laced them in
position above the town to open fire. The fog lifted, and all the guns
of the fleet and the forts began to play upon the breastworks. General
Pope brought up his heavy field guns, and replied. He paid but little
attention to the fort, but sent his shot and shell at the gunboats.
Captain Mower, of the First United States artillery, commanded the
batteries, and his fire was so accurate that the gunboats were obliged
to take new positions. Shortly after the cannonade began, a shot from
the fort struck one of Captain Mower's thirty-two pounders in the muzzle
and disabled it; but he kept up his fire through the day, dismounting
three guns in the lower fort and disabling two of the gunboats. Nearly
all of the shells from the Rebel batteries fell harmlessly into the soft
earth. There were very few of General Pope's men injured. They soon
became accustomed to the business, and paid but little attention to the
screaming of the shot and the explosions of the shells. They had many
hearty laughs, as the shells which burst in the ground frequently
spattered them with mud.

There was one soldier in one of the Ohio regiments who was usually
profane and wicked; but he was deeply impressed with the fact that so
few were injured by such a terrific fire, and at night said to his
comrades, seriously: "Boys, there is no use denying it; God has watched
over us to-day."

His comrades also noticed that he did not swear that night.

Just at night, General Paine's division made a demonstration towards the
lower fort, driving in the enemy's pickets. General Paine advanced
almost to the ditch in front of the fort. Preparations were made to hold
the ground, but during the night there came up a terrific thunder-storm
and hurricane, which stopped all operations.

The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio, and the Tenth and Sixteenth
Illinois, were the grand guard for the night. They had been under fire
all day. They had endured the strain upon their nerves, but through the
long night-hours they stood in the drenching rain, beneath the sheets of
lurid flame, looking with sleepless eyes towards the front, prepared to
repel a sortie or challenge spies.

At daybreak there was no enemy in sight. The fort was deserted. A
citizen of the town came out with a flag of truce. The General who had
called upon his men in high-sounding words, the officer who was going to
make New Madrid a Thermopylae, and himself a Leonidas in history,--the
nine