A DESPERATE ATTACK AND A SUCCESSFUL DEFENCE.
While it was still darkness Lillie was awakened from her sleep by an
all-pervading, startling, savage uproar. Through the hot night came
tramplings and yellings of a rebel brigade; roaring of
twenty-four-pounders and whirring of grape from the bastions of the
fort; roaring of hundred-pounders and flight of shrieking, cracking,
flashing shells from the gunboats; incessant spattering and fiery
spitting of musketry, with whistling and humming of bullets; and,
constant through all, the demoniac yell advancing like the howl of an
infernal tide. Bedlam, pandemonium, all the maniacs of earth and all the
fiends of hell, seemed to have combined in riot amidst the crashings of
storm and volcano. The clamor came with the suddenness and continued
with more than the rage of a tornado. Lillie had never imagined anything
so unearthly and horrible. She called loudly for her father, and was
positively astonished to hear his voice close at her side, so strangely
did the familiar tones sound in that brutal uproar.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It must be the assault," he replied, astonished into telling the
alarming truth. "I will step out and take a look."
"You shall not," she exclaimed, clutching him. "What if you should be
hit!"
"My dear, don't be childish," remonstrated the Doctor. "It is my duty to
attend to the wounded. I am the only surgeon in the fort. Just consider
the ingratitude of neglecting these brave fellows who are fighting for
our safety."
"Will you promise not to get hurt?"
"Certainly, my dear."
"Will you come back every five minutes and let me see you?"
"Yes, my dear. I'll keep you informed of everything that happens."
She thought a few moments, and gradually loosened her hold on him. Her
curiosity, her anxiety to know how this terrible drama went on, helped
her to be brave and to spare him. As soon as her fingers had unclosed
from his sleeve he crept to where his rifle stood and softly, seized it;
and in so doing he stepped on the recumbent Gazaway, who groaned,
whereupon the Doctor politely apologized. As he stepped out of the
building he distinguished Colburne's voice on the river front, shouting,
"This way, men!" In that direction ran the Doctor, holding his rifle in
both hands, at something like the position of a charge bayonet, with his
thumb on the trigger so as to be ready for immediate conflict. Suddenly
bang! went the piece at an angle of forty-five degrees, sending its ball
clean across the Mississippi, and causing a veteran sergeant near him to
inquire "what the hell he was about."
"Really, that explosion was quite extraordinary," said the surprised
Doctor. "I had not the least intention of firing. Would you, sir, have
the goodness to load it for me?"
But the sergeant was in a hurry, and ran on without answering. The
Doctor began to finger his cartridge-box in a wild way, intending to get
out a cartridge if he could, when a faint voice near him said, "I'll
load your gun for you, sir."
"_Would_ you be so kind?" replied the Doctor, delighted. "I am so
dreadfully inexperienced in these operations! I am quite sorry to
trouble you."
The sick man--one of the invalids whom Gazaway had brought from New
Orleans--loaded the piece, capped it, and added some brief instructions
in the mysteries of half-cock and full-cock.
"Really you are very good. I am quite obliged," said the Doctor, and
hurried on to the river front, guided by the voice of Colburne. At the
rampart he tried to shoot one of our men who was coming up wounded from
the palisade, and would probably have succeeded, but that the lock of
his gun would not work. Colburne stopped him in this well-intentioned
but mistaken labor, saying, "Those are our people." Then, "Your gun is
at half-cock.--There.--Now keep your finger off the trigger until you
see a rebel."
Then shouting, "Forward, men!" he ran down to the palisade followed by
twenty or thirty, of whom one was the Doctor.
The assailing brigade, debouching from the woods half a mile away from
the front, had advanced in a wide front across the flat, losing scarcely
any men by the fire of the artillery, although many, shaken by the
horrible screeching of the hundred-pound shells, threw themselves on the
ground in the darkness or sought the frail shelter of the scattered
dwellings. Thus diminished in numbers and broken up by night and
obstacles and the differing speed of running men, the brigade reached
the fort, not an organization, but a confused swarm, flowing along the
edge of the ditch to right and left in search of an entrance. There was
a constant spattering of flashes, as individuals returned the steady
fire of the garrison; and the sharp clean whistle of round bullets and
buckshot mingled in the thick warm air with the hoarse whiz of Minies.
