In all the naval operations of the Civil War hitherto described in this history, the object had in view by the government was to strangle and starve the Confederates. The blockade and the occupation of points on the Confederate coasts had but one object, and even the capture of the Confederate agents on the Trent was intended as a part of the same work. The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac was fought on one side to raise and on the other to maintain the blockade at Hampton Roads. The Merrimac was not seaworthy and could not have been made so. The Confederates had no thought of using her beyond the waters of the Chesapeake. But while the naval forces were carrying on this alongshore work with practically uninterrupted success, an aggressive movement that was to have far-reaching consequences was planned and in time carried out by the naval power. This was the opening of the Mississippi.

In the early days of the war the Confederates having erected a number of forts along the principal streams of the lower Mississippi watershed, the government army officers were of the opinion that no armed vessels would be of any use there. They thought, curiously enough, that the forts must effectually close navigation on the streams.

However, this hopeless view vanished as the importance of the navigation of those streams grew upon the minds of all interested in the conflict in that region. One has now but to glance at the map of the Mississippi Valley to understand the situation as it was then. For the Mississippi itself, below Cairo, wound its way through a course more than 1,000 miles of what was practically Confederate territory. And, then, there were the Cumberland and the Tennessee Rivers, that were navigable almost into the heart of the Confederate States, while other streams like the Red, further south, were to be considered. In these streams were found the cheapest and most comfortable highways for the conveyance of armed forces; but more important still was the fact that if the government controlled the Mississippi, it cut the Confederacy into two parts and shut off the supplies grown in the western part from the hungry East. An inland navy was an imperative necessity, and the War Department undertook the task of providing one.

Commander John Rodgers was ordered to report for duty to Gen. John C. Frémont, who was then in command in the Mississippi Valley, in order that he might attend to this work. His first move, like the work of the Navy Department in establishing the blockade, was to buy and arm some merchant vessels. Three that were named Taylor, Lexington, and Conestoga were obtained at Cincinnati, and converted into warships by shifting the boilers and steam-pipes into the hold and building five-inch oak bulwarks around the decks to protect the crews from musket-shots. These bulwarks were pierced with portholes, and old guns were mounted in them, navy fashion. The Taylor had seven, and the others five and three respectively, nearly all the guns being medium-length sixty-four-pounder shell guns. They had no iron armor of any kind.

In those days James B. Eads, afterwards famous as an engineer, was a river-boat builder, having his yard at Carondelet, Missouri. When in July, 1861, the quartermaster-general of the army advertised for bids for the construction of seven ironclad gunboats for service in the Mississippi Valley, Eads submitted plans, with estimates of cost and time, that were at once accepted by the government. The contracts were signed on August 7th, and it was agreed that the seven should be ready for crews and guns in sixty-five days, although the birds were teaching their young to fly among the branches of trees that were to be used in building the hulls of these vessels, and the shops that were to supply the iron were and had been idle ever since hostilities had stopped the business of the country.

As the event showed, Eads was for the Mississippi what Ericsson was on the coast. He was a man of original ideas. And yet, as Porter says, “it is strange how slowly even the cleverest of men receive new ideas.” He built ironclads, it is true, but with the smooth water in which he was to send them afloat they might have carried a thickness of armor fit to turn the heaviest shot instead of the boiler plate that was used. As described by Eads himself, these boats “were to draw six feet of water, carry thirteen heavy guns each, be plated with two-and-a-half-inch iron, and have a speed of nine miles an hour. The De Kalb (at first called the St. Louis) was the type of the other six, named the Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Cairo, and Pittsburg. They were 175 feet long, 51½ feet beam; the flat sides sloped at an angle of about thirty-five degrees, and the front and rear casemates corresponded with the sides, the stern-wheel being entirely covered by the rear casemate. Each gun-boat was pierced for three bow guns, eight broadside guns (four on a side), and two stern guns. Before these seven gun-boats were completed, I engaged to convert the snag-boat Benton into an armored vessel of still larger dimensions.”

