The night of Friday, the 4th of April, was selected for attempting the enterprise. The adventure was deemed one so full of peril, that none but volunteers were called upon to embark in it. Captain Walker himself, with a truly chivalrous spirit, had offered his services. Mr. O. T. Fishback, of the "Mississippi Democrat," had obtained the perilous privilege of a passage on the Carondelet, and it is to his graphic pen that we are mainly indebted for the particulars of the enterprise.

During the day, the hull of the Carondelet was strengthened by every contrivance which ingenuity could devise. The most vulnerable parts of the boat were shielded with rolls of surplus chains. The decks were covered with a layer of heavy planks to resist plunging shot. A heavy hawser was wound around the pilot-house up to the window. Barriers of wood were constructed about the boilers. The sailors were provided with hand-grenades and the most efficient weapons to repel boarders, while sharpshooters stood in readiness to give a warm reception to any approaching assailants. Hose, for throwing hot water upon any intruders upon the boat, were attached to the boilers. A large coal-barge, laden with compact bundles of hay, was taken in tow on the side exposed to the fire of the batteries.

During the afternoon the atmosphere became hazy, and as the sun set, thick clouds gathered and the wind blew freshly from the stormy quarter, indicating just the weather which was desired. By ten o'clock at night the moon had gone down, and darkness reigned supreme, while the heavy masses of a thunder tempest were rolling up the western sky. All lights were extinguished; breathless silence was imposed; the lines were cast off, and the Carondelet started on its perilous trip. The machinery was so adjusted as to admit the escape of the steam through the wheel-house, thus avoiding the puffing which results from its passage through the pipes.

For the first half mile all went well, and there was good hope of passing the rebel batteries unobserved. Suddenly the soot in the chimneys took fire, and flames five feet in height leaped from their tops, throwing a bright illumination upon the boat and every thing around. The flame, quickly extinguished, immediately broke forth again. The casualty resulted from the alteration in the machinery to change the escape of the steam. The vigilant eyes of the enemy were of course arrested by this apparition of a National gunboat drifting by their batteries, and exposed to point-blank range from almost every gun. The anxious crowd on the fleet. above, who were listening for the signal-gun which should announce the safe passage of the batteries, heard the alarm roll from the rebel encampments on the shore and on the island. Five signal-rockets pierced the stormy clouds, instantly followed by a shot from one of the batteries. Flash succeeded flash, and roar followed roar as more than a hundred guns, in rapid volleys, discharged their shot and shell upon the dim target floating before them, which target could only be seen as revealed by the vivid flashes of the lightning.

It often seems as though nature had a pulse which throbbed in sympathy with the passions of man. Just at this time the rising tempest reached its crisis. The most vivid flashes of lightning were followed by incessant

peals of thunder, while the rain descended in floods. The artillery of heaven drowned, by its superior grandeur, the feeble artillery of man. As concealment was now out of the question, the engineer was ordered to put on a full head of steam, and to drive the boat with all possible speed past the batteries. A man was stationed at the bow, with lead and line, to give the soundings. Another upon the upper deck passed the word back to the pilot. In the pilot-house Captain Walker was stationed. Outside, entirely unprotected from the shower of shell, shot, and rifle-balls, which now began to rain thick and fast upon the boat, stood Captain Hoel, the the acting first master of the gunboat, watching, by the glare of the lightning, the course of the banks of the stream, receiving the soundings, and shouting his orders to the pilots at the wheel.

Thus through the rain, the darkness, the storm of shot, and shell, and bullets from thousands of marksmen, the Carondelet pushed rapidly down the river, sweeping by the land batteries, the island batteries, and passing a formidable floating battery anchored just below the island. Strange to say, she escaped wholly uninjured. Such race no ship ever ran before. The patriot flotilla above the island was crowded with anxious, almost breathless listeners. The roar of the midnight storm, from earth and sky, deafened them. Their eyes were almost blinded by flashes from battery and cloud. The Carondelet had not fired a gun. Far away in the darkness, and behind the bend of the river, no vestiges of her could be discerned. It seemed to be impossible that she could have survived so terrible a fire. The most sanguine feared that the brave little steamer, with all her heroic crew, was drifting, a shapeless mass of ruin, beneath the waves. At all events, the steamer was beyond the reach of the batteries, for the firing had ceased, and no sounds were heard but the mutterings of the receding thunder and the wailings of the storm. It was a moment of awful suspense. If the boat escaped, six heavy guns were to be fired to announce the joyful fact.

Suddenly, far down the river, the boom of a single gun was heard, and then another, and another, and another, till the majestic echoes of the six rolled along the river and the land. Such a frenzy of joy earth seldom witnesses. A cheer rose louder than the voice of many waters, and rapturous as if from the lips of the blest. The men embraced each other, danced, sang, shouted, sent back an answering salute; and the Admiral, the heroic Admiral Foote, bravest of the brave, and noblest of the noble, who never commenced an enterprise without looking to God for guidance, glided away from the throng, with tears of gratitude, to give thanks to God in his closet, where he was daily wont to commune with his Maker.

