A Gun-Boat Fleet

The Mississippi River now became the theatre of stirring events. Beauregard, as we have observed, had been sent West, and was now in command of troops on the borders of the mighty stream, above Memphis; and, obedient to orders from Richmond, he directed General Polk to evacuate Columbus, and transfer his troops and as much of the munitions of war as possible to places of greater safety. New Madrid, Madrid Bend, and Island Number Ten were chosen for this purpose. Meanwhile Commodore Foote had put in motion a fleet of gun-boats on the Mississippi, and accompanying transports bore two thousand troops under General W. T. Sherman. When, on the 4th of March, this armament approached Columbus, the Union flag was seen floating there. It had been unfurled the previous evening by a scouting party of Illinois troops from Paducah, who found the fortifications deserted. Sherman left a garrison at Columbus, and Foote returned to Cairo to prepare for a siege of New Madrid and Island Number Ten, which constituted the key to the Lower Mississippi. The Confederates at the former place were commanded by General McCoun, and those on Island Number Ten were under the charge of General Beauregard, in person, who sent forth pompous proclamations to the inhabitants. He called for bells wherewith to make cannon, and there was a liberal response. "In some cities," wrote a Confederate soldier, "every church gave up its bells. Court-houses, public institutions, and plantations sent theirs. And the people furnished large quantities of old brass of every description--andirons, candlesticks, gas-fixtures, and even door-knobs. I have seen wagon-loads of these lying at depots waiting shipment to the foundries." They were all sent to New Orleans. There they were found by General Butler, who sent them to Boston, where they were sold at auction.

General Pope, dispatched from St. Louis by General Halleck, drove the Confederates from New Madrid on the night of the 13th of March. They fled to Island Number Ten, which then became the chief object of attack by the Nationals. Beauregard had thoroughly fortified it, and Foote attacked it with heavy guns and mortars on the morning of the 16th of March. The siege went on with varying fortunes for both parties until early in April. While Foote was pounding and rending the fortifications of Beauregard, Pope at New Madrid was chafing with impatience to participate in the siege. His guns easily blockaded the river (there a mile wide, and then flowing at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour); but he desired to cross it to the peninsula and attack the Island in the rear, and so insure its caputure with its dependencies, their garrisons and munitions of war. But the Tennessee shore was lined with batteries garnished with heavy guns; and until these could be silenced, it would be madness to attempt to cross the river with any means at Pope's command. Pope was at his wit's end, when General Schuyler Hamilton made the extraordinary proposition to cut 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 gun-boats and transports, and thereby effectually flank Island Number Ten, and insure its capture. Hamilton offered to do the work with his division of soldiers, and to have it completed in the space of a fortnight. Pope sanctioned the measure, and it was performed in nineteen days under the direction of Colonel Bissell of the Engineers. The labor was most fatiguing. The canal was twelve miles long, one-half the distance through a growth of heavy timber, where a way was made, fifty feet wide, by sawing off trees in some places four feet under water.

Meanwhile Foote had not been idle, but made preparations for closer assaults than the long reach of great guns and mortars afforded. On the night of the first of April an expedition composed of Illinois troops and seamen, to the number of one hundred, proceeded to take one of the seven formidable redoubts on the Kentucky shore, and were successful. This daring feat was followed on the night of the 3d, by another. Pope had frequently called upon Foote to send gun-boats to his assistance. At length the gallant Captain Walke, of the Carondelet, obtained permission of his commander to attempt to run by the Confederate batteries with his vessel. The feat was successfully performed at midnight while a fearful thunder-storm was raging. The flashes of lightning revealed her passage to the commanders of batteries on the shore, and she was compelled to run the gauntlet of a tremendous cannonade from them all. The Carondelet did not return a shot. Only after she had reached a place of safety below were her guns heard; then three of them announced to anxious Commodore Foote that she had escaped all perils. She was welcomed by the troops at New Madrid with wildest huzzas.