Each was propelled by a single paddle-wheel set into the stern, where it was protected by the fork-shaped hull as well as a casemate. The boats were expected to fight bow on, and the iron plate across the bow was backed by two feet of oak. On the sides opposite the boilers the iron armor was not backed save by a slender supporting frame, while the stern had neither armor nor oak wall. The pilot-house was of good oak covered with two and a half inches of iron in front and an inch less in the rear. The crews had every incentive to keep the bow of the ship toward the enemy.

“The armament was determined by the exigencies of the time. The army supplied thirty-five old forty-two-pounders, which were rifled and so threw a seventy-pound shell. These having lost the metal cut away for grooves, and not being banded, were called upon to endure the increased strain of firing rifled projectiles with actually less strength than had been allowed for the discharge of a round ball of about half the weight. Such makeshifts are characteristic of nations that do not prepare for war, and will doubtless occur again in the experience of our navy.” So says Mahan.

The Benton had been a snag-boat—a craft with two hulls so joined and strengthened that she could get the largest kind of a cottonwood tree between the hulls, hoist it out of the mud, and drag it clear of the steamer channel. She had had two wheels, but one between the hulls was substituted, and the whole was built over into the semblance of an angular turtle, and armored with plates of iron three and a half inches thick, well backed with oak. She was a five-knot boat and of deep draft for the service (nine feet), but she was at that date the most powerful warship afloat, and “she went by the name of the Old War Horse.” She carried sixteen guns, of which two were nine-inch Dahlgrens.

Another vessel, like the Benton, was called the Essex, because commanded by Capt. William Porter, a son of the Porter of Essex fame. “After bearing a creditable part in the battle of Fort Henry she became separated by the batteries of Vicksburg from the upper squadron, and is less identified with its history.” She carried one ten-inch and three nine-inch guns besides several smaller ones.

Other vessels were added to this upper Mississippi squadron from time to time, but “they bore no proportionate share in the fighting. The eight (from the Eads’ yards) may be fairly called the ships of the line of battle on the Western waters.”

Commander John Rodgers was relieved by Flag Officer Foote on September 6, 1861. He brought a number of younger officers who were to command the ships of the new fleet while taking orders from the commanding general of that department. Among these was Commander Henry Walke, who had saved Fort Pickens at Pensacola, as already told, by disobeying orders. Walke was sent to the Taylor.

These salt-water fighters found strange materials awaiting them—ships such as they had never dreamed of in connection with war, and men from the river banks and the corn-fields who knew nothing of great guns and less, were that possible, of the restraints of naval discipline. Nevertheless, the effects of naval discipline made first-class tars out of the raw material, and the gunboats proved good enough for the occasion.

The first actual conflict between the gun-boats and the Confederates was on September 10, 1861, when Grant (who was then under Frémont) determined to dislodge a body of Confederates stationed on the west side of the Mississippi, eight miles below Cairo, and near Norfolk, Missouri. The Conestoga, Captain Phelps, and the Lexington, Captain Stembel, were sent down. They found the Confederates had sixteen field-pieces and a considerable body of cavalry. There was a lively bit of cannonading for a time, and two Confederate gunboats (converted river steamers) came up to join in. The Confederates’ guns were silenced, and then the government gunboats returned to Cairo.

A number of equally fruitless skirmishes followed. On November 7th there was quite a battle at Belmont, on the Missouri side of the river, opposite Columbus, Kentucky. Grant, with between 3,000 and 4,000 men, went down the river in transports convoyed by the gunboats Taylor, Captain Walke, and Lexington, Captain Phelps. They landed just out of range of the Iron Bluff forts above Columbus, and attacked the Confederates at Belmont with success, while gunboats under Walke shelled the works on the Columbus side. Although each boat might have been penetrated and its boiler exploded by a stray grapeshot, they were repeatedly carried by Walke, who was senior officer afloat, under the Confederate batteries. The reader should understand that taking a frail steamboat under the fire of heavy guns is a much more dangerous affair than going under fire with an old-fashioned ship with sails; for one shot could scarcely disable even a thin-walled sailing ship, but one shot into a steamer’s boiler not only disabled her, but slaughtered her crew with the steam. Walke and Phelps showed great gallantry on this occasion.

