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threw one shot which is thought to have struck the Van Dorn, though it is not certainly known. After the destruction of the rest of the fleet, the Van Dorn fled towards New Orleans pursued by the Carondelet and Cairo. Being a powerful sidewheel boat, she easily distanced them, and when last seen had disappeared behind a bend, after a chase of nine miles. The gunboats all returned from below, and with ports triced up, and guns out, formed a pleasant spectacle in front of Memphis.

zine and ended the career of the Jeff. Thompson. An enormous and dazzling flash of light, a huge volume of dense black smoke, a sullen roar like that of half a dozen mortars combined, and the air for many seconds filled with falling timbers, comprised the blaze of glory in which the rebel gunboat expired. One shell upon her burst a few minutes before the final crash of the magazine, but its report was as nothing compared with the sound of the final grand explosion. The General Bragg exchanged several shots with the Benton, the fortune of the "The opening gun from the Little Rebel contest being decidedly adverse to the was fired at forty minutes after five former. A fifty pound Parrott shot o'clock, the rams passed the Benton at struck the Bragg and passed entirely fifty-five minutes after five, and the last through her, and she was hulled three gun at the Van Dorn, as she escaped, times by thirty-two pound shells. One was discharged at forty-three minutes of the latter set her on fire, and she was after six o'clock. The battle was thus run upon the Arkansas shore and aban- an hour and three minutes in its entire doned by her officers and crew. She duration, and the boast of the rebels that drifted off and was boarded by Lieuten- they would whip us before breakfast, ant Bishop, of the Benton, who succeeded was reversed in its fulfillment. The loss in extinguishing the fire and saving the of the rebels is not known, and can only vessel. At the time he boarded her he be estimated. There were seven boats, found her boilers red hot, and was ob- with crews of probably fifty or seventyliged to use great caution to prevent five men each. Most of the Lovell's their explosion. The Bragg is an old crew were lost, and many on the Beauseagoing boat, and is in very good con- regard were fatally scalded by the steam dition, with the exception of the perfora- and hot water from the Monarch. Sevtions made by the shot and shell of the eral were killed by the sharpshooters, Benton. Lieutenant Bishop captured as we are informed by the prisoners. her four or five miles below Memphis, Captain William Cabell, commanding the and at once brought her back. She was General Lovell, fell by a rifle ball in the taken in tow by one of the rams until forehead. He was an old steam boather boilers were in condition to work man, and personally known to many in her own engines, when she came up our fleet. Though our shot struck the opposite the city, where she now lies, rebel boats several times it is not known with her flag humbly drooping beneath that any one was killed by them. By the Stars and Stripes. The only re-drowning, hot water, and sharpshooters, maining boat of the fleet was the General Van Dorn, which had taken no conspicuous part in the action. Once the Monarch tried to strike her, but she eluded the blow and moved down the river. The Cairo attempted to engage her at short range, but she kept aloof, determined not to be caught at close quarters. Captain Bryant, of the Cairo,

it is probable not less than a hundred of the insurgents lost their lives. Fifty-four prisoners were taken, among them two former pilots on the Mississippi, well known to most river men. On the Union side, Colonel Ellet, of the ram fleet, was wounded in the leg by a splinter. His wound is not serious. Colonel Ellet was on the Queen of the West at the time she

COLONEL ELLET'S REPORT.

453

returned with equal spirit. I ordered the Queen, my flag-ship, to pass between the gunboats and run down ahead of them upon the two rams of the enemy, which first boldly stood their ground. Colonel Ellet, in the Monarch, of which Captain Dryden is first master, followed gallantly. The rebel rams endeavored to back down stream, and then to turn and run, but the movement was fatal to them. The Queen struck one of them fairly, and for a few minutes was fast to the wreck. After separating, the rebel steamer sunk. My steamer, the Queen, was then herself struck by another rebel steamer, and disabled, but though dam

