3-016-860 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The War in Denmark: Prussian battery at Gaasberg Point, opposite the forts of Düppel, 1864. '...We see two of the great guns at work, throwing shot and shell across the waters of the Venning Bund, a distance of about two miles and a half, into the Danish redoubts, three or four of which are plainly distinguished on the opposite shore...The Düppel windmill is in the background...An officer, making use of a telescope mounted on a rest, is examining the enemy's movements...The gunners, having just fired off one of their two pieces, are preparing to discharge another. One man is carefully hugging a percussion shell...to load the gun; another is opening a chest, which may contain some part of the ammunition. In the left comer are some men who seem to be anxiously expecting the approach of a Danish shell, and ready to take shelter beneath the sloping screen of turf on a timber framework...The commanding officer, with his back towards us, stands in the middle, and a young cavalry officer, in white uniform, stands beside him...our Special Artist has portrayed himself, with pencil and sketchbook in hand, in the right-hand corner, accompanied by his comrade, the special correspondent of the Times, who wears an opera-glass slung round his neck'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.