The Confederate troops were driven to their transports at first, but they rallied and were reinforced from the Columbus side of the river until they numbered about 7,000. Grant then retreated, and his troops were in some disorder, for they were yet undisciplined.

When Grant was compelled to retreat, Walke took the Taylor within a few yards of the banks where the Union troops embarked and drove off the victorious Confederates. It is not unlikely that Grant would have been captured but for Walke’s timely aid, for he was the last man to board the transports, and the Confederates were at hand in force with plenty of field-guns to sink the Union transports.

The next operation of importance was the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, just south of the Kentucky line. It was the first of the advances into the Confederate territory by way of the rivers of the West. On February 2, 1862, Flag Officer Foote assembled at Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee, the ironclad gunboats Essex, Capt. William D. Porter; Carondelet, Captain Walke; St. Louis, Captain Paulding; and Cincinnati, Captain Stembel; besides the three wooden gunboats Conestoga, Taylor, and Lexington to act as a reserve. Here the troops under Grant were embarked on transports, and the expedition proceeded cautiously up the river—cautiously because a boastful woman in a wayside house had told a scouting party that the ships would be blown out of water by torpedoes before passing an island just below the fort. On Tuesday, February 3d, the expedition had arrived within a few miles of Fort Henry, and the troops were landed, and a combined assault by the ironclads and the troops was ordered. But before the movement could be made, a tremendous storm came on; the river rose until the gunboats, with both anchors down, had to keep their engines going at full speed to hold their own against the tide and the flotsam.

To the impatient sailors this seemed a misfortune, but after a time they saw they were enjoying the greatest good luck, for there were full-sized trees in the flood, and these swept the torpedoes clear of their moorings and brought them floating down. Small boats were sent out to gather them in, and very ugly things they were—cylinders of sheet iron big enough to hold seventy-five pounds of powder, with a lock and trigger that should catch on a boat’s bottom and explode the powder.

However, on the 6th the water was low enough to permit an advance. Flag Officer Foote went to the ships to inspect the crews, and told the gunners that every shot cost the government eight dollars, so none must be wasted. They were to aim at the guns of the fort—aim, and not merely point in the direction.

Finally, the soldiers on shore waded away through the mud, and the gunboats steamed slowly up the river.

The fort they were to attack was a well-planned earthwork mounting twenty guns, but of these only eleven or twelve (accounts differ) could be brought to bear on the approaching fleet. The best of these was a sixty-pounder rifle, but a ten-inch medium-weight shell gun and two forty-two-pounders supported it, and the rest were thirty-twos. As the gunboats were to fight bows on, they could bring to bear twelve guns, of which two were nine-inch Dahlgrens, and the rest sixty-four-pounders, or better. The weight of metal afloat was superior, but until the days of armored ships one gun in a fort was counted equal to from three to five afloat.

By any reasonable standard here was as fair a fight as one could hope to find between ships and forts at that day, and at 12.30 o’clock on Friday, February 6, 1862, the Cincinnati (the flagship) fired her three bow guns simultaneously at an estimated range of 1,700 yards. The wily gunners on the other ships, remembering Flag Officer Foote’s warning about wasting shot, waited to see the effect of these shots, and saw them all fall short. “So there was $24 worth of ammunition wasted,” writes an officer of the Essex; but the gunners had learned the range, and “Jack Mathews, an old tar who had seen much service on men-o’-war, and was always restive under the command of a volunteer officer,” was the first to get his gun elevated, and the first to fire when the word came.

A fresh breeze athwart the bows drove the smoke away, and a shout arose as the shell from Jack’s gun burst in the parapet under one of the Confederate guns and covered it with the soft earth.