was hulled by the enemy's shot. No other person on the Union fleet was in any way injured during the entire battle. The citizens of Memphis turned out in large numbers to witness the action between the fleets, and in twenty minutes from the opening shot, the levee was covered with an anxious crowd. The sterner sex was not alone represented, for the Memphian ladies were nearly as numerous as their masculine companions, and the moving pyramids of silk and calico may have been the cause of the bad aim of the rebel gunners. Even the accidental circumstance of a shot passing over the levee, and striking the city icehouse and passing entirely through, fail-aged can be saved. A pistol shot wound ed to astonish or alarm them. Not less than five thousand persons witnessed the engagement, and probably a new spectacle to all. Not a cheer rose from the vast assemblage, as the tide of battle was hardly in accordance with the sympathies of the Memphians."*

Flag-Officer Davis summed up the capture or destruction of the Confederate fleet in a dispatch to Secretary Welles immediately after the action, as follows: "The General Beauregard blown up and burned. The General Sterling Price one wheel carried away. The Jeff. Thompson set on fire by a shell and burned and magazine blown up. The Sumter badly cut up by shot, but will be repaired. The Little Rebel, boiler exploded, and otherwise injured, but will be repaired. Besides this, one of the rebel boats was sunk in the beginning of the action. Her name is not known. A boat, supposed to be the Van Dorn, escaped from the flotilla by her superior speed. Two rams are in pursuit."

To this we may add the brief report made the same day to the Secretary of War by Colonel Ellet: "The rebel gunboats made a stand early this morning onposite Memphis, and opened a vigorous fire upon our gunboats, which was

*Correspondence New York Herald. Memphis, June

6, 1862.

in the leg deprived me of the power to witness the remainder of the fight. The Monarch also passed ahead of our gunboats and went most gallantly into action. She first struck the rebel boat that struck my flag-ship, and sunk the rebel. She was then struck by one of the rebel rams, but not injured. She then pushed on and struck the Beauregard, and burst in her side. Simultaneously the Beauregard was struck in the boiler by a shot from one of our gunboats. The Monarch then pushed at the gunboat Little Rebel, the rebel flagship, and having but little headway, pushed her before her, the rebel commodore and crew escaping. The Monarch then, finding the Beauregard sinking, took her in tow until she sank in shoal water. Then, in compliance with the request of Flag-Officer Davis, Lieutenant-Colonel Ellet dispatched the Monarch and the Switzerland in pursuit of the remaining gunboat and some transports which had escaped the gunboats, and two of my rams have gone below. I cannot too much praise the conduct of the pilots and engineers, and military guard of the Monarch and Queen, the brave conduct of Captain Dryden, or the heroic conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Ellet. I am myself the who was only person in my fleet who disabled."

This decisive 'action on the river-a a musket ball above the knee, though memorable spectacle in sight of the inhabitants of Memphis, which will live in history as one of the most remarkable events of the war-was followed by the following correspondence between FlagOfficer Davis and the mayor of the city : "United States Flag Steamer Benton, off Memphis, June 6, 1862. Sir-I have respectfully to request that you will surrender the city of Memphis to the authority of the United States, which I have the honor to represent. I am, Mr. Mayor, with high respect, your most obedient servant, C. H. Davis, flag officer commanding, etc. To his Honor, the Mayor of the city of Memphis." To this his honor replied: "Mayor's office, Memphis, June 6, 1862. C. H. Davis, flag-officer commanding, etc.: Sir-Your note of this date is received and contents noted. In reply, I have only to say that as the city authorities have no means of defence, by the force of circumstances the city is in your hands. Respectlfully, John Park, Mayor of Memphis." A second note from Captain Davis the same forenoon closed the correspondence: "Sir, the undersigned, commanding the naval and military forces of the United States in front of Memphis, has the honor to say to the mayor of this city that Colonel Fitch, commanding the Indiana brigade, will take military possession immediately. Colonel Fitch will be happy to receive the coöperation of his honor the mayor and the city authorities in maintaining peace and order. To this end he will be pleased to confer with his honor at the military headquarters, at three o'clock, this P. M. Yours, etc."

