The long row of earth-works which the Americans occupied had not been quite finished, so the top of a great deal of the line was made of cotton bales, which protected the riflemen from the enemy's bullets to a great extent, but were easily disarranged and set on fire by artillery. Some people thought that they would have been better without the cotton bales, but they were then, and they were always afterwards, associated with the battle. When the firing actually began it was discovered that the British had found a quantity of sugar hogsheads in the plantations, and had used them in building their batteries, but they were not as good as the cotton bales at resisting fire, as it turned out. Eph Clark had Eric as a sergeant in the battery of which he was lieutenant, on the night of the 7th of January, 1814, by which time all was ready. They lay in a rough hut, back of the battery, and the men were talking and smoking, all around them, as they speculated on the chances of next day's battle, for everybody knew it would occur then, probably at daylight. At last they dropped off into an uneasy doze, and were roused from that by the order passed to turn out and man the battery. They were hardly at their guns when General Jackson came along with a large staff, carefully inspecting the preparations by the light of the camp fires in the rear of the intrenchments. General Villere, of the New Orleans militia, who had seen Eph Clark before, and who was accompanying General Jackson, said: "Here are Lafitte's men, general. And here is the youth I spoke to you about, an American boy." General Jackson had too many weighty matters on his mind that morning to do more than glance at Eph, in answer to the officer's remark. But he did say: "All right! Glad to see such pluck and determination." Then he passed on to the left of the lines--and all stood firm--peering into a dense mist, which had arisen as the day was near and obscured the field in front. It was known that the flower of the British army was in front, and eager eyes and ears kept open to detect the first movement. The invaders had boasted that they would walk straight over the half-drilled riflemen from Kentucky and Tennessee and the militia of Louisiana. They had not quite heard of the artillery of Commodore Patterson and of Lafitte's batteries, and were not prepared for them, while they had little idea of what the riflemen could do, although they wore no such gorgeous uniform. Suddenly, before the sun had risen and while the haze still hung upon the ground like a curtain, a gun was heard from the left of the batteries--the one in which Eph Clark had charge of the guns. His sharp sailor-eyes and ears had detected the advance of the enemy before any others, and, according to orders given beforehand, he fired a round of grape-shot slap into the advancing foe.