For eight hours, nearly 150 cannon poured shot and shell into the unfortunate town, shattering walls and setting houses on fire. When Union gunners on the bluffs reported difficulty in depressing the muzzles of their guns low enough to strike the buildings along the waterfront, artillery chief Henry Hunt ordered 36 pieces down to the water's edge, where they blasted the town at point-blank range. The deafening roar of cannon and bursting shells, falling walls and chimneys, brick and timbers flying through the air, houses set on fire, the smoke adding to the already heavy fog, the bursting of flames through the housetops, made a scene which has no parallel in history. It was appalling and indescribable, a condition which would paralyze the stoutest heart, and one from which not a man in Barksdale's Brigade had the slightest hope of escaping. Damage to the town was immense.
Every house almost is full of holes where the shells have been sent.
A Georgian who toured the shattered town after the battle was shocked at the thoroughness of the destruction. Chimneys knocked off, roofs torn up, and walls scarred with holes of various sizes, some as large as a man's head and others as large as a flour barrel. The large tall houses suffered more than the low buildings. I think there are twenty five or thirty houses burned. Some Mississippians were struck by shells or crushed by falling masonry, but others stubbornly hung on and continued to fight.