Bancroft describes the
results of his efforts as follows: "The column under Count Dillon,
which was to have attacked the rear of the British lines, became
entangled in a swamp of which it should only have skirted the edge was
helplessly exposed to the British batteries and could not even be
formed." Here were the two strong sand-filled redoubts, mounted with
heavy cannon, and these may have been the batteries that stopped
Dillon's column.
Count Pulaski with his two hundred brave cavalrymen, undertook his
part in the deadly drama with ardor, and began that perilous ride
which had for its object: "to penetrate the enemy's lines, between the
battery on the left of the Springhill redoubt, and the next towards
the river." Balch describes it as an attempt to "penetrate into the
city by galloping between the redoubts." It was the anticipation of
the Crimean "Charge of the Light Brigade;" only in this case, no one
blundered; it was simply a desperate chance. Cannon were to the right,
left, and front, and the heroic charge proved in vain; the noble Pole
fell, banner[8] in hand, pierced with a mortal wound--another foreign
martyr to our dearly bought freedom.
The cavalry dash having failed, that much of the general plan was
blotted out. The feints may have been understood; it is said a
sergeant of the Charleston Grenadiers deserted during the night of the
8th and gave the whole plan of the attack to General Prevost, so that
he knew just where to strengthen his lines.
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