not at first considered alarming, proved fatal. Colonel Ellet was carried to Cairo, where he died on the morning of the 21st June, a fortnight after the engagement. He was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1810, and had long been known by his eminent scientific acquirements and services to his country. He was an engineer of distinguished reputation, having planned and built at Fairmount, across the Schuylkill, the first wire suspension bridge in the United States. He had also been employed in various railroad and other engineering enterprises in Virginia and elsewhere, and early in the present year had excited considerable attention by a pamphlet criticising the course of General McClellan in his conduct of the war on the Potomac. He was the author also of several valuable scientific essays on the physical geography of the Mississippi, and had, some years before the commencement of the war, advocated the employment of steam battering rams in coast and harbor defences. He had now carried out his ideas by his own energy and perseverance; destined to fall-the only victim in a triumph mainly attributable to his exertions. His brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred W. Ellet, his associate in the action, was afterwards appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers.

So the important city of Memphis, a third great stage in the progress down the Mississippi, followed the fortunes of Columbus, New Madrid and Fort Pillow, and was regained to the Union. Unhappily, the victory cost the life of the engineer to whose persistent endeavors the brilliant success was mainly attributable. The wound of Colonel Ellet, a shot from

The possession of Memphis, with the consequent command of the river below to Vicksburg, exposed the enemy to attack in Arkansas by the main navigable waters of the State-the White river, descending in a south-easterly course from Missouri, and the Arkansas, penetrating its central portions. The battle at Pea Ridge in March had given the Union troops of General Curtis a firm footing in the north-western quarter, and though his forces were diminished by the withdrawal of a portion of his command to Corinth, he was enabled seriously to threaten the rebel capital on the Arkansas, and finally to cross the country in

EXPEDITION UP WHITE RIVER.

455

plosion and its effects were fearful. One
hundred and seventy-five men enclosed
in the close iron armor of the gunboat,
with no aperture for the passage of air
but through the ports and the scanty
skylights, were exposed to this terrible
suffering. Forty or fifty at once fell
fatally overpowered by the
the vapor.
Others lay in restless agony of torture,
while those who were able plunged
through the port holes into the river in
hope of escape. While these were en-
deavoring to reach the opposite shore,
they were deliberately fired at with mus-
ketry by the rebel soldiers from the bank.
The cutters of the Conestoga, which went
to the rescue, were also fired upon. More
than two-thirds of those on board the
Mound City, officers and men, were report-
ed as having perished in this dread cat-
astrophe. Captain Kilty was severely
scalded. While this merciless work was
going on, Colonel Fitch reached the rear
of the upper battery, and quickly suc-
ceeded, in a hand and hand encounter,
in which the gunners were shot at their
posts, in its capture. Captain Fry, for-
merly an officer in the United States
navy, the rebel commander, was wound-
ed in the shoulder by a musket ball, and
it is said his life was with difficulty saved
by an Indiana captain. The guns of the
battery had been taken from a gunboat,
which was sunk, with several transports,
in the river, as obstacles to the Union
fleet. Eight brass and iron guns were
captured. The Union casualties were
trifling, except the severe loss from the
escaping steam. The rebel loss was said
not to be less than thirty killed and
wounded. A few prisoners were taken,
the greater part of Captain Fry's com-
mand having escaped by flight. After
the action a portion of the fleet pro-
ceeded up the river in quest of cer-
tain transports, but were compelled
to return by the low state of the
water.*

