Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

General Green remained with the Bayou City. The Neptune, the faster boat, was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Bagby, on which were volunteers from two artillery companies. But the main fighters and the great fighting machine, the real men behind the guns, were those who handled the Enfield rifles which General Magruder brought over from the far East.

With such unworthy seagoing vessels, protected with a few bales of cotton, likely to be blown up by the first well-directed shell, only the most valiant of men would have undertaken so hazardous an enterprise. The remaining men of the 4th, 5th and 7th Cavalry, composing Sibley’s brigade, had been dispatched to Galveston to engage in the assault by land and the defense of the guns on the beach.

General Magruder led the land forces in person. Along the wharves and shores of the bay, all the Confederate artillery was put in position. There was little, if any, protection to the guns or gunners. They were coming out in the open to fight the men who were protected in ships, and they were eager for the unequal fray.

General Magruder had announced that he would fire the first gun, and that when this was heard, all the artillery should turn loose upon the Federal fleet.

Under Colonel Cook, five hundred men plunged into water waist deep, carrying upon their shoulders the scaling ladders, upon which to climb upon the barricades held by the Federals on the remains of the City Wharf.

Neither wind nor wave had aught of terror for these splendid knights of the sea, who, in the darkness of the night, guided only by the pale stars, encumbered with guns and ladders, were hunting for their foes, who, safely barricaded, were waiting to send death-dealing missiles into their ranks. On land, such an assault had terrifying elements, but wading out into the sea, with neither beacons nor torches to guide their steps, carrying or pulling scaling ladders, by which alone they could hope to engage an enemy entrenched high above them upon wooden wharves, reaches to the sublimest heights of human courage.

The dismounted cavalry had been brought within a short distance of Galveston, and when the first gun was fired, with brave and steady heads and fleet of foot, they pressed forward to the front, on the line held by the venturesome artillery.

The Federal ships were not slow to take their part in this magnificent night pageant. Shells and bombs and shot plowed through the walls and over the fortifications and played hide and seek amongst the guns and caissons, that stood out on the land with distinctness, when the flashes of the cannon lit up the weird scenes of the fateful hour. The men in line on the shore were unable to reach their enemies, who were safely anchored out in harbor. Though their position was made uncomfortable by the fierceness of the fire, none flinched and none sought to avoid the consequence of the unequal affray.

So close were the combatants together that shells alternating with grape and canister speeded forth from the Federal gunboats, and from midnight until morn this contest was waged. From two o’clock until the dawn of day, fierce and fast flew the shells; and the roar of artillery and the flashes of the guns made the bay a scene of terror.