works very well into a wall; and the
materials being plenty, a breastwork, that is proof against everything
but artillery, is soon formed by a crowd. Two streets entered the Rue
St. Mery near each other, but not in a right line, so that the approach
along each is commanded by the house that stands across its end. One of
these houses appears to have been a citadel of the disaffected, and most
of the fighting was at and near this spot. Artillery had been brought up
against the house in question, which was completely riddled, though less
injured by round-shot than one could have thought possible. The windows
were broken, and the ceilings of the upper rooms were absolutely torn to
pieces by musket-balls, that had entered on the rise. Some twenty or
thirty dead were found in this dwelling.

I had met Col.--, in the course of the morning, and we visited this spot
together. He told me that curiosity had led him to penetrate as far as
this street, which faces the citadel of the revolters, the previous day,
and he showed me a _porte-cochere_, under which he had taken shelter,
during a part of the attack. The troops engaged were a little in advance
of him, and he described them as repeatedly recoiling from the fire of
the house, which, at times, was rather sharp. The troops, however, were
completely exposed, and fought to great disadvantage. Several hundreds
must have been killed and wounded at and near this spot.

There existed plain proof of the importance of nerve in battle, in a
shot that just appeared sticking in the wall of one of the lateral
buildings, nearly opposite the _porte-cochere_, where Col.--had taken
shelter. The artillerist who pointed the gun from which it had been
discharged, had the two sides of the street to assist his range, and yet
his shot had hit one of the lateral buildings, at no great distance from
the gun, and at a height that would have sent it far above the chimneys
of the house at which it was fired! But any one in the least acquainted
with life, knows that great allowances must be made for the poetry, when
he reads of "charges," "free use of the bayonet," and "braving murderous
discharges of grape." Old and steady troops do sometimes display
extraordinary fortitude, but I am inclined to think that the most
brilliant things are performed by those who have been drilled just long
enough to obey orders and act together, but who are still so young as
not to know exactly the amount of the risk they run