The squadron advanced slowly but steadily, reducing the elevation of the guns from seven to six and then five degrees, and cutting the fuses of the shells shorter and shorter. Every shot reached home in the parapet, and some passed clear through to lodge in and fire the barracks of the Confederates. The Confederates fought back stubbornly. “The fort seemed a blaze of fire.” Their shells drove the officers of the boats down into the casemates, but when the casemates were struck the projectiles bounded clear, doing little or no harm until the battle had raged for nearly fifty minutes. Then the gunner in charge of the Confederate rifle got the range of the Essex and drove his sixty-pound shell right through her bow armor just above a port. Continuing its flight, it took off the head of Master’s Mate Brittain and plunged into the middle boiler located amidships.

In an instant the deck was deluged with steam and scalding water, and the crew who could reach them went plunging through the ports, while the ship herself began drifting with the current out of the fight.

When the steam had exhausted itself the men from aft hastened forward. The deck was covered with men dead or writhing in their last agony. “Marshall Ford, who was steering, was found at the wheel, standing erect, his left hand holding the spoke and his right hand grasping the signal-bell rope,” dead at his post.

The men who had been working the bow guns from the first had just been relieved and sent aft to rest, but Jack Mathews had his blood up and had obtained permission to stay at his gun. He was among those who crawled through the port and was picked up by the boats, but he died that night. In all, twenty-nine men were scalded, and more than half of them died. Captain Porter was one of the severely scalded.

But while one ship was disabled by a well-directed shot, the other three steadily advanced, and their shot told with increasing effect. The Confederate rifle burst a few minutes later, and the ten-inch shell gun was spiked with its own priming wire. Five other guns were disabled by the fire of the gunboats, and this fire was rapidly becoming more deadly, for they were soon less than 500 yards away. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, the Confederate commander, had “done all that could be done to defend his charge, and saying, ‘It is vain to fight longer—our gunners are disabled, our guns dismounted—we can’t hold out five minutes longer,’ he ordered a white flag hoisted.”

As the firing ceased the Carondelet grounded, and the steam on the flagship Cincinnati having been shut off, she began drifting with the current. To Flag Officer Foote it seemed that the Carondelet was steaming ahead of the flagship, and Foote ordered her to fall back. Of course she could not do so. Foote became excited at the seeming insolence of Captain Walke, and, running forward, he shouted himself hoarse, and then a junior officer tried it also. Finally the Carondelet got free, and the matter was explained; but it is apparent, from the published memoirs of the two men, that ill-feeling prevailed between them thereafter.

Tilghman went on board the Cincinnati and surrendered to Foote, for the army under Grant was detained by the muddy roads, and did not arrive until an hour after the fort had been silenced. It was a victory for the gunboats exclusively.

The importance of taking the fort appears when it is recalled that it was a main point in the frontier chain of Confederate posts that extended from Columbus, Kentucky, on the Mississippi, east to the Cumberland Mountains. The way to the interior of Tennessee was open, and the Confederate positions at Bowling Green and Columbus, Kentucky, were becoming untenable because the Union forces were in their rear.

Foote returned to Cairo immediately with three ironclads, leaving the Carondelet at Fort Henry, while the three unarmored gunboats were sent up the river to destroy the bridge of the main line of railroad from Memphis to the East, thus cutting off rail communication between the Confederate capital and all the western parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. Lieutenant Phelps was in charge of these boats, and after reaching the bridge, he left the Taylor to destroy both bridge and trestle-work while he pushed on with the other two. Three Confederate steamers, two of which were loaded with military stores, were grounded and fired above the bridge when Phelps appeared, and there was a tremendous explosion when they blew up.

Continuing on to Cerro Gordo, near the Mississippi State line, he captured a river steamer called the Eastport, that was already partly converted into a gunboat. Further up two more steamers were captured, and three others were fired by the Confederates. The raid extended to Florence, and was one of the notably brave deeds on Western waters.

The Eastport was taken into the government service, and Phelps commanded her until she ran on a torpedo in the Red River two years later and was destroyed.

