The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1862-01-16
Incidents at the BOmbaldncnt Of For
pickcias.


Pickcns.
The folwinc extract is from a letter
written by an officer on board the United
States steamer Richmond, after the bonn.
bardmcut of Fort pickcus:
81 went By invitation Of Lieut. ----, Of
the Engineers, to visit the fort. Took Il
circuit first Of the covered way, then Of
the pararct aud rampar.s. Al! around
the tcr.. inside aud out, were marks OF
the enyny's sho, and shell On the
g!acis, here aud there, are deep grooves,
ending in large hole, where the shot
had plunpcd into it, and where there had
been shell which had burst The hole
was great excavation, into which you
can drive an OK cart. Where the pro-
jcctiIes have struck the standing walls
the. have chipped of. PITCHES Of the bricl,
work (it is n brick and not a stone fort,
perhaps eight or ten inches deep, aud
where they have struck the c.rncrs
large portions have been removed, but iu
no Que case has any part Of the foritica-
,ions received an injury tending in the
least to weaken it aud this after two days
heavy firing The only man who wa:
killed outright, during the two days' ac
tio1, was all ar,iIleryman, who was pas
j sing into the casematcs with some bread
from the bakehousc 4 shcl! exploded
ut the other side of the area, and on,
piece, flying distance Of some TWO OIL
three hundred feet, passed through his
body under his arms lie walked few
steps and dropped dead. There were
, ,nnny almost miraculous escapes. A shcl
was heard comirg toward y .un on The
paropct. and the men Judged under the
bo.ub-pr' offs. The hell hit fairly on top Of
the bomb proof, went through and drop.
ped into pail of water beside the officer,
where i, exploded When the men came
out again to resume their work, all they
saw Of their officer was his heels, stick
ing ont of pile Of rubbish After dig
ing him out they stood amazed to see
that he was not even hurt He rose up,
shook tho sand from his hair and clothes,
and coolly said, Come, come! what are
you standing there gaping at? Load
that gun, there At it they went again,
as if nothing had happened Another
officer, who had charge Of a battery of
mor,ars, had no less than seventeen
shells strike within ten yards Of him.
| saw the ground plowcd up in every
direction, and yet not man was hurt.
About twenty of the men who had been
relieved from their guns, were se,til =
smoking and watching the Gring in Il
corner protected from shot by the walls,
when half o. a: huge shell uck..and bur
led itself right iu the middle of the
group without disturbin. them in the
least "What's that asked one. "The
devil knows. and he won, tell" indiffer-
ently responded another. and went Oh
smoking.-A ten inch Co'umbiad came
rolling toward group, the fusci whizzing
aud smoking. "Wonder if that'll hit
u>?' Guess not. we're too near it,
Crack. went the shell, flying in every
direction, but fortunately escaping them
ALL The rebel powder was poor, as was
also their shot and shell, except that
portion which they succeeded in stealing
before the rebellion broke out Their
practice, however, was said to be good
how could it have been otherwise ? Uncle
Sam taught them at his UNPARALLELED
school at West Point: but with little
thought that the teaching would be thus
employed