our squadron, and lived to do us much harm before her destruction. Commodore Edward Montgomery, C. S. N., under carte-blanche from the Citizens' Defence Association of New Orleans, seized ocean steamships, gulf towboats, and river steamers, and went to work with a right good-will to get up a Rebel navy. The result was the "General Bragg," a large gulf steamer carrying two guns, but fitted up mainly as a ram; the "Sumter " and "General Price," gulf tow-boats with engines of great power, converted into rams; the "Little Rebel," General Beauregard," "General Lovell," " General Van Dorn," "General Polk," and the "Livingston." These boats cost the Citizens' Association nearly two millions of dollars, which amount the Confederate Government agreed to repay, provided Commodore Montgomery fought the Federal fleet above Memphis. This will account for the events about to be narrated. All of these boats had great speed, walking-beam engines, solid bows with iron beaks, but used cotton bales where we used iron, and relied on sinking their opponents by ramming, rather than by using guns. While we had the superiority in weight of metal, they had the advantage in every other particular. Not one of our boats could back upstream; they were not built that way. They were really floating batteries. Now, the advantage possessed by the enemy can readily be seen, from the fact that he was fighting up-stream with powerful and easily handled. boats, while we were fighting down-stream with boats. that could not be handled at all. If one of his boats was disabled in action, it drifted down-stream into the hands. of friends. But if one of our boats was crippled, the same current carried us quickly where there was no one to love us, none to caress," but where speedy connections could be made with either the bottom of the river or with Andersonville, or with both.

Admiral Foote never recovered from the wound received in the pilot-house of the "Benton" at Fort

Donelson. He left the Mississippi Squadron early in May, to die at his home in the East. Flag officer Charles H. Davis had assumed command. He found his fleet at

Fort Pillow, and had not had time to inspect the eight boats under his command, when on the morning of the 10th of May, 1862, he awoke to find a lively amount of business on his hands. I have stated that the Federal fleet lay at anchor five miles above the fort, awaiting a movement of our army, with which they expected to co-operate; but in order that General Beauregard might not think we had forgotten him, a mortar-boat, throwing a shell thirty-nine inches in circumference, was made fast to the shore just above the point behind which the fort lay, and every half-hour during the day one of these little pills would climb a mile or two into air, look around a bit at the scenery, and finally descend and disintegrate around the fort, to the great interest and excitement of the occupants. One of the gun-boats would drop down every night and stand a twenty-four hour watch over this mortar-boat. On this memorable morning, the “Cincinnati," Commander Stembel, was lying just above the mortar, made fast to the trees; and with steam down, all hands were busy holy-stoning decks. It was a beautiful morning,-like one of those June days which so often bless our more northern latitudes. Nature had put on her loveliest garb. The woods were vocal with songsters, and the entire surroundings seemed so appropriate for a young man who had left his girl behind him to indite her a few words, that at least one young man on the "Cincinnati" that morning was engaged in that very occupation. While deep in a logical argument proving that beyond question the stars paled whenever she stepped out of an evening, the hurried shuffle of steps on the deck overhead, the short and sharp command calling all hands to quarters, caused the writer to drop his pen and climb the companion-way. The sight which met his youthful eyes will never be effaced. Steaming rapidly around the

point below us, pouring dense clouds from their funnels, came first one vessel, then two, then more, until six warvessels under full head of steam came surging up the river barely a mile below us. Eight minutes would bring them alongside; while the "Cincinnati," with hardly enough steam to turn her wheel over, lay three miles. away from the rest of the Union fleet, not one boat of which had enough steam up to hold itself against the current. The enemy's plan was undoubtedly to surprise (and I may say here that they did) the gun-boat that protected our mortar, sink or capture her, destroy the mortar, and get back under cover of the guns of the fort before the Union fleet above could come to the rescue. The plan came very near being successful.

