Although the gunboats ceased firing at sunset, the mortars were in play all night. It was beautiful to see the great flash, illuminating all the landscape, the white cloud rolling upward and outward, unfolding, expanding, spreading over the wide river, and the bright spark rising high in the air, turning with the revolving shell, reaching its altitude and sailing straight along the arch of the parabola, then descending with increasing rapidity, ending in a bright flash, and an explosion which echoes and re-echoes far away. The next day I went with Captain Maynadier across the point to reconnoitre the batteries on the island and watch the explosions of the shells. We passed a deserted farm-house, and saw a squad of Colonel Buford's soldiers running down pigs and chickens. Crossing a creek upon a corduroy bridge, we came to a second squad. One was playing a violin, and several were dancing; they were as happy as larks. We stood upon the bank of the river opposite the island. Before us was the floating battery, which was formerly the New Orleans dry-dock. It mounted eight guns. There were four batteries on the Tennessee shore and several on the island. We could see the artillerists at their guns. They saw us, and sent a shell whizzing over our heads, which struck in a cornfield, and ploughed a deep furrow for the farmer owning it. We went where they could not see us, and mounted a fence to watch the effect of the mortar-firing. It was interesting to sit there and hear the great shells sail through the air five hundred feet above us. It was like the sound of far-off, invisible machinery, turning with a constant motion, not the sharp, shrill whistle of a rifled-bolt, but a whirr and roll, like that which you may sometimes hear above the clouds in a thunder-storm. One shell fell like a millstone into the river. The water did not extinguish the fuse, and a great column was thrown up fifty feet high. Another buried itself deep in the ground before it burst, and excavated a great hole. I learned, after the place surrendered, that one fell through a tent where several officers were sitting, playing cards, and that the next moment the tent, furniture, officers, and fifty cartloads of earth were sailing through the air! None of them were wounded, but they were bruised, wrenched, and their nice clothes covered with dirt. At night there was a storm, with vivid lightning and heavy thunder. The mortars kept up their fire. It was a sublime spectacle,--earth against heaven, but the artillery of the skies was the best.