The enemy's gun was a sixty-four-pound Blakely, as we afterward found, whose enormous projectile moved very slowly and gave ample time to cover,--insomuch, that, while the fragments of shell fell all around and amongst us, not a man was hurt.
This soon gave the men the most buoyant confidence, and they shouted with childish delight over every explosion.
*Take this for example: "The effect was electrical.

The Rebels were the best men in Ford's command, being Lieutenant-Colonel Showalter's Californians, and they are brave men.

They had dismounted and sent their horses to the rear, and were undoubtedly determined upon a desperate fight, and their superior numbers made them confident of success.

But they never fought with artillery, and a cannon has more terror for them than ten thousand rifles and all the wild Camanches on the plains of Texas.

At first glimpse of the shining brass monsters there was a visible wavering in the determined front of the enemy, and as the shells came screaming over their heads the scare was complete.