The "Cincinnati's" cables were slipped, and slowly she swung out into the stream. Her engineers were throwing oil and everything else inflammable into her fires, that the necessary head of steam might be obtained to handle the boat. On came the leader of the Confederate fleet, the "General Bragg," a powerful gulf steamer, built full in the bow and standing up twenty feet above the surface of the river. Her powerful engines were ploughing her along at a rate that raised a billow ten feet high at her bow. At a distance of not over fifty yards, she received our full starboard battery of four thirty-twopound guns. Cotton bales were seen to tumble, and splinters fly; but on she came, her great walking-beam engine driving her at a fearful rate. When less than fifty feet away the " Cincinnati's" bow was thrown around, and the two boats came together with a fearful crash. was a glancing-blow that the "General Bragg" gave us, and not the one she intended, a right-angle contact would have have sunk us then and there; but glancingblow as it was, it took a piece out of our midships six feet deep and twelve feet long, throwing the magazine open to the inflow of water, and knocking everything down from one end of the boat to the other. The force

It

of the blow fastened the "Bragg's" ram temporarily into the "Cincinnati's" hull. "Give her another broadside, boys!" passed the word of command. The men sprang with a cheer to their guns, and the entire broadside was emptied into the "Bragg" at such close range that the guns could not be run out of the ports. This broadside settled the "Bragg," for she lay careened up against us so that it tore an immense hole in her from side to side. She slowly swung off from the "Cincinnati," and as the command to "Board the enemy!" was given, she lowered her flag. But it is doubtful how much "boarding" we could have done, for just at this moment the second Confederate ram, the "Sumter," reached the scene of action, and coming up under full head of steam, struck the "Cincinnati" in the fantail, cutting into her three feet, destroying her rudders and steering apparatus, and letting the water pour into the hull of the boat. Before she struck us, however, our stern battery of two six-inch guns got two broadsides into her. And now came up the third Confederate ram, the "General Lovell," aiming for our port quarter. "Haul down your flag, and we will save you!" yelled some one, when she was less than fifty feet away. "Our flag will go down when we do!" was the response. We got but one gun to bear on her, before the crash came. The "Cincinnati" was raised by the force of the blow enough to throw her bows under. The water was pouring in from three directions; the engineers were standing waist-deep in the engine-room; the fires were being rapidly extinguished; and we had just one more round of ammunition in the guns, the magazine being flooded. The "General Lovell" was filled with sharp-shooters, who picked off every exposed man, including Commander Stembel, who fell with a Minie-bullet through his mouth. First-master Hoel, who assumed command, came down on the gun-deck and called out, " Boys, give 'em the best you 've got! we ain't dead yet!" A cheer was his answer; and as every

gun on the boat poured its iron hail into one or another of the enemy, the "Cincinnati" rolled first to one side and then the other, gave a convulsive shudder, and went down bow-first and head on to the enemy. It was an exceedingly damp time for the crew of that boat. We all piled on the hurricane deck, and from that there was some tall and lofty scrambling for the wheel-house, which, thanks to the shallow place we were in, remained above water. And now, perched like so many turkeys on a corncrib, we were enforced spectators of the exciting and magnificent scene around us. By this time our fleet above us had arrived at the scene of action, led by the flag-ship "Benton." Running into the very midst of the enemy's fleet, she gave them first her bow battery of nine-inch. Dahlgren guns, and then, wheeling, her starboard, stern, and port broadsides. By the time her bow swung around, her guns were again loaded; and repeating her circling again and again, she delivered upon the enemy a withering sheet of death and destruction. Several of the

Confederate rams tried to reach her, but were either intercepted by our other boats, who one after another joined the mêlée, or were literally beaten back by the storm of shot and shell that poured from her sides. Soon the air was so full of smoke that little could be seen. Every now and then a Confederate ram would rush past us within a stone's throw, and then a shell. would burst over our heads or a solid shot plough up the water. But ten minutes more settled it. Two of the enemy's boats were floating broadside down the river, the "General Bragg," whose inside we blew out, and one other. The other four were making their best possible time for the fort. We could not save our prizes, for we neither dared go after them, nor could we have towed. them up-stream if we had. The "Cincinnati's" wheelhouse was soon relieved of its dead and living freight, and an hour afterward, the air and the mighty flood had swept away every vestige of the conflict.