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Updated: June 6, 2025
Now it is clear that, for a shell to drop at an angle of 15 deg. or 20 deg. at the end of a moderate range, the velocity at starting must be low. Hence, for pieces intended for breaching no enlarged powder chamber is wanted; the effect on the wall is due to the shell, which must be made of a shape to hold the most powder for a given weight; and, therefore, rather short and thick.
Whilst our batteries were hurling death and destruction from the zereba at the Khalifa's army, Major Elmslie's battery of 50-pounder howitzers was battering the Mahdi's tomb to pieces and breaching the great stone wall in Omdurman.
"Soon," says Greeley in his History, "the thunder of fifty heavy breaching cannon, in one grand volley, followed by the crashing and crumbling of brick, stone, and mortar around and above them, apprized the little garrison that their stay must necessarily be short."
The skipper and mate lost no opportunities of lancing, once they were alongside, but worked like heroes, until a final plunging of the fast-dying leviathan warned us to retreat. Up he went out of the glittering foam into the upper darkness, while we held our breath at the unique sight of a whale breaching at night. But when he fell again the effect was marvellous.
And what should the Truth be but God? A very little now would put them all to flight. The breaching of the Nazarene grew harder, his sighs became great gasps. Only three hours upon the cross, and he was dying!
That this bold measure, powerfully contrasted as it was with his own previous vacillation of purpose, had greatly tended to intimidate the American General, and to render him distrustful of his own resources, there can be little doubt. The destructive fire from the well served breaching batteries, was moreover instanced as an influencing cause of the capitulation.
I was, during this siege, as before, baggage-master and acting aid-de-camp to Brigadier-General Watson, C.B., who invested this fort in person, and saw hourly the operations carried on under his own eye, being constantly riding round the chain of posts, or in the breaching and other batteries, always seeing things done, and strictly watching the progress of the siege.
The round-house was built very strong, to support the breaching of the seas. Of its five apertures, only the skylight and the two doors were large enough for the passage of a man. The doors, besides, could be drawn close: they were of stout oak, and ran in grooves, and were fitted with hooks to keep them either shut or open, as the need arose.
The five ships of war now found their position very hazardous; one was soon on fire, and blew up; the flames spread to two others, and the remaining two were attacked and captured by boats. The breaching batteries shook the ramparts of the town to their foundations, while the shells carried ruin and death into the streets.
His visit was of scarcely five minutes' duration; but was evidently the opening of a breaching battery by the Bingham family in all form the object of which I could at least guess at. My embarrassments were not destined to end here; for scarcely had I returned Mr. Bingham's eighth salutation at the head of the staircase, when another individual presented himself before me.
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