged to mask most of our guns on the land side for some time back, so many of them having been disabled. Every extra gun-carriage in the place had been used up, and those in service were all patched and repaired as much as they could be. There were a number of broken guns or pieces of ord- nance without carriages, which were fastened upon blocks and put in masked positions where they could be used m cases of emergency. Most of them were crammed with bags containing a motley assort- ment of old bullets, nails, pieces of horseshoes, bits of iron chain, etc., which were to be fired in the face of a storming party, it being of little consequence whether the disabled guns were good for another discharge or not.

On the evening of the 3d of July, a long line of troops was d covered bivouacking in line of battle opposite our left centre, and every one was confident that before daylight we would be attacked on every side, but the day wore on and everything was going on as usual, the sharpshooting commencing as soon as the fog lifted.

AN APPROACHING STRUGGLE.

The approach of the enemy to Battery 1 1 was slow enough to cause us to doubt, at last, our previous suppositions that they in- tended to blow up the point. They had been engaged since the 3d on a work of which, at first, we could not understand the nature, but as it gradually rose in height it became evident to us that it waS; to be an elevated mound — was to be used as a tower for their sharp- shooters to fire down into our work.

This point of land, running out beyond our natural line of de- fence to within one hundred yards of a high ridge held by the enemy, flanked on its weaker side by the fleet, and almost entirely unsup- ported by any other fortification, had always been considered a weak i point with us, and it could not be i)ermanently held without a loss that would be severely felt by our weakened garrison.