The capture of this work enabled the working parties immediately to begin the first parallel. The garrison kept up an incessant fire of shot and shell, but by daylight the men were well covered. Early on the 9th the Light Division were relieved by the 1st. The French from the old square tower of the cathedral had a good view of this relief, and a furious fire was kept up on the advancing and retiring Divisions. On the 12th the Light Division again occupied the trenches, fording the Agueda up to their waists, and continuing in this wet state, half-frozen, till relieved next day. Some worked at the approaches; some kept up a fire on the works of the place; and in the evening, under cover of a fog, thirty men of the 1st Battalion, under Kincaid, were sent forward to dig holes as near as possible to the crest of the glacis, in which to shelter themselves, and to pick off the gunners. This was not difficult for a good marksman; as, by having his rifle ready, he was able to aim at an embrasure and fire at it the moment he saw the flash of the gun. But the garrison threw fire-balls among them; however, the men crouching in their rifle-pits, lay hid until the fire-balls burned out, and then springing up again, picked off their gunners in the embrasures. At ten the next morning the Division was relieved, and marched back to its cantonments. The fording of the Agueda, now partly frozen, on coming to and returning from the trenches, was very trying to the men. Not only the depth and the cold of the river; but now large blocks of ice carried down by the current bruised and incommoded them. In some measure to obviate this, cavalry were ordered to form across the ford above the infantry, and under this shelter the Riflemen crossed, if in the cold, at least unmolested by the floating ice. On the 16th they again resumed their place in the trenches. The enemy had now got the range so accurately that their shells literally dropped into the trenches. So murderous and incessant was the fire from the place, that on their relief the next morning a new expedient was devised to escape its effect. The relieving division came up by small parties and the Light Division in like manner retired a few men at a time. But strange is the confidence given by constant exposure to danger: the Riflemen having discovered that by crossing the river close to where they then were, and running the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire for about a mile, instead of going round behind the hill near San Francisco, they would save both time and distance in getting to their cantonments, they did so.