gone during the long night march, pushed on to the Nugger fortress, which being but a short distance off, we commenced to assault at daybreak.
Without much ado, our howitzers and rocket-battery were at once brought into position, and opened, as usual, with magnificent effect. Indeed, the splendid practice of the sailors with their guns on all occasions, was one of the admirable features in the scenes of our field operations, and nothing tended more to animate the fighting, than the grand spectacle exhibited in the unerring flight of their destructive missiles darting through space, like falcons descending on their prey.
While the guns fed death in the fortress, the infantry advanced against the outer fortifications, and soon became warmly engaged, but the resistance there, though obstinate, was quickly brushed aside; and then the bayonet cleared the place, excepting where the mutineers stood firm and perished; while those who fled, fell fighting to the death beneath the sabres and revolvers of the Yeomanry.
In the midst of the ruins and bodies with which the fortress was filled, loot of the most miscellaneous description was found. There were ponies, bullocks, cows, goats, sheep (all “taken in” probably for the sake of protection, though several had been killed and wounded). Then there were arms of all sorts, drums, pipes, cooking utensils, and what not? In using the interrogative, I abbreviate the long heterogeneous category of the spoil; but I must not omit to add to it the chargers which the rebels had but just
