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The planters were pouring into Charleston, bringing their slaves with them, and white and black labored together at the earthworks. Rich men, who had never soiled their hands with toil before now, wielded pick and spade by the side of their black slaves.
Here the river winds about between abrupt hillsides, and on the front of one of these hills stood Fort Donelson. The water-batteries were made up of heavy guns, so mounted as to command the river for miles. On the landward side were heavy earthworks, abatis, and sharp pointed chevaux-de-frise.
Soldiers in blue, sentinels and seekers of wood for the fires, were hurrying into the earthworks, on the crests of which stood men, dressed in the uniforms of officers. "Forward, my lads!" shouted Colonel Leonidas Talbot, who was near the front rank, brandishing his sword until the light glittered along its sharp blade. "Into the fort! Into the fort!"
From them we gain much valuable information of the state of things in "Dixie." Some of them, we learn, were employed by Rebel leaders in constructing forts and earthworks, and in various ways were made to contribute muscle to the Southern Confederacy.
We are under the impression that the firing from this redoubt, from Valérien, Issy, and the gunboat Farcy, which took place on Thursday morning, between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m., has destroyed the batteries and earthworks which the Prussians were erecting on the heights of St. Cloud and Meudon-Clamart. You, however, are better informed respecting the damage which was done than we are.
The houses which formed two sides of the large irregular square in the center of which stood the Residency were connected by earthworks, and a breastwork, composed of sandbags and fascines, surrounded the other sides. Stores of provisions were collected, cattle driven in, and every preparation made for a lengthened defense.
"There are those who would be ready to say that we gentlemen of Virginia, like Bacon, are all ready to shelter ourselves behind women's aprons," said Sir Humphrey Hyde, with a shamed glance at the goods, referring to that stationing of the ladies of the Berkeley faction, all arrayed in white aprons, on the earthworks before the advance of the sons and husbands and brothers in the Bacon uprising.
In 1882 England had 434 heavy modern guns behind armored shore batteries; besides these at home, she had 92 in her colonies, of which 13 were in Halifax and 11 in Bermuda for our express benefit. What we have are brick and stone casemates and earthworks.
The division at once proceeded, as did all the other divisions in the army, to throw up earthworks; making slow advances at certain points by pushing these works further toward the front. On the 18th, we were joined by the other division, Slocum's. The Sixth corps now formed the right of the new line of battle on the south of the river. The line reached from Golden's Farm to Fair Oaks.
The cavalry moved with such rapidity as to capture every picket; but the brigade of Vaughn had artillery in position, covered by earthworks, and displayed a force too respectable to be carried by a cavalry dash, so that darkness closed in before General Howard's infantry got up.
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