On the afternoon of Wednesday, the eleventh of September, the Union scouts and pickets were driven in by the enemy only a few miles out of Lexington. The rebels followed rapidly and attacked one of the angles of the fortifications, but not very vigorously. The fighting was kept up on the twelfth and following days, while the rebel army was coming up and making its preparations for the reduction of the fortification and capture of the garrison.
There were nearly three-thousand mules and horses inside the fortifications, and as the rebel shot and shell fell amongst them they caused a great deal of trouble. Numbers of them were killed and their bodies lay rotting in the sun, the garrison being too much occupied with defending the position to give attention to burying the dead animals or doing any other work of the camp. Frequently some of the affrighted animals broke loose from their fastenings and ran wildly about the camp, and it was finally found advisable to allow some of them to run outside, as their value was not sufficient compensation for the trouble and danger of caring for them.
The college building was within the inclosure, and occupied as the headquarters of Colonel Mulligan. Very naturally, it formed a fine target for the rebel artillery, and they fired away at it with good effect. One night they fired hot shot at it, but did not set it on fire; had they succeeded in doing so it would have created considerable havoc among the garrison, as the ammunition for the defense of the place was stored in the cellar, where it was covered with dirt and sods.
The rebels went to work leisurely, as before stated. They planted some of their artillery on the river bank, where they stopped every steamboat going up or down. They seized the ferry-boats that connect Lexington with the opposite bank of the river, and thus prevented the crossing of reinforcements which were moving from Kansas to join the threatened garrison. Several steamboats were thus taken, and for a while, at least, General Price was certainly master of the situation.
The country around Lexington grows a large amount of hemp, and thousands of bales of this article were stored in the warehouses of the town. The rebels rolled out this hemp, and with it constructed movable fortifications, with which they proceeded to reduce the earthworks of the Union army.
And this is the way it was done: The hemp was thoroughly wetted, so that there would be no danger of its taking fire, and then the bales were rolled toward the Union works, one after another, until they formed a breastwork; and all the time not a head of a man could be seen. Then other bales were brought forward and rolled on the top of the first layer, and in this way the assailants had a defense that no bullet could penetrate. Even the four or five pieces of light artillery which Colonel Mulligan possessed could do but little against such a bulwark as this.
The first of these hemp breastworks was thrown up to the west of the fort; another on the north, where it was partially sheltered by timber, followed it very quickly. In the night they were pushed forward, so that they were within very short range, and from the spaces between the bales the rebels kept up a fire upon every Union head that was shown on that side of the earthworks. It was a repetition of the trick of General Jackson with the cotton bales of New Orleans in 1815.
There were several houses within range of the fort, and these were speedily occupied by the rebels. Then from every rock, elevation, fence, gully and tree bullets were steadily whizzing, the great numbers of the rebels enabling them to keep their lines of attack fully manned at all times.
Rations were growing short in the fortifications, and the men were worn out with hard work and the necessity of being almost constantly on duty. The stench from the dead animals within the lines was fearful, and threatened to breed an epidemic; some of the Home Guards were demoralized and wanted to surrender, but the commander refused to entertain the idea of giving up the place.