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"Forrester fell back and formed a new line, and Weller put his whole force in action. Lawting joined Forrester on the right, and the assault was made. "Old Col. Harden said: 'Boys, here they come; let them charge close up before you fire. Fill that old 32-pounder with bullets on top of the shell; and they did. "So Forrester charged with his men right up to the works. Col.
Why such a big powerful vessel she showed seven ports of a side, and there was something suspiciously like a long 32-pounder on her forecastle should turn tail so ignominiously and run from a little shrimp of a craft like the Wasp I could not imagine, though I was to receive enlightenment upon that point before long.
The main fortification was Fort Morgan, whose heavy guns were placed in three tiers. It mounted seven 10-inch, three 8-inch and twenty-two 32-pounder smoothbore guns and two 8-inch, two 6.5-inch and four 5.82-inch rifled guns. The exterior batteries were also heavily armed and the garrison numbered 640 men.
Slap it right into the eyes of her Phew! that's a nasty one," as a shot from her 32-pounder came along, smashing right through both our quarter-boats, cutting their keels clean in half, tearing a great gap in the bottom planking of each, filling the air in the immediate neighbourhood with splinters, and whizzing so close past my head that the wind of it whipped my hat off and overboard.
The stranger was, however, the British ship-sloop Little Belt, mounting 18 32-pounder carronades, and 2 long nines, with a crew of 120 men and boys, commanded by Captain Bingham, who at the same time made out the President. Captain Bingham, finding her signals unanswered, felt assured that the stranger was an American frigate, and continued his course round Cape Hatteras.
Fort Gaines, on Dauphin Island, had a garrison of 864 men and mounted three 10-inch columbiads, four 32-pounder rifled guns and twenty smoothbore guns of 32, 24 and 18-pound calibres. The principal pass to Mississippi Sound was commanded by Fort Powell, with one mounted 10-inch gun, one 8-inch columbiad and four rifled guns.
By consummate seamanship and gallantry, he kept them employed, carrying on a spirited action with his two long 18-pounders run through his stern-ports, and the two 32-pounder carronades on his quarter-deck, greatly galling the President, and afterwards the Congress, when that frigate got near enough to open her fire.
There were at that period three-deckers of sixty-four guns, and two-deckers of only thirty guns. With regard to the guns themselves, the demi-cannon was probably a 32-pounder, the cannon petro a 24-pounder, and the basilisk a 12-pounder; the whole culverin an 18-pounder, and the demi-culverin a 9-pounder; the saker a 6-pounder, and the mignon a 4-pounder.
A few days before he had had the satisfaction of announcing the launch, on November 26, of the "Madison," a new ship of the corvette type, of 590 tons, one third larger than the ocean cruisers "Wasp" and "Hornet," of the same class, and with proportionately heavy armament; she carrying twenty-four 32-pounder carronades, and they sixteen to eighteen of the like weight.
We entered a dead level plain of orange-colored sand, surrounded by pyramidical hills. The surface was strewn with objects resembling cannon shot and grape of all sizes from a 32-pounder downward, and looked like the old battle-field of some infernal region rocks glowing with heat, not a vestige of vegetation, barren, withering desolation.
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