POPE AT NEW MADRID.

243

a April 5, 1862.

shores are lined with forts, each fort commanding the one above it." And so the siege went on, with varying fortunes, until the first week in April, when Foote's flotilla was yet above Island Number Ten, and Beauregard telegraphed to Richmond that the National guns had "thrown three thousand shells and burned fifty tons of gun-powder" without damaging his batteries, and killing only one of his men. The public began to be impatient, but victory was near.'

While Commodore Foote was pounding away at Island Number Ten and its seven supporting shore-batteries, General Pope was chafing at New Madrid with impatience for decisive action. His guns easily blockaded the river, but he wished to do more. He desired to cross it to the peninsula and attack the island in the rear, a movement that would insure its capture with its dependencies, their garrisons and munitions of war. The river there was about a mile in width, and with a current then flowing at the speed of seven or eight miles an hour. The opposite shore was lined with batteries garnished with guns of heavy caliber. Until these could be silenced, it would be madness to attempt to cross the river with any means at Pope's command. He tried to induce Foote to allow some of his armed vessels to run the batteries of Island Number Ten, and, after silencing these Tennessee shore-batteries, transport the troops across. Foote would not incur the risk, and Pope was at his wit's end, when General Hamilton came to his relief with a most extraordinary proposition. It was the construction of a canal from the bend of the Mississippi, near Island Number Eight, across the neck of a swampy peninsula, to the vicinity of New Madrid, of sufficient capacity to allow the passage of gunboats and transports, and thereby effectually flank Number Ten and insure its capture. He offered to undertake the task with his division, and to execute the work in the space of two weeks, under the general direction of Lieutenant Henry B. Gaw, of the Engineers.

SCHUYLER HAMILTON.

General Pope favored General Hamilton's proposition, and directed Colonel Bissell to perform the task, with the plans so modified as to allow only transports and barges to pass through. Bissell set about it with his regi

1 While Foote was carrying on this siege, Colonel Buford with the Twenty-seventh Illinois, Colonel Hogg with the Fifteenth Missouri, and Colonel Foster with a battalion of the Twenty-second Missouri, accompanied by a battery of six rifled cannon, under Captain Spatsmon, of the Second Illinois artillery, and 200 of the Second Illinois cavalry, went to Hickman on the gun-boat Louisville. They landed quietly, and soon afterward pushed on toward Union City, an important point at the junction of railways south of Columbus, occupied by a Confederate force composed of the Twenty-first Tennessee infantry and a battalion of cavalry, in all about 1,000 men. Their way led through a densely wooded country. Their march was rapid, and they fell suddenly upon their enemies and scattered them at the first onset. After burning their camp, and effectually purging Union City of armed insurgents, the Nationals returned to Hickman and re-embarked for Island Number Ten.

244

HAMILTON'S FLANKING CANAL.

ment, with great vigor, assisted by some of Buford's command. Four lightkraft steamers and two or three gun-barges were sent down from Cairo for use in the work; and, after nineteen days of the most fatiguing labor, a canal twelve miles long, one-half the distance through a growth of heavy timber,' was completed;" a wonderful monument to the engineering skill and indomitable perseverance of the Americans. In the mean time Foote had not been idle, as Beauregard's electrograph attested. The upper (Rucker's Battery) or number one of the seven forts on

a April 4, 1862.

CONSTRUCTING THE CANAL.3

the Kentucky shore had received his special attention, and on the night of the 1st of April an expedition to take it by storm was set in motion under the command of Colonel Roberts, of the Forty-second Illinois,

who was accompanied by only for ty of his men. They went in five boats manned by armed crews picked from the steamers Benton, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburg,

and Mound City-a hundred men in all, seamen and soldiers--and, pulling directly for the face of the battery, met with no other opposition than the fire of two sentinels, who scampered away. The six guns of the battery were spiked, and thus one of Foote's most formidable opponents was silenced.

