three
o'clock
Presently all were quietly seated , the older people almost as eager for the story as were the young , and the captain began . `` While the armies before New Orleans were burying their dead , others of the British troops were trying to secure for themselves the free navigation of the Mississippi below the city by capturing Fort St. Philip , which is in a direct line some seventy or eighty miles lower down the stream , and was considered by both British and Americans as the key of the State of Louisiana . `` The fort was at that time garrisoned by three hundred and sixty-six men under the command of Major Overton of the rifle corps , with the addition of the crew of a gun-boat . Just about the time that the British killed in the battle of New Orleans were being carried by the Americans under Jackson to their comrades for burial , a little squadron of five English vessels appeared before the fort and anchored out of range of its heavy guns , the bomb vessels with their broadsides toward it ; and at three o'clock they opened fire on it . Their bombardment went on with scarcely a pause till daybreak of the 18th , when they had sent more than a thousand shells , using for that purpose twenty thousand pounds of powder . They had sent , too , beside the shells , many round and grape shot . `` During those nine days the Americans were in their battery , five of the days without shelter , exposed to cold and rain a part of the time ; but only two of them were killed and seven wounded .