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Updated: May 13, 2025
The advanced line, within the forest, was taken at the first rush; the second, at the foot of the Fairview heights, protected by a swampy stream, a broad belt of abattis, and with thirty guns on the hill behind, proved far more formidable, and Hill's division was forced back. But Rodes and Colston were in close support.
An abattis or a fosse would have made this step futile; but as things were, it was not altogether impossible that they might surmount our low wall. Our advantage was that the terre-plein on which we stood was three or four feet higher than they were at the outer side of the wall, apart from the fact that they were poised precariously on a steep brae.
As soon as the enemy had retired, we all set to work to prepare a defensive position; by setting fire to the crops, so as to prevent the enemy from creeping up unseen, and by making an abattis. "The night passed off quietly.
A deep ditch, into which the water of the river flowed, having over it a drawbridge connected with a barred gate, had been cut across the isthmus, so as to make the Hook, in reality, an island. This ditch could be passed only at low water. Thirty paces within it was a row of abattis running into the river; and some distance in front of it, is a creek fordable only in two places.
An abattis formed, menacing and formidable, against which even the mighty dynamics of the river pushed in vain. Then at last the little group arrived at the "breast" itself a sullen and fearful tangle like a gigantic pile of jackstraws. Beneath it the diminished river boiled out angrily. By the very fact of its lessened volume Bob could guess at the pressure above.
Although the Americans were highly exasperated by the recent massacre of their countrymen in Fort Griswold by Arnold's detachment, yet not a man of the British was injured after resistance ceased. Retaliation had been talked of but was not exercised. The French advanced with equal courage, but not with equal rapidity. The American soldiers had removed the abattis themselves.
Doubtless the Trastevere was already greatly changed, pierced with several new thoroughfares which let the sun stream in. And amidst the abattis of rubbish and the spacious clearings, where nothing new had yet been erected, the remaining portions of the old district seemed even blacker and more loathsome.
Some weeks before, a French officer named Hugues had suggested the defence of this ridge by means of an abattis. Montcalm approved his plan; and now, at the eleventh hour, he resolved to make his stand here. The two engineers, Pontleroy and Desandrouin, had already traced the outline of the works, and the soldiers of the battalion of Berry had made some progress in constructing them.
Until it was quite dark the Haussas toiled, building sangars and constructing light connecting trenches with abattis of sharp thorns sufficient to deter and hold up a rush of bare-footed Askaris, since there was no knowing that after all the enemy had been informed of the presence of the pursuing column.
It is a matter of general history how General Hooker led his army across the Rappahannock into that ugly region at Chancellorsville, with its morasses, hills, and ravines, its dense forest of scrub-oaks and pines, and its square miles of tangled undergrowth, which was justly known as The Wilderness; and how he strongly intrenched himself against an attack in front, with breastworks of logs and an abattis of felled trees.
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