Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
BY COLONEL F.W. McMASTER. In order to understand an account of the battle of the "Crater," a short sketch of our fortifications should be given. Elliott's Brigade extended from a little branch that separated it from Ransom's Brigade on the north, ran three hundred and fifty yards, joining Wise's Brigade on the south.
The next day, Tuesday evening, Ransom's Brigade worked its way around east of the town and, after a sharp skirmish fight, drove the Yankee pickets away from a deep creek, where we put in a pontoon bridge and crossed over and took position after dark under a picket and artillery fire. Here we formed for the final attack.
Luna, sitting with her sister, much withdrawn, in one of the windows of the big, hot, faded parlour of the boarding-house in Tenth Street, where there was a rug before the chimney representing a Newfoundland dog saving a child from drowning, and a row of chromo-lithographs on the walls, imparted to her the impression she had received the evening before the impression of Basil Ransom's keen curiosity about Verena Tarrant.
These came from Eloïse, Daisy's other cousin. Mrs. Gary had brought her two beautiful toilet bottles of Bohemian glass. Daisy's end of the table was growing full. "What is this?" said Mrs. Gary, taking from the épergne a sealed note directed to Daisy. "That is Ransom's present. Give her mine first," said Mr. Randolph. "Which is yours? I don't see anything more."
About midday he determined to send Ransom's brigade, with artillery, to the right, Coneby's bridge a distance of four or five miles, to make a simultaneous demonstration with him, while he would attack from his position on the left with his and Kemper's brigades.
Lieutenant Colonel Fleming, of Ransom's Forty-ninth Regiment, came up to me and pointed out a good place to build another barricade. I requested him to build it with his own men, as mine were almost exhausted by the labors of the day. He cheerfully assented, stepped on a banquette to get around me, and was shot in the neck and dropped at my feet.
Smoky glanced about him, rose, walked to the corner, bent down, and smelt the muzzle of Ransom's rifle. Then he slipped his forefinger into the barrel and smelt that. "Sufferin' Moses!" he exclaimed. His mouth was slightly twisted, as he picked up the rifle and opened the breech. He drew out a used cartridge, which he examined with another exclamation. "Holy Mackinaw!"
It told him that when he came to shelter be would at least feel it, and that he must fight until the last. And all this time, for ages and ages it seemed to him, he kept mumbling over and over again Ransom's words: "Go back Go back Go back " They rang in his brain. He tried to keep step with their monotone. The storm could not drown them.
One division of these, Blair's, only arrived in time to take part in the battle of Champion's Hill, but was not engaged there; and one brigade, Ransom's of McPherson's corps, reached the field after the battle. The enemy had at Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, Jackson, and on the roads between these places, over sixty thousand men. They were in their own country, where no rear guards were necessary.
It will be observed that in this reasoning of Basil Ransom's the impression was freely recognised, and recognised as a phenomenon still present. The attraction might have vanished, as he said to himself, but the mental picture of it was yet vivid.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking