Joseph Alexander Altsheler
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 106
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... and for a half hour the thousands on either side stood there and watched and listened. We could do nothing to help our little ship, and perforce we waited while she made her fight against overwhelming odds--a gallant fight, but still a losing one. The smoke rose high over her and drifted off in broad clouds under the sun, while we cheered with tremendous spirit when the schooner now and then drove the British gunners to shelter under the levee; but presently a bright flame shot up from her timbers, and all the efforts of her men could not check it. Higher the flames rose; we could see plainly that they were eating their way to the heart of the ship, and that her crew could not fight the overwhelming battery and the rising fire at the same time. "Five minutes now," said Courtenay, "and then goodbye to the Carolina; she's a brave little ship and she's done her work well." He was a true prophet accepted by his time, for the British guns were pouring hot shot in such quantities upon the Carolina that all her timbers burst into flames, and the crew, abandoning her, escaped to the shore. The fire of the British battery and the shouts of the two armies ceased, and for a moment or two silence seemed to hold the plain which had just been resounding with cannon shots and the cheers of thousands. All expected the same thing, and all watched the burning schooner as the flames wrapped her around until she glowed like the inside of a spouting volcano; then she seemed to fall apart, a streak of deeper red appeared in the heart of the fire, and the Carolina, lifted bodily from the water, flew into a million hissing and smoking fragments hurled high in the air, as the ground beneath us trembled under the crash of the exploding magazine. Burning pieces...