The impartial cresset lights as well
The fixed forts to the boats that run;
And, plunged from the ports, their answers swell
Back to each fortress dun;
Ponderous words speaks every monster gun.
Fearless they flash through gates of flame,
The salamanders hard to hit,
Though vivid shows each bulky frame;
And never the batteries intermit,
Nor the boat's huge guns; they fire and flit.
Anon a lull. The beacon dies.
"Are they out of that strait accurst?"
But other flames now dawning rise,
Not mellowly brilliant like the first,
But rolled in smoke, whose whitish volumes burst.
A baleful brand, a hurrying torch
Whereby anew the boats are seen—
A burning transport all alurch!
Breathless we gaze; yet still we glean
Glimpses of beauty as we eager lean.
The effulgence takes an amber glow
Which bathes the hillside villas far;
Affrighted ladies mark the show
Painting the pale magnolia—
The fair, false, Circe light of cruel War.
The barge drifts doomed, a plague-struck one,
Shoreward in yawls the sailors fly.
But the gauntlet now is nearly run,
The spleenful forts by fits reply,
And the burning boat dies down in morning's sky.
All out of range. Adieu, Messieurs!
Jeers, as it speeds, our parting gun.
So burst we through their barriers
And menaces every one;
So Porter proves himself a brave man's son.
Herman Melville.
The army was at once taken across the river and on May 19, 1863, a general assault was made on the town. This was repulsed with severe loss, and Grant thereupon settled down for a regular siege.
BEFORE VICKSBURG