14 THE ARMA' OB’ THE POTOMAC. ]>:irati^n. It was impossible, however, to resist the desire we had of ti ring our 200-ponnders. These enormous guns were Worked with inconceivable ease. Four men ■were able to load and point them -with no more trouble than our old-fashioned 24-pounders. At three miles their fire Avas admirably accurate. One day one of these huge guns had a sort of duel with a somewhat smaller rifled piece mounted on one of the bastions of Yorktown. The curious upon our side got upon the parapets to watch the effect of cwry shot, then whilst we were discussing our observations the sentinel would Avarn us that the enemy in his turn avus firing ; but the distance was so great that between the discharge and the arrival of the ball everybody bad time enough to step quietly down and get under the shelter of the parapet. 9evertbcless, such was the excellence of the firing that you Avere sure to see the enormous missile pass over the very place Avhere the group of spec tators bad a moment before been standing. It Avonld then go on and strike the ground 50 yards in the rear, its cap Avonld explode and it would burst, throwing into the air a cloud of earth as high as the jet of the Avater-Avorks at St. Cloud. These new and curious artillery experiences Avere not the only interesting feature of this siege. In 17S1 Yorktown had been besieged by the combined forces of France and America under Washington mid Boehambean, and this operation had resulted in the celebrated capitulation Avhich secured the independence of the United States. At every step avc came upon the traces of this first siege. Here in this decrepid hovel Lafayette had fixed his head-quarters; there the French trenches began ; there, again, lay the camp of the regiments of Bourbon and of Saintonge. In other directions appeared the still vi ible entrenchments of Boehambean, upon which the almost tropical vegetation of the country had reasserted it empire, Further on Awr pointed out to ns the house inhabited by the two commanders. Behind these same fortitica-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=