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The Federal engineers were already clearing away the abattis from the Stone Bridge, in order to give passage to Tyler's third brigade and a battery of artillery; "and all were certain," says McDowell, "that the day was ours." Jackson's men were lying beneath the crest of the plateau. Only one of his regiments the 33rd had as yet been engaged in the open, and his guns in front still held their own.
The general don't know how we're fixed " Extra Billy agreed with them. He rose in his stirrups, turned and nodded vigorous assent. "Of course you can't stand it, boys! You oughtn't to be expected to. It's all this infernal tactics and West P'int tomfoolery! Damn it, fire! and flush the game!" Edward laughed. From the fuss it was apparent that the abattis and earthwork had succumbed.
Two lanes were literally mown through the ranks of the Russian infantry, the shot which flew high doing terrible execution among the artillery behind them. The echoes had not died away when a tremendous fire of musketry was opened by the Poles hidden behind the abattis.
Below, and but a few hundred yards distant, ran the Federal breastworks, with abattis in front and long lines of stacked arms in rear; but untenanted by a single company. Two cannon were seen upon the highroad, the horses grazing quietly near at hand.
Montcalm sent a canoe down Lake Champlain to hasten Lévis to his aid, and ordered the battalion of Berry to begin a breastwork and abattis on the high ground in front of the fort. That they were not begun before shows that he was in doubt as to his plan of defence; and that his whole army was not now set to work at them shows that his doubt was still unsolved.
The forests, which had been felled from the Golden Farm to Fair Oaks to form an army's vast abattis, were burning in sections, sending roaring tornadoes of flame into rifle pits, redoubts, and abandoned fortifications.
Fresh masses of French troops poured from their advance trenches into the Mamelon, and there was no question that that point was decidedly gained. Still however, the battle raged around it. The Zouaves, flushed with success, attempted to carry the Round Tower with a rush, and swept up to the abattis surrounding it.
A considerable body of seamen were landed, and worked like horses, dragging guns up heights that appeared inaccessible, making roads, and cutting down trees with which to build abattis. One day during the siege Nelson said to Will: “I’ll be glad, Mr. Gilmore, if you will accompany me on an excursion along the shore.
Captain Amyas Preston and Captain Sommers, the colonist of the Bermudas, or Sommers' Islands, will land, with a force tiny enough, though larger far than Leigh's, where Leigh dare not land; and taking the fort of Guayra, will find, as Leigh found, that their coming has been expected, and that the Pass of the Venta, three thousand feet above, has been fortified with huge barricadoes, abattis, and cannon, making the capital, amid its ring of mountain-walls, impregnable to all but Englishmen or Zouaves.
As the main and flanking parties swept up to the redoubt, the sappers and miners, who formed the first rank, attacked the abattis with their axes; but the troops, mad with long waiting and fretted by the galling fire of the foe, would not wait, and, pushing them aside, clambering, boosting, and tumbling went over the obstruction.
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