Now and then an angry shout or wailing scream indicated that some one
had been hit and mangled. The exhortations and oaths of the rebel
officers could be distinctly heard, as they endeavored to restore order,
to drive up stragglers, and to urge the mass forward. A few jumped or
fell into the ditch and floundered there, unable to climb up the smooth
facings of brickwork. Two or three hundred collected around the palisade
which connected the northern front with the river, some lying down and
waiting, and others firing at the woodwork or the neighboring ramparts,
while a few determined ones tried to burst open the gate by main
strength.
The Doctor put the whole length of his barrel through one of the narrow
port holes of the palisade and immediately became aware that some on the
outside had seized it and was pulling downwards. "Let go of my gun!" he
shouted instinctively, without considering the unreasonable nature of
the request. "Let go yourself, you son of a bitch!" returned the
outsider, not a whit more rational. The Doctor pulled trigger with a
sense of just indignation, and drew in his gun, the barrel bent at a
right angle and bursted. Whether he had injured the rebel or only
startled him into letting go his hold, he never knew and did not then
pause to consider. He felt his ruined weapon all over with his hands,
tried in vain to draw the ramrod, and, after bringing all his
philosophical acumen to bear on the subject, gave up the idea of
reloading. Casting about for a new armament, he observed behind him a
man lying in one of the many little gullies which seemed to slope
between the fort and the river, his eyes wide open and fixed upon the
palisade, and his right hand loosely holding a rifle. The Doctor
concluded that he was sick, or tired, or seeking shelter from the
bullets.
"Would you be good enough to lend me your gun for a few moments?" he
inquired.
The man made no reply; he was perfectly dead. The Doctor being
short-sighted and without his spectacles, and not accustomed, as yet, to
appreciating the effects of musketry, did not suspect this until he bent
over him, and saw that his woolen shirt was soaked with blood. He picked
up the rifle, guessed that it was loaded, stumbled back to the palisade,
insinuated the mere muzzle into a port-hole, and fired, with splintering
effect on the woodwork. The explosion was followed by a howl of anguish
from the exterior, which gave him a mighty throb, partly of horror and
partly of loyal satisfaction. "After all, it is only a species of
surgical operation," he thought, and proceeded to reload, according to
the best of his speed and knowledge. Suddenly he staggered under a
violent impulse, precisely as if a strong man had jerked him by the
coat-collar, and putting his hand to the spot, he found that a bullet
(nearly spent in penetrating the palisades) had punched its way through
the cloth. This was the nearest approach to a wound that he received
during the engagement.
Meantime things were going badly with the assailants. Disorganized by
the night, cut up by the musketry, demoralized by the incessant
screaming and bursting of the one-hundred-pound shells, unable to force
the palisade or cross the ditch, they rapidly lost heart, threw
themselves on the earth, took refuge behind the levees, dropped away in
squads through the covering gloom, and were, in short, repulsed. In the
course of thirty minutes, all that yelling swarm had disappeared, except
the thickly scattered dead and wounded, and a few well-covered
stragglers, who continued to fire as sharpshooters.
"We have whipped them!" shouted Colburne. "Hurrah for the old flag!"
The garrison caught the impulse of enthusiasm, and raised yell on yell
of triumph. Even the wounded ceased to feel their anguish for a moment,
and uttered a feeble shout or exclamation of gladness. The Doctor
bethought himself of his daughter, and hurried back to the brick
building to inform her of the victory. She threw herself into his arms
with a shriek of delight, and almost in the same breath reproached him
sharply for leaving her so long.
"My dear, it can't be more than five minutes," said the Doctor, fully
believing what he said, so rapidly does time pass in the excitement of
successful battle.
"Is it really over?" she asked.
"Quite so. They are rushing for the woods like pelted frogs for a
puddle. They are going in all directions, as though they were bound for
Cowes and a market. I don't believe they will ever get together again.
