110

A COMPLETE RUIN.

boxes, barrels of powder, and other materials, were blown to an indescribable height, and went whirling through the air in wild confusion, falling, in some instances, more than a mile from the exploding magazine. A moment after, the burning roof of a building a hundred and eighty feet long, used as a store-house on the mountain, fell in, and set fire to the shells stored there." Before the blazing embers that shot in a fiery shower heavenward had descended to the earth again, the explosion took place, sounding like a thousand cannon let off there at once, in the trembling gorge. Lighted on its way by such a sea of flame, and keeping step to such stern and awful music, did that gallant army move off into the night, and turn its face towards the distant Ohio.

But the terrific fusilade made by the discharging guns and bursting shells, was kept up there among the solitary crags until noon. The rebels beyond the ridge were filled with consternation, as they gazed on the lurid sky, and felt the earthquake shock, and knew not what the strange uproar meant. When, at last, they were informed, by an inhabitant of the region, that Morgan had evacuated the Gap, they dared not approach it till three o'clock the next day, for fear of explod ing shells and mines. When they did venture near, they gazed around in blank astonishment. Silence and desolation reigned throughout the gorge, while the rocks lay piled along it, in one wild wreck, heaved there by the exploding mines.

Morgan had done his work thoroughly and well, but the mighty task before him was only just commenced. Two hundred miles of such a country as lay before him, were never before marched over, by ten thousand men, with artillery and no supplies, while a vast army was closing in upon them on every side. As if to cloud the beginning of his great endeavor with increasing gloom, towards morning a pelting rain set in, accompanied with fierce gusts of wind that swept mournfully over the swiftly advancing columns. Ten ladies,