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He pursued him from fortress to fortress; attacked him in the open field, and beat him; attacked him behind his intrenchments, and drove him from them through the valleys, and over the hills, across rivers, and into forests; bombarded his cities, plundered his provinces, shot down his subjects, till the king, reduced almost to the last extremity, implored peace.
Indeed, so rapidly and silently did the troops move, so perfect were the arrangements for transporting their baggage and supplies, so completely were the details of the whole undertaking ordered and systematized, that over a hundred thousand men, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with their horses, hospital and wagon trains, and all the paraphernalia of a vast army virtually faded away, and when Lee gazed from his intrenchments on June 13, 1864, there was no sign of his opponent and he did not discover where he had gone for fully four days.
His answer said that he had been forced back by siege operations, and had no opportunity for battle except by attacking intrenchments. He suggested that the enemy's purpose to capture Atlanta might be foiled by sending part of the 16,000 cavalry believed to be in Alabama and Mississippi to break up the railroads behind Sherman and force him to retreat.
"But how was it that that fifty-gun battery did not knock the bridge to pieces when the French tried to cross?" "That is more than I can say, Colonel. I should fancy that they were so terrified at the utter rout on the other side, which they could see well enough, for they had a view right over the town to the intrenchments, that they simply fired wildly.
It was necessary at any cost to regain it, but all efforts failed against their own intrenchments, defended by the captors with desperate energy. At half past four retreat became necessary.
Its loss in killed and wounded, in fact, is said to have been greater than that of any other Connecticut regiment in any single battle. The reputation of a fighting regiment, which its fallen leader had predicted, was amply earned by that unfaltering advance against intrenchments manned by Lee's veterans, and that tenacious defence of the position gained, but the cost was appallingly great.
He lay here for a time, but the enemy coming with a heavy force upon his right flank, he was compelled to fall back, followed by the foe. A few hundred yards brought Smith's troops into a wood, where they were speedily reformed, when they charged and drove the attacking party back to his intrenchments.
Wisely he led his men to the hill of Senlac, near Hastings, a spot now occupied by the small town of Battle, so named in memory of the great fight. Here he built intrenchments of earth, stones, and tree-trunks, behind which he waited the Norman assault. Marshy ground covered the English right.
Let his body be placed on a bier, and carried to his friends." "A most Christian request! My Lord Chamberlain, attend to it." The cavalcade betook itself then to other parts, the better to see the disposition of the Turks; and everywhere on the landward side it was the same troops in masses, and intrenchments in progress.
The fortifications at Sobraon had been repeatedly reconnoitred by the Commander-in-Chief, who satisfied himself that not fewer than thirty thousand men, the best of the Khalsa troops, were covered by these formidable intrenchments, guarded by seventy pieces of cannon, and united by a good bridge to a reserve on the opposite bank, where the enemy had a considerable camp and some artillery, commanding and flanking his fieldworks on the British bank.
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