From Fort Henry the gunboats turned to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. This fort, although on another river, was but twelve miles from Fort Henry. It was a much stronger position. As described by Mahan, “the main work was on a bluff about a hundred feet high, at a bend commanding the river below. On the slope of the ridge, looking down stream, were two water batteries, with which alone the fleet had to do. The lower and principal one mounted eight 32-pounders and a X-inch columbiad; in the upper there were two 32-pounder carronades and one gun of the size of a X-inch smooth-bore, but rifled with the bore of a 32-pounder and said to throw a shot of one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. Both batteries were excavated in the hillside, and the lower had traverses between the guns to protect them from an enfilading fire, in case the boats should pass their front and attack them from above. At the time of the fight these batteries were thirty-two feet above the level of the river.”

Foote thought the position too strong for the gunboats because the forts could deliver a plunging fire that would strike on top, where the gunboats were not armored, but he consented to join the expedition. Meantime Grant had sent the Carondelet, Captain Walke, around in advance of the others, and she arrived within range of Fort Donelson at 11 o’clock A.M. on February 12, 1862. Grant arrived overland an hour later.

To announce her arrival to General Grant the Carondelet threw a few shells at the enemy and then dropped down out of range. Next day, by order of Grant, the Carondelet took a partly sheltered position behind a point, and at a range of a mile and a quarter fired 184 shells into the fort to divert the attention of the Confederates as much as possible from General Grant. She was twice hit by the return fire, and one shot penetrated, wounding a few men with splinters.

On the night of the 13th Foote, with the St. Louis, Louisville, and Pittsburg, arrived, and at 3 P.M. on the 14th the squadron advanced in line abreast to the attack. Opening fire at a range of a mile, they steadily lessened the range until at last within 400 yards of the lower Confederate battery. The Confederates were rapidly abandoning their guns at this moment (4.30 P.M.), when a shot passed through the pilot-house of the flagship St. Louis, wounding Foote seriously, the pilot also, and smashing the wheel; and at the same moment a shell cut the tiller ropes of the Louisville. The preventer tackles that had been provided proved utterly inadequate in both cases—a most serious fault that should have been foreseen—and both vessels drifted helplessly out of the fight.

Seeing this, the Confederates rallied to their guns and renewed the fight. The Carondelet and Pittsburg were soon seriously damaged, and followed the disabled boats down stream.

Mahan says of this fight: “Notwithstanding its failure, the tenacity and fighting qualities of the fleet were more markedly proved in this action than in the victory at Henry. The vessels were struck more frequently (the flagship fifty-nine times, and none less than twenty), and though the power of the enemy’s guns was about the same in each case, the height and character of the soil at Donelson placed the fleet at a great disadvantage. The fire from above, reaching their sloping armor nearly at right angles, searched every weak point. Upon the Carondelet a rifled gun burst. The pilot-houses were beaten in, and three of the four pilots received mortal wounds. Despite these injuries, and the loss of fifty-four killed and wounded, the fleet was only shaken from its hold by accidents to the steering apparatus, after which their batteries could not be brought to bear.

“Among the injured on this occasion was the flag-officer, who was standing by the pilot when the latter was killed. Two splinters struck him in the arm and foot, inflicting wounds apparently slight; but the latter, amid the exposure and anxiety of the succeeding operations, did not heal, and finally compelled him, three months later, to give up the command.”

The Confederates surrendered to Grant on the 16th. It was an army victory. Nashville fell on the 25th, and on March 1st the Confederates began to evacuate Columbus, on the Mississippi. No attempt was made by the Confederates to hold Hickman, the next town down the Mississippi, but they fortified Island No. 10, that lay in the river opposite the dividing line between Kentucky and Tennessee, and both banks of the river. The position there was particularly strong. The river, for some distance, flowed south until the island was reached, and then turned to the northwest, and sweeping around a horseshoe bend, came back again to its old line and continued on south. The island lay right in the pocket of the sharp bend where the river turned to the northwest. The current was strong and full of eddies, and the channel lay right under the muzzles of the guns that were placed to defend it. “On the island itself were four batteries mounting twenty-three guns, on the Tennessee shore six batteries mounting thirty-two guns. There was also a floating battery, which, at the beginning of operations, was moored abreast the middle of the island, and is variously reported as carrying nine or ten IX-inch guns.” So says Mahan.

