Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861 Excerpt:...falls, and raising the water high enough to let the vessels pass over. This proposition looked like madness, and the best engineers ridiculed it; but Colonel Bailey was so sanguine of success, that I requested General Banks to have it done, and he entered heartily into the work. Provisions were short, and forage was almost out, and the dam was promised to be finished in ten days, or the army would have to leave us. I was doubtful about thp time, but had no doubt about the ultimate success, if time would only permit. General Banks placed at the disposal of Colonel Bailey all the force he required, consisting of some 3,000 men, and 200 or 300 wagons. All the neighboring steam-mills were torn down for material; two or three regiments of Maine men were set at work felling trees, and on the second day after my arrival in Alexandria from Grand Ecore the work had fairly begun. Trees were falling with great rapidity, teams were moving in all directions, bringing in brick and stone; quarries were opened; flatboats were built to bring stone down from above; and every man seemed to be working with a vigor I have seldom seen equaled, while perhaps not one in fifty believed in the success of the undertaking. These falls are about a mile in length, filled with rugged rocks, over which, at the present state of water, it seemed to be impossible to make a channel. "The work was commenced by running out from the left bank of the river,a tree-dam, made of the bodies of very large trees, brush, brick and stone, PASSAGE OF THE FLEET. 323 cross-tied with heavy timber, and strengthened in every way which ingenuity could devise. This was run out about 300 feet into the, river; four large coal-barges where then filled with brick and sunk at the end of it. From the right bank o...