The effect was fearful. Each gun was aimed by the captain himself, and when its black mouth belched out sudden thunder, winrows of dead men fell in its track. While this heavy firing had been heard on the right, General Smith, had ordered the enemy to be engaged on the left. The Twenty-fifth Indiana, at the head of a brigade, led the way. They had reached a position on the brow of a hill where the successful assault was afterwards made, and were met by the enemy in force, who swarmed behind the works, pouring a deadly hail of bullets and grape into them. The leading regiment broke in disorder after sustaining a hot fire, and the whole line fell back out of range. The object of the sortie had been accomplished, and the enemy’s forces drawn from the other side, but the advantage did not result, as might have been anticipated, in the occupation of the fort on the right by General McClernand. Six companies of the famous regiment of riflemen, raised by Colonel Birge, accompanied the expedition from Fort Henry, and two companies afterwards arrived by the transports. This was a corps of picked men skilled in the use of the rifle, drawn from the North-west. These hardy pioneers started out in the morning, with a hard biscuit in their pocket and a rifle on their shoulder, for the rebel earthworks, where they remained until relieved by a fresh gang. So adventurous were they, that many of them crept within fifty yards of the rifle-pits and exchanged words as well as shots with the enemy. One piece in front of Dresser’s battery was kept in silence during the morning by the sharpshooters picking off their gunners. At last a shell from a Union battery, falling short, drove them away. One valiant southerner, to prove his bravery, jumped into the rampart to take aim; in an instant he was pierced by three balls, and fell out of the intrenchment, where he lay till nightfall. The firing for the rest of the day was slow, and appeared by general consent to be abandoned. The Unionists seemed to have failed in every attempt on the fort. Wounded men were being brought in on stretchers; some limped along, supported by comrades, others staggered forward with bleeding hands and battered heads tied in handkerchiefs. The ambulances had brought in the maimed and seriously wounded. In the gray dusk of evening men came forth with spades to dig the graves of their fellow-soldiers, whose remains, stiffened in death, were lying under the pale stars. Hardly had the camp-fires been kindled for the night when a drizzling shower set in, which soon turned into a steady fall of rain. The wind grew suddenly colder. The weather, hitherto so pleasant, was chilled in an hour to a wintry blast. Snow began to fall, and the mercury sank below freezing point.