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This point was garrisoned by Colonel Mulligan with about twenty-five hundred men. After a siege of four days, during the last two of which the garrison was without water, the fort was surrendered. Price's army was sufficiently large to make a complete investment of the fortifications occupied by Colonel Mulligan, and thus cut off all access to the river.
An overpowering fleet accordingly sailed towards the entrance of the Sea of Azov. As soon as the ships appeared off Kertch, the Russians blew up their fortifications without firing a shot, and evacuated the place. The only officer who had an opportunity of distinguishing himself was Lieutenant McKillop, commanding the Snake, of 4 guns.
One day when we were together examining the fortifications which his Majesty had erected at many points on the left bank of the Elbe, the conversation for some reason happened to fall on the secret societies of Germany, a subject with which I was perfectly unacquainted.
His quiet life, his kindness, his charity, his knowledge of the simple arts of healing, so endeared him to every warring faction that at his house the Choctaw and the Chickasaw, the Frenchman, Spaniard and the Englishman met alike in peace. So the needless fortifications fell into unrepaired decay.
And often he has heavy work; roads to make, fortifications of various sorts to throw up, and other similar tasks required by an army in the field; still, after all, there is no work harder than most of the men would have had to go through if they had remained at home. About the end of February, the regiment was ordered to proceed to Ireland.
The surrounding country was irrigated until it fairly bloomed with gigantic vegetation and flowers; the canals were carefully regulated with locks so that the supply of water was under complete control; the display of magnificent metallic buildings of all kinds and sizes produced a most dazzling effect, and the protection against enemies afforded by the innumerable fortifications surrounding the ringed city, and guarding the neighboring lands, seemed complete.
But La Hire did not tell the Maid of any disagreements, but knowing the country to be strange to her, he led her and the army by a route which she believed the right one, till suddenly we beheld the towers of Orleans and the great surrounding fortifications rising up before our eyes; and, behold! the wide river with its bridge more than half destroyed, lay between us and our goal!
The contrivance for apprizing the watchmen of the approach of an enemy, and for taking them prisoners, seems a notable invention of our countrymen; for surely an enemy might easily destroy these net-traps to catch soldiers, these pack-thread fortifications. As in this country it is necessary to travel in the night to avoid the heat of the day, our men came to the town about five in the morning.
The lifeless and deliberate way in which it went on made it the 1st of September when Sumner and Franklin reached Centreville, and the second battle of Bull Run had ended in defeat on the evening before. But the army was at last reunited, within the fortifications of Washington, it is true, and not on the James or on the line of the Rappahannock.
They might take cities and occupy strong fortifications, but the great mass of the people were safe on their inland farms and in their untrodden forests. The Americans may not have been unconquerable, but English troops were not numerous enough to overwhelm them in their scattered settlements.
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