sailors

"They aren't safe from this battery."
Pakenham followed his artillery officer's admiring gaze. The British forces on the river now had a battery consisting of two nine-pounders, four six-pounders, two 5.5-inch howitzers, and a 5.5-inch mortar. They'd be using heated shot, to boot.
Dickson's veteran gunners found the range quickly. The nine-pounders fired the heated shot while the six-pounders raked the schooner with antipersonnel munitions. The howitzers and mortar added solid shot and shell. Long before the startled Americans could get the ship under way, the British gunners brought down the Carolina's rigging.
The schooner was helpless, trapped with no means of escape. Then a round of heated shot fired in the second volley from the nine-pounders struck squarely.
Soon enough, the Carolina began to burn.
Cochrane was watching the action with them. "I think the round lodged in the hold under her cables, where it couldn't be quickly removed," he guessed. "If so, they'll have to abandon the ship—and they'd best do it quickly."
He proved to be right. Not more than half an hour after the bombardment began, they saw the Americans start leaving the ship. Their captain, obviously enough, had no choice. He and his sailors clambered into boats and made their escape to the western bank of the river, shielded from British fire by the bulk of the burning schooner.
At nine thirty in the morning, the Carolina blew up. Andrew Jackson had only one ship left to defend the waterway—and