Harry knew that Lee and Jackson would make their chief defense on the ridges, but the Mississippians were there to keep the enemy from being too forward.
So deadly were their rifles that every workman fled off the bridge to the Union shore, save those who were struck down upon it, falling into the water.
Then came a pause, a period of intense waiting, short, but seemingly long, even to the veteran generals, after which the gallant builders, who truly deserved the name of the bravest of the brave, ventured again upon the bridge in the face of those terrible Mississippi rifles.
A blast of death again blew upon them.

Bullets in hundreds struck upon bodies or rattled on timbers.

The workmen could not live in the face of such a fire, and those who had not been slain retreated again to their own side of the stream.

A third time the heroic bridge builders returned to their work, and a third time they were driven back by the deadly Mississippi hail.

Harry felt pity for them.
"I never saw anything braver," he said to Dalton.
"Nor did I, Harry, nor anything more useless.