Presently all were quietly seated, the older people almost as eager for the story as were the young, and the captain began.
"While the armies before New Orleans were burying their dead, others of the British troops were trying to secure for themselves the free navigation of the Mississippi below the city by capturing Fort St. Philip, which is in a direct line some seventy or eighty miles lower down the stream, and was considered by both British and Americans as the key of the State of Louisiana.
"The fort was at that time garrisoned by three hundred and sixty-six men under the command of Major Overton of the rifle corps, with the addition of the crew of a gun-boat. Just about the time that the British killed in the battle of New Orleans were being carried by the Americans under Jackson to their comrades for burial, a little squadron of five English vessels appeared before the fort and anchored out of range of its heavy guns, the bomb vessels with their broadsides toward it; and at three o'clock they opened fire on it. Their bombardment went on with scarcely a pause till daybreak of the 18th, when they had sent more than a thousand shells, using for that purpose twenty thousand pounds of powder. They had sent, too, beside the shells, many round and grape shot.
"During those nine days the Americans were in their battery, five of the days without shelter, exposed to cold and rain a part of the time; but only two of them were killed and seven wounded.
"On the 18th, the British gave up the attempt. That same day a general exchange of prisoners took place, and that night the British stole noiselessly away. By morning they had reached Lake Borgne, sixty miles distant from their fleet.
"They could not have felt very comfortable, as the wintry winds to which they were exposed were keen, and the American mounted men under Colonel De la Ronde, following them in their retreat, annoyed them not a little.
"The British remained at Lake Borgne until the 27th, then boarded their fleet, which lay in the deep water between Ship and Cat Islands.
"In the meantime Jackson had been guarding the approach to New Orleans lest they might return and make another effort against it. But on leaving that vicinity they went to Fort Bowyer, at the entrance to Mobile Bay, thirty miles distant from the city of that name, then but a village of less than one thousand inhabitants. The fort is now called Fort Morgan.
"It was but a weak fortress, without bomb-proofs, and mounting only twenty guns, only two of them larger than twelve pounders, some of them less. It was under the command of Major Lawrence.
"The British besieged it for nearly two days, when Lawrence, a gallant officer, was compelled to surrender to a vastly superior force.