This daring feat was followed on the night of the 3d by April. another. Pope had frequently implored Foote to send a gun-boat to his assistance. At length the gallant Captain Walke obtained permission of the commander to undertake to run by the Confederate batteries with the Carondelet. This perilous feat was successfully performed at midnight, during a tremendous thunder-storm. The flashes of lightning revealed her to the Confederates, and she was compelled to run the gantlet of a heavy fire from all of the batteries. She did not return a shot; and Foote was soon rejoiced by hearing the booming of three signal-guns from her deck, which was to be his assurance of her safety. She was received at New

1 Through this timber a way, at an average of fifty feet in width, was cut by sawing off trees, in some places four feet under water.

2 Report of General Pope to General Halleck, April 9, 1862. Statement of General Hamilton to the author, June 7, 1863.

3 In this picture the accompanying gun-barges are seen to the right and left of the steamer.

The weak sides of the Carondelet, where the iron plates did not cover them, were protected by bales of

PASSING THE CONFEDERATE BATTERIES.

245

Madrid with the wildest demonstrations of delight, the soldiers catching up in their arms the sailors who rowed Walke's gig ashore, and passing them from one to another. The Carondelet was the first vessel that ran the Confederate blockade on the Mississippi River; and her brave commander and his men received the special thanks of the Secretary of

the Navy,"

for his cou

a April 12,

1862.

rageous and important

THE CARONDELET.

act. On the following

April 4.

morning, the Benton, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg, with three boats, opened a heavy fire upon a huge floating battery of sixteen guns, which the Confederates had moored at Island Number Ten.' Unable to defend it, the Confederates imperfectly scuttled the monster, and cut it loose. It drifted down the river and lodged a short distance above Point Pleasant. So one by one advantages were gained by the Nationals.

2

The impatient Pope, satisfied that he could not rely upon the flotilla for much aid on his side of Island Number Ten, had caused several floating batteries to be constructed of coal-barges, at the upper end of the canal, with which he intended to silence the guns on the Kentucky shore, opposite his position, and cover the passage across of his troops. These were completed when the canal was finished, and on the 5th of April they, with four steamers and some barges, were brought through that channel into the bayou which empties into the Mississippi at New Madrid. There all were kept concealed until every thing was in readiness for a forward

movement.

On the morning of the 6th, Pope sent the Carondelet down the river toward Tiptonville, with General Granger, Colonel Smith, of the Forty-third Ohio, and Captain L. B. Marshall, of his staff, to reconnoiter the stream below. They found the whole Kentucky and Tennessee shore for fifteen miles lined with heavy guns, at intervals in no case more than a mile apart, and between these intrenchments for infantry were thrown up. On their

hay, lashed firmly together. She was cast loose at ten o'clock, and very soon afterward the furious thunderstorm commenced. The thunder above and the artillery below kept up a continual and fearful roar. The vessel was about half an hour passing the batteries, and in that time forty-seven shot were fired at her, but not one touched her.-Statement of Captain Walke to the author.

1 This was formerly the "Pelican Floating Dock," in New Orleans, and had been towed up the river over nine hundred miles.

* Each battery was constructed of three heavy coal-barges, lashed together and bolted with iron. The middle one carried the men and the guns, and was bulk-headed all around so as to give four feet of thickness of solid timber, sides and ends. The outside barges had a layer of empty water-tight barrels securely lashed, then layers of dry cotton-wood rails and cotton, closely packed, so that a shot before reaching the middle barge must pass through twenty feet of rails and cotton. The empty barrels were intended as floats, in the event of the outer barges being pierced by shot below water-mark. Each battery had three heavy guns protected by traverses of sand-bags, and carried eighty sharp-shooters.

246

ISLAND NUMBER TEN ABANDONED.

return, the Carondelet silenced a battery opposite Point Pleasant, and Captain Marshall, with a few men, landed and spiked its guns.

That night, at the urgent request of Pope, Foote ordered the Pittsburg, Lieutenant Thompson, to run the blockade. It was done, and she arrived at New Madrid at dawn on the 7th, when Captain Walke went down the river with the two gun-boats to silence batteries near Watson's Landing, below Tiptonville (Tennessee), where Pope intended to disembark his troops (then on the steamers that had passed through the canal), on the Tennessee shore, in the rear of Island Number Ten. A few days before, he had established batteries of 32-pounders, under Captain Williams, of the First Regular Infantry, opposite that point.

