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Fort Husoir, placed on the left, was armed with three formidable batteries ranged one above the other, the lower row bearing twenty-four pounders, the second and third, thirty-six pounders. On the right of this fort was the revolving bridge, and behind this bridge an old tower called Castle Croi, ornamented with batteries which were both handsome and effective.
The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen others which discharged stones.
This division composed of two regiments of carabiniers, a brigade of Cuirassiers, and with six twelve pounders, fell furiously on the enemy and drove back into the river all those who had crossed with the aim of cutting off our retreat, and as there is nothing so terrible as troops who, having suffered a setback, resume the offensive, the troopers of Exelmanns' and d'Urbal's divisions slaughtered all whom they could reach.
Yet you can see it all to-day as plainly as Brock saw it, if you but close your eyes and conjure up the past. The enemy, over 2,000 strong, drawn up in line upon an overlooking rise, had planted in the roadway, commanding the approach to the town, two twenty-four pounders, each loaded with six dozen grapeshot, around which the gunners stood with burning fuses, challenging our hero's advance.
Lately four large iron guns, mounted like field-pieces, form an additional attraction to boys and soldierly-minded men. Nobody knew their calibre; the policemen who watched them could not say; the idlers who gathered about them disputed upon it: they were eighteen pounders; they were twenty-fours; they were thirty-sixes. Nobody could tell what they were there for.
And just abreast the narrowest part of this here channel there's a battery, called the San Fernando Battery, mounting twelve sixty-eight pounders. So, you see, sir, that cuttin' a ship out of Cartagena harbour ain't to be thought of." "Are there any other forts or batteries anywhere along the shores of the harbour?" asked I, my thoughts flitting back to our exploit at Abervrach.
Had the Admiral fired one of the flag-ship's thirty-two pounders, double-shotted, down my throat, he could not have demolished more completely my bodily framework than this fatal announcement shattered to pieces the gilded crockeryware of my fondest hopes.
The Hatteras had the following armament, viz.: 32 pounders of 27 cwt., 4; 30 pounders, rifled, 2; 20 pounders, rifled, 1; 12 pounders, howitzer, 1: total, 8. The armament of the Alabama was: 32 pounders of 52 cwt., 6; 100 pounders, rifled, 1; 24 pounders, rifled, 1; 8-inch shell gun, 1: total, 9.
Tired, chilled, ragged. Wallace not well and things damp. Stayed in camp all day. Hoped to dry things out. Too much rain. Went out in bare feet and drawers and caught ten trout. Sunday, August 2nd. Cleared this A.M. Boys dried camp while I caught twenty-four trout, some half pounders. Getting bigger, nearer Height of Land we hope reason. Water higher. Will help us. Two cans baking powder spoiled.
In Fort Jackson, excluding the obsolete caliber of twenty-four pounders, there were twenty-seven, and in St. Philip twenty-one total, forty-eight; but in caliber and efficiency those of Morgan were distinctly superior to those of the river forts, and it may be considered an advantage that the power was here concentrated in a single work under a single hand.
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