Personally I crept up to a stump so close that I
could hear the enemy hard at work, pulling down houses, cutting
with axes, and building intrenchments. I could almost hear their
words, and I was thus listening when, about 4 A. M. the bugler in
the rebel camp sounded as pretty a reveille as I ever listened to.
When daylight broke it revealed to us a new line of parapet
straight across the peninsula, connecting Fort Hindman, on the
Arkansas River bank, with the impassable swamp about a mile to its
left or rear. This peninsula was divided into two nearly equal
parts by a road. My command had the ground to the right of the
road, and Morgan's corps that to the left. McClernand had his
quarters still on the Tigress, back at Notrib's farm, but moved
forward that morning (January 11th) to a place in the woods to our
rear, where he had a man up a tree, to observe and report the
movements.
There was a general understanding with Admiral Porter that he was
to attack the fort with his three ironclad gunboats directly by its
water-front, while we assaulted by land in the rear. About 10 a.
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