We have gained a magnificent victory. It is the grandest moment of my
life."
"Is Captain Colburne unhurt?" was Lillie's next question.
"Perfectly. We haven't lost a man--except one," he added, bethinking
himself of the poor fellow whose gun he had borrowed.
"Oh!" she sighed, with a long inspiration of relief, for the life of her
brave defender had become precious in her eyes.
The Doctor had absent-mindedly brought his rifle into the room, and was
much troubled with it, not caring to shock Lillie with the fact that he
had been personally engaged. He held it behind his back with one hand,
after the manner of a naughty boy who has been nearly detected in
breaking windows, and who still has a brickbat in his fist which he
dares not show, and cannot find a chance to hide. He was slyly setting
it against the wall when she discovered it.
"What!" she exclaimed. "Have you been fighting, too? You dear, darling,
wicked papa!"
She kissed him violently, and then laughed hysterically.
"I thought you were up to some mischief all the while," she added. "You
were gone a dreadful time, and I screaming and looking out for you.
Papa, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"I have reason to be. I am the most disgraceful ignoramus. I don't know
how to load my gun. I think I must have put the bullet in wrong end
first. The ramrod won't go down."
"Well, put it away now. You don't want it any more. You must take care
of the wounded."
"Wounded!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Are there any wounded?"
"Oh dear! several of them. I forgot to tell you. They are to bring them
in here. I am going to our trunks to get some linen."
The Doctor was quite astonished to find that there were a number of
wounded; for having escaped unhurt himself, he concluded that every one
else had been equally lucky, excepting, of course, the man who lay dead
in the gulley. As he laid down his gun he heard a groaning in one
corner, and went softly towards it, expecting to find one of the victims
of the conflict. Lifting up one end of a blanket, and lighting a match
to dispel the dimness, he beheld the prostrate Gazaway, his face beaded
with the perspiration of heat and terror.
"Oh!" said the Doctor, with perhaps the merest twang of contempt in the
exclamation.
"My God, Doctor!" groaned the Major. "I tell you I'm a sick man. I've
got the most awful bilious colic that ever a feller had. If you can give
me something, do, for God's sake!"
"Presently," answered Ravenel, and paid no more attention to him.
"If I could have discharged my gun," he afterwards said, in relating the
circumstance, "I should have been tempted to rid him of his bilious
colic by a surgical operation."
The floor of the little building was soon cumbered with half a dozen
injured men, and dampened with their blood. The Doctor had no
instruments, but he could probe with his finger and dress with wet
bandages. Lillie aided him, pale at the sight of blood and suffering,
but resolute to do what she could. When Colburne looked in for a moment,
she nodded to him with a sweet smile, which was meant to thank him for
having defended her.
"I am glad to see you at this work," he said. "There will be more of
it."
"What! More fighting!" exclaimed the Doctor, looking up from a shattered
finger.
"Oh yes. We mustn't hope that they will be satisfied with one assault.
There is a supporting column, of course; and it will come on soon. But
do you stay here, whatever happens. You will be of most use here."
He had scarcely disappeared when the whole air became horribly vocal,
as, with a long-drawn, screaming battle-yell, the second brigade of
Texans moved to the assault, and the "thunders of fort and fleet"
replied. Taking the same direction as before, but pushing forward with
superior solidity and energy, the living wave swept up to the
fortifications, howled along the course of the ditch, and surged
clamorously against the palisade. Colburne was there with half the other
officers and half the strength of the garrison, silent for the most
part, but fighting desperately. Suddenly there was a shout of, "Back!
back! They are coming round the palisade."
There was a stumbling rush for the cover of the fortification proper;
and there the last possible line of defence was established
instinctively and in a moment. Officers and men dropped on their knees
behind the low bank of earth, and continued an irregular, deliberate
fire, each discharging his piece as fast as he could load and aim. The
garrison was not sufficient to form a continuous rank along even this
single front, and on such portions of the works as were protected by the
ditch, the soldiers were scattered almost as sparsely as sentinels.
Nothing saved the place from being carried by assault except the fact
that the assailants were unprovided with scaling ladders. The
adventurous fellows who had flanked the palisade, rushed to the gate,
and gave entrance to a torrent of tall, lank men in butternut or dirty
grey clothing, their bronzed faces flushed with the excitement of
supposed victory, and their yells of exultation drowning for a minute
the sharp outcries of the wounded, and the rattle of the musketry. But
the human billow was met by such a fatal discharge that it could not
come over the rampart. The foremost dead fell across it, and the mass
reeled backward. Unfortunately for the attack, the exterior slope was
full of small knolls and gullies, beside being cumbered with rude
shanties, of four or five feet in height made of bits of board, and
shelter tents, which had served as the quarters of the garrison. Behind
these covers scores if not hundreds sought refuge, and could not be
induced to leave them for a second charge. They commenced with musketry,
and from that moment the great peril was over. The men behind the
rampart had only to lie quiet, to shoot every one who approached or rose
at full length, and to wait till daylight should enable the gunboats to
open with grape. In vain the rebel officers, foreseeing this danger,
strove with voice and example to raise a yell and a rush. The
impetuosity of the attack had died out, and could not be brought to
life.
"They don't like the way it works," laughed the Louisiana lieutenant in
high glee. "They ain't on it so much as they was."
For an hour the exchange of close musketry continued, the strength of
the assailants steadily decreasing, as some fell wounded or dead, and
others stole out of the fatal enclosure. Daylight showed more than a
hundred fallen and nearly two hundred unharmed men; all lying or
crouching among the irregularities of that bloody and bullet-torn
glacis. Several voices cried out, "Stop firing. We surrender."
An officer in a lieutenant-colonel's uniform repeated these words,
waving a white handkerchief. Then rising from his refuge he walked up to
the rampart, leaped upon it, and stared in amazement at the thin line of
defenders, soldiers and negroes intermingled.
"By ----! I won't surrender to such a handful," he exclaimed. "Come on,
boys!"
A sergeant immediately shot him through the breast, and his body fell
inside of the works. Not a man of those whom he had appealed to followed
him; and only a few rose from their covers, to crouch again as soon as
they witnessed his fate. The fire of the garrison reopened with
violence, and soon there were new cries of, "We surrender," with a
waving of hats and handkerchiefs.
"What shall we do?" asked the Louisiana lieutenant. "They are three to
our one. If we let the d--n scoundrels in, they will knock us down and
take our guns away from us."
Colburne rose and called out, "Do you surrender?"
"Yes, yes," from many voices, and a frantic agitation of broadbrims.
"Then throw your arms into the river."
First one, then another, then several together obeyed this order, until
there was a general rush to the bank, and a prodigious splashing of
double-barreled guns and bowie-knives in the yellow water.
"Now sit down and keep quiet," was Colburne's next command.
They obeyed with the utmost composure. Some filled their pipes and fell
to smoking; others produced corn-cake from their havresacks and
breakfasted; others busied themselves with propping the wounded and
bringing them water. Quite a number crawled into the deserted shanties
and went to sleep, apparently worn out with the night's work and
watching. A low murmur of conversation, chiefly concerning the events of
the assault, and not specially gloomy in its tenor, gradually mingled
with the groans of the wounded. When the gate of the palisade was closed
upon them and refastened, they laughed a little at the idea of being
shut up in a pen like so many chickens.
"Trapped, by Jiminy!" said one. "You must excuse me if I don't know how
to behave myself. I never was cotched before. I'm a wild man of the
prairies, I am."
On all sides the attack had failed, with heavy loss to the assailants.
The heroic little garrison, scarcely one hundred and fifty strong,
including officers, camp-followers and negroes (all of whom had fought),
had captured more than its own numbers, and killed and wounded twice its
own numbers. The fragments of the repulsed brigades had fallen back
beyond the range of fire, and even the semicircle of pickets had almost
disappeared in the woods. The prisoners and wounded were taken on board
the gunboats, and forwarded to New Orleans by the first transport down
the river. As the last of the unfortunates left the shore Colburne
remarked, "I wonder if those poor fellows will ever get tired of
fighting for an institution which only prolongs their own inferiority."
