possible to capture the fort without the assistance of the
troops, ordered a retreat.

That same night a consultation of the naval and military commanders was
held, and it was decided to renew the attack on the following morning. A
battery of two thirty-pounder Parrotts was taken off one of the
"tin-clads" and mounted on the bank, about half a mile back in the woods,
and a mile from the fort. Captain Wilson, who commanded one of the
mosquito boats, was ordered to take command of it, and Frank, at his own
request, was permitted to accompany him as his aid. He started early the
next morning with fifty men, who had been detailed from the gun-boats, and
at sunrise was at his station.

The battery was masked, and the rebels knew nothing of its existence. The
captain's orders were, not to fire until they heard the action opened by
the iron-clads. 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. Three of his men fell dead
where they had stood; and Frank turned just in time to se