Nevertheless, the Union forces were sweeping down, and this stronghold had to yield, and the most interesting fact in connection with its capture was the brave dash of an American sailor, Captain Walke of the Carondelet.

Pope captured New Madrid, on the Missouri side of the river, on March 3d, and began fortifying the river below that town. A glance at the map will show this necessarily cut off river communications between Island No. 10 and the Confederates down stream. But the Confederates could come to Tiptonville, and from that place a good road led across the neck of land three miles to the shore opposite Island No. 10, and that was but a small overland journey for supplies. However, supplies could come by no other route, because the region east of the island was one vast swamp. Accordingly Pope determined to cross over to Tiptonville and so shut the Confederates in.

Meantime Foote’s flotilla had arrived in the river just above Island No. 10, bringing along a number of mortar boats—mere floating platforms carrying a thirteen-inch mortar each. Pope soon sent to Foote, asking that a couple of the gunboats be sent down the river, on the first favorable night, past the Confederate batteries to New Madrid to serve as ferryboats for the troops and to cover the landing. To this request Foote sent a positive refusal, although Capt. Henry Walke, of the Carondelet, was urgent in asking permission to make the run. Foote said that the risk was too great, and he could not afford to lose even one ship from his present command. But he added that when “the object of running the blockade becomes adequate to the risk,” he would consent.

This unexpected attitude of Foote delayed the capture of the island about two weeks. At the suggestion of Schuyler Hamilton, a channel was cut through the trees of the swamp from the Mississippi to New Madrid. There was water enough there to float shoal transports and barges, and when this work was done and the transports for ferry use were lying in the bayou behind New Madrid, Foote gave Captain Walke, of the Carondelet, permission to try running the batteries.

Captain Walke got his orders on March 30th. To prepare his ship for the iron deluge he put extra planking over her deck, and then ranged her chain cables across it to serve as additional armor—a use of chain cables that became famous in the one great naval duel of the Civil War, as will appear further on. Lumber and cord wood were piled where they would protect the boiler and engines, and the pilot-house was wrapped with ropes to a thickness of eighteen inches, while the escape-pipes were changed so as to exhaust in the wheel-box, that thus the puffing or coughing noise of the high-pressure engines then in use should be drowned. To still further protect her, a barge loaded with baled hay was lashed on the left side, which was the one that must receive the Confederate fire. The resourcefulness of Captain Walke was well shown in these preparations.

The night of April 10, 1862, was selected for the dash. The moon set at 10 o’clock that night and, as fortune favored, a heavy thunderstorm came on. Lifting her anchors as the first breath of the squall arrived, the Carondelet swung around and headed down the stream. The crew were at quarters, and every man but two was under cover. One, a seaman, Charles Wilson, stood at the rail heaving the lead, while Theodore Gilmore stood half-way between him and the pilot-house to pass the whispered call of the leadsman. By the time they were heading their course the rain began to fall in sheets, and the monotonous words “no bottom” from the leadsman were drowned, as was the puffing of the engine. Not a lamp was burning anywhere about the ship. The pilot, William R. Hall, was a man who could feel his way. But just before the batteries were reached, the boat met the one contingency for which no provision was made. Wood was used as fuel in the furnaces, and the soot in the chimney caught fire and went blazing up from the top of the smoke-stack. The lightning, too, was streaming across the sky, and “the gallant little ship floated like a phantom” before the eyes of the Confederates, who ran to their guns, and in a moment set the batteries flaming. The roar of the cannon echoed to the boom and rumble of the thunder. But the lightning that revealed the “phantom ship” blinded the eyes of the gunners, and they strove in vain to aim their guns with accuracy. The Carondelet passed unharmed, and the fate of Island No. 10 was sealed.

