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He spoke particularly of a gunner stationed at the first piece in Totten's battery, saying that his energy and coolness made him one of the most conspicuous figures of the day. "Our sharp-shooters did their best, but they failed to bring him down. There he was all day long, doing his duty as if on parade." He also told us there was no hard fighting at Lexington.
On arrival upon the higher ground, I found the country perfectly flat and completely covered with heavy crops of ripe dhurra, in which the zareebas were concealed, with the exception of the tops of the huts. Drums were beating and horns blowing in all these stockades. I had a suspicion that the Baris might have stationed sharp-shooters in ambush among the high dhurra.
Then was there a scramble among the fair dancers, who, having secured their respective property, quitted the house, not however, without a secret fear on the part of many, that the first object they should encounter, on sallying forth, would be a corps of American sharp-shooters.
A. J. Smith, with a strong body of troops, accompanied him; while Gen. Banks was to march his troops overland from Texas, and join the expedition at Shreveport. For several days the gunboats pressed forward up the crooked stream, meeting with no opposition, save from the sharp-shooters who lined the banks on either side, and kept up a constant fire of small-arms.
The authorities replied, that while its buildings and streets would no longer be used by Rebel sharp-shooters to annoy our forces across the river, its occupation by Yankee troops would be resisted to the last.
The French chasseurs had pursued the German hussars to a hop plantation, which proved to be full of concealed Prussian sharp-shooters. At this point the hussars attacked the chasseurs in the rear, while the sharp-shooters received them with a volley from their quick-firing rifles, and a general onslaught was begun upon the brave corps.
As the trapped fifteen rushed their mounts toward the shelter of the western hills, drawing farther away from their eastern enemies, they were forced to a nearer approach to the ranch house, to run the gantlet of its concealed sharp-shooters. A galloping horse, with its rider, does not offer an easy mark; fifteen of them, the objective of twenty rifles, form a better target.
His onset was made with the same desperation and fury as before, and met with less resistance, the defenders being alarmed at the progress which the sharp-shooters had made in turning the flank of their position. Determined to improve his advantage, Burley, with his axe in his hand, pursued the party whom he had dislodged even to the third and last barricade, and entered it along with them.
General Anderson commenced his march about nine o'clock at night, when the Federal column was already upon its way. A race now began for the coveted position, and General Stuart, with his dismounted sharp-shooters behind improvised breastworks, harassed and impeded the Federal advance, at every step, throughout the night.
The rear of the column fell back to the cover of the hill, while all those who had gained the crest were forced to lie there, exposed to a pitiless fire of sharp-shooters and the scarcely more endurable rays of the burning sun of Louisiana, until night came and brought relief.
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