"I am afraid not--I am afraid not," said the Doctor. "Not, at least,
until they are whipped into reason. They have been educated under an
awful tyranny of prejudice, conceit, and ignorance. They are more
incapable of perceiving their own true interests than so many brutes. I
have had the honor to be acquainted with dogs who were their superiors
in that respect. In Tennessee, on one of my excursions, I stopped over
night in the log-cabin of a farmer. It was rather chilly, and I wanted
to poke the fire. There was no poker. 'Ah,' said the farmer, 'Bose has
run off with the poker again.' He went out for a moment, and came in
with the article. I asked him if his dog had a fancy for pokers. 'No,'
said he; 'but one of my boys once burnt the critter's nose with a hot
poker; and ever since then he hides it every time that he comes across
it. We know whar to find it. He allays puts it under the house and
kivers it up with leaves. It's curious,' said he, 'to watch him go at
it, snuffing to see if it is hot, and picking it up and sidling off as
sly as a horse-thief. He has an awful bad conscience about it. Perhaps
you noticed that when you asked for the poker, Bose he got up and
travelled.'--Now, you see, the dog knew what had burned him. But these
poor besotted creatures don't know that it is slavery which has scorched
their stupid noses. They have no idea of getting rid of their hot poker.
They are fighting to keep it."
When it had become certain that the fighting was quite over, Major
Gazaway reappeared in public, complaining much of internal pains, but
able to dictate and sign a pompous official report of his victory, in
which he forgot to mention the colic or the name of Captain Colburne.
During the following night the flare of widespread fires against the sky
showed that the enemy were still in the neighborhood; and negroes who
stole in from the swamps reported that the country was "cram full o'
rebs, way up beyon' Mars Ravenel's plantashum."
"You won't be able to reoccupy your house for a long time, I fear," said
Colburne.
"No," sighed the Doctor. "My experiment is over. I must get back to New
Orleans."
"And I must go to Port Hudson. I shall be forgiven, I presume, for not
reporting back to the hospital."
Such was the defence of Fort Winthrop, one of the most gallant feats of
the war. Those days are gone by, and there will be no more like them
forever, at least, not in our forever. Not very long ago, not more than
two hours before this ink dried upon the paper, the author of the
present history was sitting on the edge of a basaltic cliff which,
overlooked a wide expanse of fertile earth, flourishing villages, the
spires of a city, and, beyond, a shining sea flecked with the full-blown
sails of peace and prosperity. From the face of another basaltic cliff
two miles distant, he saw a white globule of smoke dart a little way
upward, and a minute afterwards heard a dull, deep _pum!_ of exploding
gunpowder. Quarrymen there were blasting out rocks from which to build
hives of industry and happy family homes. But the sound reminded him of
the roar of artillery; of the thunder of those signal guns which used to
presage battle; of the alarums which only a few months previous were a
command to him to mount and ride into the combat. Then he thought,
almost with a feeling of sadness, so strange is the human heart, that he
had probably heard those clamors, uttered in mortal earnest, for the
last time. Never again, perhaps, even should he live to the age of
threescore and ten, would the shriek of grapeshot, and the crash of
shell, and the multitudinous whiz of musketry be a part of his life.
Nevermore would he hearken to that charging yell which once had stirred
his blood more fiercely than the sound of trumpets: the Southern
battle-yell, full of howls and yelpings as of brute beasts rushing
hilariously to the fray: the long-sustained Northern yell, all human,
but none the less relentless and stern; nevermore the one nor the other.
No more charges of cavalry, rushing through the dust of the distance; no
more answering smoke of musketry, veiling unshaken lines and squares; no
more columns of smoke, piling high above deafening batteries. No more
groans of wounded, nor shouts of victors over positions carried and
banners captured, nor reports of triumphs which saved a nation from
disappearing off the face of the earth. After thinking of these things
for an hour together, almost sadly, as I have said, he walked back to
his home; and read with interest a paper which prattled of town
elections, and advertised corner-lots for sale; and decided to make a
kid-gloved call in the evening, and to go to church on the morrow.