The troops on the steamers comprised General Paine's division, and consisted of the Tenth, Sixteenth, Twenty-second, and Fifty-first Illinois regiments, with Houghtailing's Battery. A heavy rain-storm was sweeping over the country, but it did not impede the movement. Captain Walke performed his assigned duty admirably, and struck the final blow that secured a victory for the Nationals. At noon he signaled to Pope that the batteries were silenced. The steamers with the troops immediately moved forward, and when they commenced crossing the broad river (which Pope said was

tion on Island Number Ten. Positive information concerning the flanking canal had been given at Confederate head-quarters there, but the story was not believed until the steamers were seen emerging from the bayou at New Madrid, when hope forsook them. Sinking their gun-boat, Grampus, and six transports in the river between the island and New Madrid, so as to form, as they supposed, effectual obstructions to navigation, they abandoned every thing and fled.

It was important to capture the fugitives, and for that purpose Pope directed Stanley and Hamilton, who had come down by land, to cross their divisions. He pushed his troops on toward Tiptonville as fast as they were landed. They met and drove back the Confederates, who were attempting to fly toward Union City. These were joined at Tiptonville that night by many fugitives from Island Number Ten. The wildest confusion prevailed among them. They were driven to the swamps by Pope's advancing forces, and, at four o'clock in the morning, hemmed in on all sides, and finding it impossible to escape, they sur

a April 8, 1862.

CAPTURE OF ISLAND NUMBER TEN.

247 rendered unconditionally, laid down their arms, and received each his parole.

a April 4, 1862.

At almost the same hour, Commodore Foote received a flag of truce from Island Number Ten, with an offer to surrender the island to him. Up to that time, the Confederates on the island had been ignorant of the disaster that Walke and Pope had inflicted upon their friends below, and those who had fled in that direction expected to find shelter behind the batteries near Tiptonville. There had been grave doubts in the minds of the commanders on the island concerning their ability to hold it, ever since the Carondelet ran the blockade," and Beauregard's quick perceptions were satisfied that the siege must soon end in disaster and perhaps disgrace. So, on the morning after the passage of that vessel,' he turned over the command on 8 April 5. the island to General McCall, leaving McCown in charge of the troops on the Tennessee and Kentucky shores, and, with a considerable body of the best troops, departed for Corinth, in Upper Mississippi, there to prepare to check a formidable movement of the Nationals toward Alabama and Mississippi, by way of Middle Tennessee and the Tennessee River, which we shall consider presently.

On assuming command, McCall issued a flaming order announcing it,' and within thirty-six hours afterward he, too, satisfied of imminent danger, ordered his infantry and Stewart's battery to the Tennessee shore, in a position favorable to escape, leaving only the artillerists on the island. The latter was the force that offered to surrender to Foote, and the entire number of his prisoners was only seventeen officers, three hundred and sixty-eight private soldiers, four hundred sick, and one hundred men employed on the Confederate vessels. The number of prisoners taken by Pope and Foote together was seven thousand two hundred and

seventy-three, including three generals and two hundred and seventy-three field and company officers. The spoils of victory were nearly twenty batteries, with one hundred and twenty-three cannon and mortars, the former varying from 32 to 100-pounders; seven thousand small arms; an immense amount of ammunition on the island and in magazines at points

1 The following is a copy of the order which was found at the Confederate head-quarters on the island: "SOLDIERS,-We are strangers, commander and commanded, each to the other. Let me tell you who I am. I am a general made by Beauregard-a general selected by Beauregard and Bragg for this command, when they knew it was in peril. They have known me for twenty years; together we have stood on the fields of Mexico. Give them your confidence now; give it to me when I have earned it. Soldiers! the Mississippi valley is intrusted to your courage, to your discipline, to your patience. Exhibit the vigilance and coolness of last night and hold it."

ANCIENT MORTAR

2 Among the mortars on the island was an ancient one, already alluded to, made of bronze and bearing the name of George the Second of England, which fact declared that it was more than one hundred years old. It was formerly in Jackson Square, New Orleans, where it was regarded as a precious trophy, it having been captured by the Americans from the British during the battle near that city, at the close of 1814 and the beginning of 1815. Many of the cannon were from the Navy Yard at Norfolk. See page 397, volume I.