The lieutenant-colonel read it and
nodded. Then Dick rode back to the hill where the generals were yet
watching in vain for those black plumes of smoke on the Cumberland.
They left the hill at last and the generals went to their brigades.
General Grant was smoking a cigar and his face was impassive.
"We're to open soon with the artillery," said Colonel Winchester to
Dick. "General Grant means to push things."
The desultory firing, those warning guns, ceased entirely, and for a
while both armies stood in almost complete silence. Then a Northern
battery on the right opened with a tremendous crash and the battle for
Donelson had begun. A Southern battery replied at once and the firing
spread along the whole vast curve. Shells and solid shot whistled
through the air, but the troops back of the guns crouched in hasty
entrenchments, and waited.
The great artillery combat went on for some time. To many of the lads
on either side it seemed for hours. Then the guns on the Northern side
ceased suddenly, bugles sounded, and the regiments, drawn up in line,
rushed at the outer fortifications.
Colonel Winchester and his staff had dismounted, but Dick and Pennington,
keeping by the colonel's side, drew their swords and rushed on shouting.
The Southerners inside the fort fired their cannon as fast as they could
now, and at closer range opened with the rifles. Dick heard once again
that terrible shrieking of metal so close to his ears, and then he heard,
too, cries of pain.
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