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Then, below this boulder-strewn stratum, instead of the ledge they expected they struck four feet of rotten rock, so porous that when air was put on it to force the water back great air bubbles blew up all through the lot, forcing the men out of the other caissons and trenches. But this was a mere dull detail, to be met by care and ingenuity like the others.
After an hour of spirited work, our antagonists limbered up and hurried off, leaving us victors in the contest. Lieutenant Baxter McCorkle galloped over to the place to see what execution we had done, and found several dead men, as many or more dead horses, and one of their caissons as evidences of good aim; and brought back with him a fine army-pistol left in the caisson.
About fifteen hundred horses and mules, five hundred wagons and harness, fourteen guns, with caissons and equipments complete, five thousand muskets, together with a large quantity of provisions, clothing and ammunition, fell into our hands. But the best of all, by this victory we succeeded in freeing this part of Kentucky of the secesh army, much to the gratification of the good Union people.
All along the precipitous bluff which overhangs Tumbling Run on the south side, a heavy line of earthworks had been constructed when Early retreated to this point in August, and these were now being strengthened so as to make them almost impregnable; in fact, so secure did Early consider himself that, for convenience, his ammunition chests were taken from the caissons and placed behind the breastworks.
He soon neared a hollow, where he had left a carriage sheltered from the cannonade, a carriage that held a young woman, his playmate in childhood, dearer to him than any one else on earth. Some thirty stragglers were sitting round a tremendous blaze, which they kept up with logs of wood, planks wrenched from the floors of the caissons, and wheels, and panels from carriage bodies.
Lumsden and one of the other batteries to be ready to march at dusk, taking only the gun detachment and guns with their carriages, leaving the caissons in camp with their horses and drivers.
This organization was kept up until the breaking out of the war, and was, without doubt, the best drilled and equipped artillery organization west of the mountains; the State supplied the guns, harness and caissons, but the expenses for horses, the meeting and drill houses, and equipments, and all their expenses, were paid by themselves.
An effort was made to preserve some element of the yachting idea in the design, and bow-string trusses, being merely enlarged gang planks, were used to connect the caissons. The pier was originally laid out as a letter "L," with a main leg of 300 ft. and a short leg of 36 ft.
Ah! how odd it is to think one will be dead some day never wake for the reveille never hear the cannon or the caissons roll by never stir when the trumpets sound the charge, but lie there dead dead dead while the squadrons thunder above one's grave! Droll, eh?" A momentary pathos softened her voice, where she stood in the glistening moonlight.
The plans of the shafts are shown on Plates X and XI. The caissons for the shafts are of structural steel, with double walls, filled between with concrete, including a cross-wall between and parallel to the tunnels. All these structures were fitted for sinking with compressed air, if that should prove necessary.
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