Book Excerpt...fended fortress. This was already partly in ruins, and the besiegers had good reasons for their expectation that in due season they were to see the Stars and Stripes come down from the shattered rampart. It did not seem to them at all possible that the small force under General Taylor, twenty miles away at the seaside, could cut through overwhelming numbers to the relief of the garrison.It was just as dark in the American camp on the...