Another round from the fleet. Another from the fort. The air is calm, and the thunder of the cannonade rolls along the valley, reverberating from hill to hill. Louder and deeper and heavier is the booming, till it becomes almost an unbroken peal. There is a commotion in the Rebel encampment. Men run to and fro. They curl down behind the stumps and the fallen trees, to avoid the shot. Their huts are blown to pieces by the shells. You see the logs tossed like straws into the air. Their tents are torn into paper-rags. The hissing shells sink deep into the earth, and then there are sudden upheavals of sand, with smoke and flames, as if volcanoes were bursting forth. The parapet is cut through. Sand-bags are knocked about. The air is full of strange, hideous, mysterious, terrifying noises. There are seven or eight thousand Rebel soldiers in the rifle-pits and behind the breastworks of the encampment in line of battle. They are terror-stricken. Officers and men alike lose all self-control. They run to escape the fearful storm. They leave arms, ammunition, tents, blankets, trunks, clothes, books, letters, papers, pictures,--everything. They pour out of the intrenchments into the road leading to Dover, a motley rabble. A small steamboat lies in the creek above the fort. Some rush on board and steam up river with the utmost speed. Others, in their haste and fear, plunge into the creek and sink to rise no more. All fly except a brave little band in the fort. The gunboats move straight on, slowly and steadily. Their fire is regular and deliberate. Every shot goes into the fort. The gunners are blinded and smothered by clouds of sand. The gun-carriages are crushed, splintered, and overturned. Men are cut to pieces. Something unseen tears them like a thunderbolt. The fort is full of explosions. The heavy rifled gun bursts, crushing and killing those who serve it. The flagstaff is splintered and torn, as by intensest lightning. Yet the fort replies. The gunners have the range of the boats, and nearly every shot strikes the iron plating. They are like the strokes of sledge-hammers, indenting the sheets, starting the fastenings, breaking the tough bolts. The Cincinnati receives thirty-one shots, the Essex fifteen, the St. Louis seven, and the Carondelet six. Though struck so often, they move on. The distance lessens. Another gun is knocked from its carriage in the fort,--another,--another. There are signs that the contest is about over, that the Rebels are ready to surrender. But a shot strikes the Essex between the iron plates. It tears through the oaken timbers and into one of the steam-boilers. There is a great puff of steam. It pours from the portholes, and the boat is enveloped in a cloud. She drops out of the line of battle. Her engines stop and she floats with the stream. Twenty-eight of her crew are scalded, among them her brave commander.