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Updated: June 19, 2025
Berkley was still red; he lay in the grass on his stomach, watching the big cloud pile on the horizon. "You know," said Casson, "that part of our army stretches as far as that smoke. We're the rear-guard." "Listen to the guns," said Wye, pretending technical familiarity even at that distance. "They're big fellows those Dahlgrens and Columbiads "
No overt act can be fastened on him, Otherwise, instead of gazing on Alcatraz Island from his mansion windows, he might be behind those frowning walls, where the l5-inch Columbiads spread their radial lines of fire, to cross those of the works of Black Point, Fort Point, and Point Blunt. Many more innocent prisoners toil there. He does not wish to swell their number.
When Smith took command at Vicksburg on the 12th of May, in accordance with the orders of Lovell, the department commander, three of the ten batteries laid out for the defence of the position had been nearly completed and a fourth had been begun. These batteries were intended for forty-eight guns from field rifles to 10-inch columbiads.
They were assigned buildings outside of the fort or tents within. They were set to work as servants to officers, or to store provisions landed from vessels, thus relieving us of the fatigue duty which we had previously done, except that of dragging and mounting columbiads on the ramparts of the fort, a service which some very warm days have impressed on my memory.
There were two water batteries, of six and four thirty-two columbiads respectively, and the town itself, which stands upon a red clay bluff, was encircled by a series of immense rifled and smooth-bore pieces, including a powerful pivot-gun, that one of McClellan's shells struck during the first day's bombardment, and split it into fragments.
Fort Gaines, on Dauphin Island, had a garrison of 864 men and mounted three 10-inch columbiads, four 32-pounder rifled guns and twenty smoothbore guns of 32, 24 and 18-pound calibres. The principal pass to Mississippi Sound was commanded by Fort Powell, with one mounted 10-inch gun, one 8-inch columbiad and four rifled guns.
Three minutes would have sufficed from the final position, to hurl columns upon the opposing outworks, and sweep them with the bayonet. McClellan worshipped great ordnance, and some of his columbiads, that were mounted in the water battery, yawned cavernously through their embrasures, and might have furnished sleeping accommodations to the gunners.
At the bare thought both of our papas went off like heavy columbiads, and we poor little children have been blown into space." "Oh, Ella I how can you speak so!" cried Mara indignantly. "The idea of associating your father with that man Houghton in your thoughts! It does indeed seem that no one can have anything to do with such Yankees as come to this city "
The fortifications on the river front mounted 22 heavy guns, from 10-inch columbiads down to 24-pounder siege guns, manned by 3 battalions of heavy artillerists, while 13 light batteries, probably numbering 78 pieces, were available for the defence of all the lines: of these batteries only 5 were now left, with 30 guns.
"All that is evident," replied the general. "Until now," said Barbicane, "the longest cannon, our enormous Columbiads, have not been more than twenty-five feet long; we shall therefore astonish many people by the dimensions we shall have to adopt." "Certainly," exclaimed J.T. Maston. "For my part, I ask for a cannon half a mile long at least!" "Half a mile!" cried the major and the general.
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