The hardy spirit of the brave Walke has never been sufficiently appreciated. This was because other batteries were run safely later on. But Walke was not only the pioneer. He alone of all the captains in Foote’s command favored the project from the first. The others “believed that it would result in the almost certain destruction of the boat, passing six forts under the fire of fifty guns.” He was willing to face the danger when all previous experience made even the most daring of his associates believe the task impossible. Nor was the danger from the batteries the only one, for it must not be forgotten that the Confederates had a half dozen well-armed gunboats at New Orleans, besides the ram Manassas, that created so great a panic at the mouth of the Mississippi. The Carondelet, when below the Confederate batteries, was for the time cut off from all support. The power of the Confederate fleet was exaggerated at the time, as we now know, but the officers of Foote’s flotilla had no means of learning the real facts. Moreover, it would have been rank folly for them to underestimate the power of the enemy.

It is worth telling that Island No. 10 has disappeared under the action of the current, and the main channel lies where the Confederate batteries stood.

On April 6th Pope crossed over to Tiptonville under cover of Walke’s guns. On that day, also, Grant fought the Confederates at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee. The Taylor, under Lieutenant Gwin, and the Lexington, Lieutenant Shirk, had part in that battle. During the afternoon the Confederates made a desperate attempt to turn Grant’s left and capture the landing place and transports. Gwin opened fire and silenced their batteries. At 4 o’clock the Lexington arrived, and the two gunboats silenced the Confederate batteries three-quarters of a mile above the landing. Again at 5.30 the Confederates came in such force against Grant’s left that they arrived within an eighth of a mile of the landing, but the boats then drove them back in confusion. It is not unlikely that Grant would have been entirely overwhelmed by the superior force of the Confederates but for the support of the gunboats. They enabled him to hold out until reinforcements came. And that night, to quote a Confederate account, “the enemy broke the men’s rest by a discharge, at measured intervals, of heavy shells thrown from the gunboats.” The Confederates could not sleep because a great shell was dropped somewhere in their camp, bringing death and disaster every fifteen minutes. Imagine those soldiers lying there all night counting the time as they waited for the next shell.

The next matter of interest in the story of the Mississippi flotilla was what may be called an irregular squadron battle. Island No. 10 surrendered on May 7, 1862, and the government fleet advanced until near Fort Pillow, which the Confederates had erected on the First Chickasaw Bluffs, not far above the Hatchie River. Here a stand was made awaiting the coöperation of the army. Foote, suffering from his wound, had to be relieved. Capt. Charles H. Davis took his place on May 9th. The fleet at this time numbered seven gunboats, four of which were stationed on the Arkansas (westerly) shore and three on the Tennessee side. They were the Mound City, Capt. A. H. Kilty; Cincinnati, Capt. R. N. Stembel; St. Louis, Capt. Henry Erben; Cairo, Capt. N. C. Bryant; Benton (flagship), Capt. S. L. Phelps; Carondelet, Capt. Henry Walke; and Pittsburg, Capt. Egbert Thompson.

It was the custom while lying there to send one of the gunboats every day to tow a mortar boat to a mooring under Craighead’s Point, where it could throw shells into Fort Pillow, the gunboat lying handy by meantime to protect the mortar boat from Confederate boats known to be in the river below the fort.

The Confederate gunboats were the ordinary river boats converted into warships by putting cotton bales and pine timber about the boilers, and by casing the bows with iron, and in other ways adding to their strength forward so that they became, after a fashion, rams. Each carried at least one gun. This work was done by the pilots themselves at New Orleans, and the old line navy officers there were not allowed to interfere. When ready, eight of these boats had been sent up to Fort Pillow, nominally under Capt. J. E. Montgomery, one of the pilots, but, as a matter of fact, each captain did as he pleased, and the wonder is that anything worth mention should have been accomplished.

Early on May 10th the government gunboat Cincinnati towed a mortar boat to its post, and then tied herself to a snag near by. At 5 o’clock the mortar hurled its first shell into Fort Pillow, and thereafter continued its work until 6 o’clock, when a dense smoke was seen rising in the air below Fort Pillow. The Confederate rams were leaving their landing for a dash at the mortar boat and the Cincinnati. The Cincinnati quickly slipped her moorings, and running out into the river, faced the Confederates—faced them alone, although the whole Confederate flotilla was in plain sight of the government flotilla long before they reached the Cincinnati. Apparently Flag Officer Davis overslept that morning.