face of the enemy after several skirmish-
es, in which the advantage was on the
Union side, to Helena, on the Mississippi.
The army left Batesville, on the upper
waters of White river, on the 24th of
June, with twenty days' rations, and by
a series of adventurous forced marches,
arrived at Helena on the 11th of July.
Previously to their setting out, an expe-
dition of a mixed land and naval force
had been sent from Memphis to ascend
the White river, where several tran-
sports of the enemy had taken refuge,
and the passage of the stream was ob-
structed some distance above its mouth
by a battery on the shore. The gun-
boats St. Louis, Lexington, Conestoga,
and Mound City, under the command of
Captain Kilty, composed the naval part of
the expedition, while Colonel Fitch's 46th
Indiana regiment constituted the military
force. The fleet reached the mouth of
White river, one hundred and seventy
miles below Memphis, on the 14th of June,
and cautiously ascending the stream on
the 17th, at seven in the morning, came
upon the rebel works-a lower and an
upper battery, on a high bluff on the
south side of the river, in the vicinity of
St. Charles, about eighty-five miles from
the Mississippi. The Mound City and
St. Louis received the fire of the first
battery without injury; when, passing on
to another bend of the stream, they
encountered a second battery which
proved of a more formidable character.
A vigorous cannonading was kept up on
both sides, while Colonel Fitch, who had
landed with the Indianians, two miles and
a half below, was proceeding round the
southern declivity of the bluff to take the
works in the rear. While Captain Kilty
was expediting this movement by signals,
and waiting its fulfillment, arresting the
fire of the gunboats, lest the advancing
party should be injured, a shot from one
of the 42-pounders of the rebel battery
struck the Mound City on the port side,
and passing through the iron-lined case-
mate, entered the steam drum. The ex- Ark., June 17, 1862.

* Correspondence New York Tribune. Off St. Charles,

CHAPTER LXVIII.

GENERAL BANKS' COMMAND IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, MARCH-MAY, 1862.

GENERAL BANKS arrived on the battle | kindness by the Union soldiers. They field of Winchester, Sunday, March 23d, had been taught that they would receive in the afternoon, before the close of the no quarter from the invaders, who were engagement. That night the enemy re-bent upon indiscriminate pillage and detreated, Jackson taking the lead with his vastation. Their leaders, however, who force, and, as usual, leaving Ashby with had sent their sons to the rebel army, his cavalry to cover the retreat. The did not hesitate, while freely avowing next morning General Banks was early their hostility to the government, to ask in pursuit, and following hard upon the for protection for their farms and proprear of the enemy, with frequent skir- erty. The humors of another class, of mishing of the artillery and cavalry, pur- growing importance in the war, are desued them that day beyond Strasburg. scribed by the correspondent just cited: A correspondent with the Union forces "At one house on the road to Strasburg describes the method of the retreat: I found an intelligent negress who told "Ashby has two brass howitzers and me that Jackson had stopped there to two regiments of cavalry, the men of dine on his advance, and again on his which are all mounted, and with these retreat. That he had said they were most of the fighting is done. The plan sure to whip the Yankees, and promised of the retreat is this: while Jackson her master he would give him Lincoln's marches straight on, Ashby follows a skull for a salt gourd when he came back. mile or two in rear with his cavalry and I asked what the negroes thought about mounted battery. When he comes to a the war, and why they didn't avail themhill commanding the road he stops, plants selves of this chance to free themselves his guns, and awaits the approach of our more generally. They thought they had column. As soon as the advance guard better wait, they said. Mr. Lincoln, of cavalry appears in sight, a shell or they thought, 'was a-going to make a two is thrown at them, the cavalry scat- law to make them all free, and they ters, and rushes back for the artillery. would wait for him, and then they could By the time they have come up Ashby's go according to the law.' They didn't men have limbered up and moved off to believe, she said, that the Yankees would another hill. Our guns give them a sell them off to Cuba, as her master had shell as they go, and the advance, which always told her, and some of them had has been retarded an hour by the opera- run off, but she had two children and tion, is commenced again. again. By such did not know where to go, nor what to maneuvers as these Ashby gains time do with her family, so she thought she enough for Jackson to retreat decent- would wait for Mr. Lincoln. She told ly." The wounded of the enemy were me that the rebels were very boastful found everywhere along the road, and, when they went down to Winchester, much to the surprise of some of them, but when they came back they were were treated with the most considerate very tired and hungry, and didn't say much about the fight, only that they had retreated the Yankees back to Winches

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*Correspondence New York Post. Strasburg, March

29, 1862.

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