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There was silence for quite half an hour, and the suspense on the anchored steamer was vivid enough to have shaken trained men. Yet these Italian artificers and merchant seamen seemed to take it as coolly as though such sorties were an everyday occurrence. But at the end of that time there was a splutter of shots, a few faint squeals, and then a bonfire lighted up away in the darkness.
Here again the beleaguered Confederates had been making desperate raids or sorties, trying to cut Sherman off from his base in Tennessee and keep back the Federal forces in other parts of the river area.
In one of these sorties Hannibal, who was continually at the front, overlooking the work, was seriously wounded by a javelin in the thigh. Until he was cured the siege languished, and was converted into a blockade, for it was his presence and influence alone which encouraged the men to continue their work under such extreme difficulties, involving the death of a large proportion of those engaged.
The very street urchins invited repose; the few we saw were seated sedately on the threshold of their own door-steps, frequent sallies abroad into this quiet city having doubtless convinced them of the futility of all sorties. The old houses were their carved facades as old ladies wear rich lace they had reached the age when the vanity of personal adornment had ceased to inflate.
During all this digging there had been a couple of sorties in which the besieged had inflicted great damage on their enemy, and got back into the town with a few prisoners, having lost but six of their own men. Sir Francis Vere had been severely wounded in the leg, so that he was obliged to keep his bed during the rest of the siege.
The Burmese made several sorties to interrupt the work, and one of these was accompanied by Bandoola's seventeen elephants. The troop of cavalry, horse artillery, and the rocket company charged close up to the elephants; and opened fire upon the howdahs, filled with troops, that they carried.
For a month missiles were poured into the town. Magazines were blown up, and terrible destruction done, but the garrison held out firmly. At times they made sorties, but these were always driven in again, with much loss. But 50,000 men behind fortifications, however weak, were not to be attacked.
This combined force, however, was but a slender one; there being but sixteen hundred men to protect two miles and a half of rampart, besides the forts and ravelins. But, such as it was, no time was lost in vain regrets. The sorties against the besiegers were incessant and brilliant.
In these sorties the Spanish works were frequently held for a few minutes, gabions thrown down, and guns overturned, but after doing as much damage as they could the assailants had to fall back again to the town, being unable to resist the masses of pikemen brought up against them.
In case of sieges, ordering and supervising the employment of the troops in the trenches, making arrangements with the chiefs of artillery and engineers as to the labors to be performed by those troops and as to their management in sorties and assaults.
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