A detail of the Seventeenth Iowa came out this morning to
relieve us, and a team came this afternoon to haul our baggage, but we have not
yet received orders to leave. Captain McLoney went down to the headquarters of
the picket officers to get an order to move. The report is that our men blew up
another rebel fort. It is said that a man on one of our mortar boats made a
wager that he could pull the lanyard longer and fire a larger number of shells
than any of his comrades, but he was overcome by the concussion and dropped
dead just as he stepped from the boat. He gave up his life for a vain wish.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s
Civil War Diary, p. 125
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