242

ATTACK ON CONFEDERATE BATTERIES.

and the batteries on the Kentucky shore opposite. All day long the bom bardment was kept up, and vigorous responses were made, with very little injury to either party.'

Meanwhile a battery of the Second Illinois artillery was landed on the Missouri shore, in a position to assail the Confederate fleet near the island.

This battery was active and effectual, and did excellent service the next day, when a most deadly attack was made on the Confederate works, after meridian, by a floating battery of ten guns, formed of the gun-boats Cincinnati, Benton, and St. Louis, lashed side by side, followed by the Carondelet, Pittsburg, and Mound City. They went nearer to the works, and pounded them severely. Heavy blows were given in return, and

the second day of the siege was as barren of decisive results as the first. "Island Number Ten," said Commodore Foote to the Secretary of the Navy," "is harder to conquer than Columbus, as the island

March 19, 1862.

in the little engraving on page 247. The great mortars used in sieges on land and water, during the late war, were truly monster-weapons for destruction. Our picture shows one used on land, mounted and worked precisely as were those on the mortar-boats. It is what is technically termed a 13-inch mortar, that is to say, it will receive a bomb-shell thirteen inches in diameter. Its weight was 17,000 pounds. It was discharged by means of a cord attached to a percussion lock. The immense balls or shells used for these mortars were so heavy (weighing over two hundred pounds), that one man could not handle one of them, and they were carried from the magazine to the mortar by the method delineated in the engraving. In the riverservice, during the late war, the mortar-boats were firmly moored to the bank, and a derrick was set up on the shore in a position to drop the shell into the mouth of the monster after a bag full of powder had gone down its throat.

A correspondent of the Chicago Times, who was at the bombardment of Island Number Ten, thus graphically describes the manner of using these immense cannon: "The operation of firing the mortars, which was conducted while we were near by, is interesting and rather stunning. The charge is from fifteen to twenty-two pounds. The shell weighs 230 pounds, and is thirteen inches in diameter. For a familiar illustration, it is about the size of a large soup-plate, so your readers may imagine, when they sit down to dinner, the emotions they would experience if they happened to see a ball of iron of those dimensions coming toward them at the rate of a thousand miles a minute. The boat is moored alongside the shore, so as to withstand the shock firmly, and the men go ashore when the mortar is to be fired. A pull of the string does the work, and the whole vicinity is shaken with the concussion. The report is deafening, and the most enthusiastic person gets enough of it with one or two discharges. There is no sound from the shell at this point of observation, and no indication to mark the course it is taking, but in a few seconds the attentive observer, with a good glass, will see the cloud of smoke that follows its explosion, and then the report comes back with a dull boom. If it has done execution, the enemy may be seen carrying off their killed and wounded." 1 During the bombardment of this day, Commodore Foote was informed of the death, at New Haven, Connecticut, of his second son, a promising boy thirteen years of age. It was so unexpected that, for a moment, the brave warrior was overcome. He soon rallied, and pushed on the combat with great vigor, making private sorrow subordinate to public duty.

2 The figures on this map denote the numbers of the batteries, as given by the Confederates. It will be seen that the channel of the river was completely covered by them at the approaches of the island from above.

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. IIis 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

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 ridled 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, ocenpied 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 forty 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, 1963.

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

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.

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.

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 mi'dle 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

the most magnificent spectacle he had ever seen), it was ascertained that the Confederates were abandoning their batteries along that portion of the Tennessee and Kentucky shore. Walke's victory assured the latter that all was lost, and their only thought was concerning safety in flight. There was now equal commo

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 * April 8, advancing forces, and, at four o'clock in the morning, hemmed in on all sides, and finding it impossible to escape, they sur

1862.