In twenty minutes, aided by a full head of steam and the swift current of the river, the Carondelet had run the gauntlet of the batteries, and at one o'clock in the morning was safely anchored at New Madrid. Encouraged by this success, on the night of the 6th the gunboat Pittsburg followed the example of the Carondelet, and with equal safety. The next morning, the 7th of April, four transports, laden with troops, passed through the canal to New Madrid. The two gunboats promptly silenced the enemy's batteries on the opposite shore, and the National troops, regiment

after regiment, were pushed rapidly across in the transports. As fast as the divisions landed they were urged rapidly forward to head off the rebels from any retreat by the road to Tiptonville. The panic-stricken rebels now thought only of escape. They were surrounded; all supplies were cut off; resistance was hopeless. Immediately abandoning the island, they made a despairing and yet feeble effort to cut their way through the patriot troops, who were seizing all the avenues of flight on the Tennessee shore. Wherever the disordered masses appeared they were driven back upon the swamp.

At four o'clock in the morning of the 8th, the rebels, who were under command of General Mackall, sent in a flag of truce, offering to surrender. Three generals, seven colonels, seven regiments, several battalions of infantry, five companies of artillery, twenty-four cannon, several thousand stands of small arms, large magazines, abundantly stored with munitions of war, and an immense number of tents, horses, and wagons, were taken on the island by the victors. The batteries on the shore, erected with the highest engineering skill, and armed by seventy heavy rifled guns varying in calibre from thirty-two to a hundred pounders, were all taken, with all their magazines and camp equipage. The force of the rebels surrendered amounted to about five thousand. Four steamers and a floating battery also fell into the hands of the patriots. In this great achievement of the final capture, the National forces did not lose a man, either on the land or on the gunboats.

Thus fell the second rebel stronghold on the Mississippi River. It is not National boasting to say, that it is difficult to find, in the annals of war, the record of a deed more heroically accomplished. It is seldom that any military movement has displayed more skill in the generals, or more zeal, intrepidity, and endurance in the soldiers. The capture of Island Number Ten, contemplated in all its aspects, is one of the most memorable achievements of this civil war, which has been so full of deeds of daring.

In the rebel account of this transaction, contained in the "Southern History of the War," we read: we read: "The unhappy men on the island were abandoned to their fate; the Confederates on the mainland having fled with precipitation. On one of the hospital boats were one hundred poor wretches, half dead with disease and neglect. On the shore were crowds of our men wandering around among the profusion of ammunition and stores. A few of them effected their escape, through the most remarkable dangers and adventures. Some trusted themselves to hastily constructed rafts, with which to float down the Mississippi, hoping to attract the attention and aid of those living on the shore. Others gained the upper banks of the river, where for several days and nights they wandered, lost in the extensive cane-brakes, without food and in severe toil. Some two or three hundred of the stragglers, principally from the forces on the mainland, succeeded in making their way to Bell's Station, on the Ohio Railroad, and reached Memphis.

"The disaster was considerable enough in the loss of Island Number Ten, but the circumstances attending it, and the consequences in the loss of men, cannor, ammunition, supplies, and every thing appertaining to an army, all

of which might possibly have been avoided, increased the regrets of the South, and swelled the triumph of her enemies. No single battle-field had yet afforded to the North such visible fruits of victory as had been gathered at Island Number Ten.”*

* Southern History of the War, vol. i. p. 294..

CHAPTER XXII.

CAPTURE OF FORTS PILLOW AND RANDOLPH, AND OF MEMPHIS.

(May and June, 1862.)

THE GUNBOAT FLEET.-BATTLE ON THE RIVER.-INCIDENTS.-EVACUATION OF THE FORTS.DESCENT TO MEMPHIS.-BATTLE OF THE GUNBOATS AND THE RAMS.-SCENES OF HEROISM AND DEATH.-DESTRUCTION OF THE REBEL FLEET.-CAPTURE OF MEMPHIS.

THOUGH the conquest of Island Number Ten was an achievement of momentous importance, it was still but one of a series of herculean struggles which were necessary, before the majestic Mississippi should be opened in its sweep of more than a thousand miles from Cairo to the Gulf. Between Island Number Ten and the city of Memphis there were two formidable rebel fortifications, known respectively as Fort Pillow and Fort Randolph. They were twelve miles apart, on high bluffs, called the First and Second Chickasaw Bluffs. The upper of these forts was seventy miles north of Memphis.

With the energy which characterized all the movements in this department, not an hour was lost in pressing forward in the great enterprise of sweeping all traces of the rebellion from the Mississippi, and in thus opening again the great national river to the commerce of the United States. On the 12th of April, only four days after the surrender of Island Number Ten, the fleet of gunboats, accompanied by transports and mortarboats, left New Madrid, and steamed down the river to attack Forts Pillow and Randolph. About this time Admiral Foote obtained leave of absence. He had been severely wounded at Donelson, so that for several months he was entirely dependent upon crutches. His health was so seriously impaired that many of his friends despaired of his life, and he was compelled to heed the injunctions of his physicians and seek repose. Captain C. H. Davis took his place as commander of the squadron.

At Plum Point the Mississippi turns sharply from its southern course, and flows almost directly east. After running several miles in this direction, it strikes the First Chickasaw Bluffs, and is thrown abruptly back again in a southwest direction, which course it continues below Island No. Thirty-four, where it again bends in a majestic curve towards the south. Here the Tennessee shore bulges out to fill the convex side of the curve. At this point are found the Second Chickasaw Bluffs, surmounted by Fort Randolph, twelve miles, as we have stated, below Fort Pillow, on the First Chickasaw Bluffs. Opposite Plum Point is the village of Osceola, in Arkansas. The fortifications on these two bluffs were as admirably located as any engineer could desire, for both offensive and defensive operations.