The Southerners, behind their powerful fortifications at the heads of the ravines and on the plateau, beat back every attack.
Before long the trumpets sounded the recall and the short battle ceased.
Grant had discovered that he could not carry Vicksburg by a sudden rush and he recoiled for a greater effort.

He discovered, too, from the resistance and the news brought later by his scouts that an army almost as numerous as his own was in the town.
The Winchester regiment made camp on a solid, dry piece of ground beyond the range of the Southern works, and the men, veterans now, prepared for their comfort.

The comrades ate supper to the slow booming of great guns, where the advanced cannon of either side engaged in desultory duel.
The distant reports did not disturb Dick.

They were rather soothing.

He was glad enough to rest after so much exertion and so much danger and excitement.
"I feel as if I were an empty shell," he said, "and I've got to wait until nature comes along and fills up the shell again with a human being." "In my school in Vermont," said Warner, "they'd call that a considerable abuse of metaphor, but all metaphors are fair in war.