Twenty-eight men were required to man the guns, and the others, armed with Spencer rifles, were to act as sharp-shooters.

Frank, to his surprise, soon learned that this was all the support they were to have, the troops having been ordered to take the same station they had occupied the day before, and to hold themselves in readiness to charge upon the fort, as soon as the iron-clads had silenced the guns.
About ten o'clock the fort commenced firing, and Frank knew that the gun-boats were again under way.

At length a loud report, which he could have recognized among a thousand, blended with the others, and, in obedience to the order of the captain, the men tore away the bushes which had masked the battery, and the fight became general.
Frank directed his fire upon a pile of cotton-bales, which protected one of the largest guns of the fort; but, as fast as he knocked them down, the rebels would recklessly spring out of the fort and put them up again.

At length Captain Wilson ordered she sharp-shooters to advance five hundred yards nearer the fort.

The rebels soon discovered this, and the cotton-bales were allowed to remain where they had fallen.
In half an hour that part of the fort was completely demolished; and the rebels, being without protection against the sharp-shooters, were obliged to abandon the gun.
While Frank was congratulating himself on the fine shooting he had done, and wondering why the troops were not ordered to charge, he was startled by the rapid report of muskets behind him.