h their noise. A masked battery commanded a bluff, and the guns
could be depressed sufficiently to sweep the entire field over which
the regiment must charge. It must be remembered that this regiment
occupied the extreme right of the charging line. The masked battery
worked upon the left wing. A three-gun battery was situated in the
centre, while a half dozen large pieces shelled the right, and
enfiladed the regiment front and rear every time it charged the
battery on the bluff. A bayou ran under the bluff, immediately in
front of the guns. It was too deep to be forded by men. These brave
Colored soldiers made six desperate charges with indifferent success,
because

"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell."

The men behaved splendidly. As their ranks were thinned by shot and
grape, they closed up into place, and kept a good line. But no matter
what high soldierly qualities these men were endowed with, no matter
how faithfully they obeyed the oft-repeated order to "charge," it was
both a moral and physical impossibility for these men to cross the
deep bayou that flowed at their feet--already crimson with patriots'
blood--and capture the battery on the bluff. Colonel Nelson, who
commanded this black brigade, despatched an orderly to General Dwight,
informing him that it was not in the nature of things for his men to
accomplish any thing by further charges. "Tell Colonel Nelson," said
General Dwight, "I shall consider that he has accomplished nothing
unless he takes those guns." This last order of General Dwight's will
go into history as a cruel and unnecessary act. He must have known
that three regiments of infantry, torn and shattered by about fifteen
or twenty heavy guns, with an impassable bayou encircling the bluff,
could accomplish nothing by charging. But the men, what could they do?

"Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die."

DEATH OF CAPTAIN ANDRE CALLIOUX.

Again the order to charge was given, and the men, worked up to a
feeling of desperation on account of repeated failures, raised a cry
and made another charge. The ground was covered with dead and wounded.
Trees were felled by shell and solid shot; and at one time a company
was covered with the branches of a falling tree. Captain Callioux was
in command of Company E, the color company. He w