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Updated: July 22, 2025
They were not easy to use and the men had to learn how to fix them, and their employment entailed many long and tedious carrying parties. The breast-works were divided into fire bays by traverses which were situated every few yards. These fire bays, which were all numbered, had firing platforms made of wood or well-revetted sandbags.
At the time of surrender he had little more than a thousand men remaining out of a division six thousand strong. Five thousand were killed, wounded, or had fled to the rear. General Grant had taken no precautions against attack. The vedettes were but a few hundred yards from our front, and we had no breast-works of any kind behind which to fight.
With this in operation across the point of intersection like a shuttle, interference would be extremely dangerous. In addition, he had built blockhouses and breast-works of ties, and in these, it was reported, he had stationed the pick of his hired helpers, armed and well provisioned.
The hemp warehouses in Lexington were drawn upon to construct movable breast-works for the besieging force. Rolling the bales of hemp before them, the Rebel sharp-shooters could get very near the fort without placing themselves in great danger. The defense was gallant, but as no garrisons can exist without water, Colonel Mulligan was forced to capitulate.
The flames were extinguished, the consumed breast-works were renewed, and volley answered volley for six long hours till day break enabled the Americans to aim with a deadly precision that soon dispersed their foes.
New Plans of the Rebels. Their Design to Capture Corinth, Advancing to the Attack. Strong Defenses. A Magnificent Charge. Valor vs. Breast-Works. The Repulse. Retreat and Pursuit. The National Arms Triumphant. The Bragg campaign into Kentucky being barren of important results, the Rebel authorities ordered that an attempt should be made to drive us from West Tennessee.
They had named him "Black Snake," and "Big Wind" or "Whirlwind." From the methods with which he made his marches his men deployed in open order, his dragoons sweeping the flanks, his scouts before, and every night's camp pitched early and surrounded by a log breast-works they saw that he was wise. He established more forts.
The General was approached the suggestion made slaves set to work the bales conveyed down the breast-works raised the Americans protected, as the musketry and artillery proved powerless against the elastic cushion-wall of cotton bales; the battle fought the British vanquished the Americans victorious, and Major General Andrew Jackson "all covered with glory," as the most distinguished and skillful captain of the age.
We huddled our horses and used them for breast-works, and killed seven Indians without one of our men being wounded, but we lost two horses. It might be well to describe the manner in which trappers traveled those days while passing through a country where there were hostile Indians.
It occupied the base of a bluff near the water's edge. On the summit of the bluff there were breast-works running in a zigzag course for five or six miles, and inclosing a large area. The works along the river were very strong, and could easily hold a powerful fleet at bay. From Fort Pillow to Randolph, ten miles lower down, was less than an hour's steaming.
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