As the Confederates came in range the Cincinnati opened fire and stood her ground. The Confederates scattered at once, but continued advancing. The leading Confederate boat, the General Bragg, hugged the Arkansas shore, passed above the Cincinnati, and then turning around, drove her bow into the unprotected quarter of the lone government boat. The two boats were alongside each other in a moment, and the Cincinnati gave the Confederate boat a broadside that sent her skurrying down the stream and out of the battle.

Behind the Bragg came two more Confederates, the Price and the Sumter, firing with guns and muskets at the ports of the Cincinnati, while one of them rammed her again in the place where the Bragg had struck her, and at the same moment Captain Stembel fell with a ball through his throat that well-nigh proved mortal, and the executive officer was mortally hurt.

Meantime Flag Officer Davis woke up, while Captain Kilty, of the Mound City, without waiting for orders, started to the aid of the mobbed Cincinnati. Captain Walke, with the Carondelet, was not far behind him, but both were three miles away from the scene of conflict when they started. The Carondelet was the first to open fire, and the first shot raked the fleeing Bragg. Another shell struck the Price at the water-line, cutting a water-supply pipe and causing her to leak so badly that she was thrown out of the fight.

But while aid was coming the Cincinnati was run into shoal water, and there she sank. The Mound City had meantime been firing at the Confederates, and the Van Dorn turned to ram her. She avoided the full strength of the blow by a skilful use of the helm, but she was cut into, nevertheless, and had to be run ashore on the Arkansas side to keep her from sinking. The Pittsburg had been obliged to go to the assistance of the Cincinnati to get her into shoal water, and the Cairo rendered the same service to the Mound City. This left only the flagship Benton, the Carondelet, and the St. Louis to continue the battle with the six remaining Confederate gunboats, though it must be said that the guns of both the Pittsburg and the Cairo were still firing at the Confederates. But the Confederates retreated as soon as the belated Benton and St. Louis got fairly into the fight. Flag Officer Montgomery said he retreated because the government boats all went into water too shoal for his rams, while their guns were far heavier as well as much more numerous than his. As to the guns, he had only thirty-two-pounders, but it is certain that neither the Benton, the Carondelet, or the St. Louis went into shoal water. In fact, the Benton drew more water than any of the Confederate “River Defence Squadron,” as it was called, and the other two government boats quite as much as any.

The fact is, Montgomery’s force was a lot of militia afloat. They made a most brilliant dash at the government forces, sank two gunboats, and then, militia fashion, got out of it when they were really just ready to begin to fight. Not one of their boats was seriously hurt. The Bragg had lost her tiller ropes, and the Price was aleak, but both might have continued the fight after a few minutes devoted to repairs. The whole force was, so far as hurts were concerned, “ready for action at Memphis a month later.” As to the government force, it may be said that Stembel, on the Cincinnati, made a brilliant defence, and Walke and Kilty, of the Carondelet and Mound City, seemed to fully appreciate what was required under the circumstances. The unprotected mortar boat, Acting Master Gregory, kept up a steady fire on the Confederates throughout the conflict, and Gregory was promoted for his bravery.

Soon after this fight the government flotilla was reinforced by seven river steamers that had been converted into rams along the Ohio River by Col. Charles Ellet, Jr. Part of them were stern-wheelers and part side-wheelers. They were strengthened with fore-and-aft bulkheads, and the boilers were protected with two feet of oak. Ellet had independent charge of them, with instructions to coöperate with the gunboats under Flag Officer Davis.

Meantime the advance of the government army in Tennessee had made it impossible for the Confederates to hold Fort Pillow, and it was evacuated on June 4, 1862. On the evening of the 5th the government flotilla came to anchor just above Memphis, that was yet in Confederate control. The Confederate fleet was seen at the levee next morning, but they soon cast off and took a position where the Union fleet could not fire on them without danger of throwing shells into the city. It was to be the last battle between the two flotillas, and a great throng of citizens gathered on the bluffs.