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The movement was scarcely over, before one head and then another appeared peering through the embrasures of the earthwork, then a mounted officer upon a lively sorrel cantered as if for observation a short distance to the left of the work. Some sharpshooters in our front, protected slightly by the ground which rose gently towards the west, tried their breech-loaders upon him.
The upper battery mounts modern 10-inch and 12-inch Krupp guns behind a six-foot stone parapet, in front of which are twenty feet of earthwork and a belting of railroad iron. This battery is considered the most formidable of Havana's defenses except Morro Castle. It is masked and has not been absolutely located by the American warships.
This yearly gathering was upon the summit of a hill which retained in good preservation the remains of an ancient earthwork, consisting of a huge rampart and entrenchment of an oval form encircling the top of the hill, though somewhat broken down here and there.
"Close ranks! Men, all of you! that earthwork must be taken. The 2d, the 4th, and the 33d are behind us looking to see us do it. General Jackson himself is looking. Attention! Fix bayonets! Forward! Charge!" Up out of the hollow, and over the field went the 65th in a wild charge. The noise of a thousand seas was in the air, and the smoke of the bottomless pit.
These works have cost L4,000,000, and have necessitated the employment of 12,000 tons of wrought iron, of 490,000 cubic yards of brickwork and concrete, of 32,000 cubic yards of masonry, and of more than 3,300,000 cubic yards of earthwork in filling and dredging, etc. The quay walls run the whole length of the town, a distance of rather more than two miles.
The garrison lay quiet behind the parapet until the approach of the foe caused the enemy's cannon to cease their fire. Then they leaped to their feet and poured a volley into the mass. So great were their numbers, however, that the gaps were closed in a moment, and with yells and shouts the enemy leaped into the ditch, and tried to climb the earthwork of the battery.
Behind it, on a wooden platform, were four field guns, with depressions in the earthwork in front of the muzzles. Christy led the way down the slope on the inside to the pieces, which were twelve-pounders. At a little distance from the platform was a sort of casemate, which might have been constructed for a magazine, or for a place of resort for the gunners if the fort should be bombarded.
But this combat between one man and a host would never take the fort, and the foremost line did not stand long at gaze, but ran up and clambered over the artificial bank, which was about four feet high, pouring a volley into the defenders as they did so. And now single combats again commenced, and the interior of the earthwork resembled an ancient arena.
The plans of all forts of that time seem to have been much the same a wide ring of earthwork, with a deep moat, guarded them, and a stockade of oak stakes rose above the earthwork, behind which the defenders stood, firing volleys of arrows at the attacking host.
Here in the tall box alleys as a child I had many times played, and every foot of the ground was pleasingly familiar. The noise increased as I approached through the growing darkness; for near where the lane reached the Delaware was a small earthwork, the last of those I needed to visit.
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