My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field Part 18

They thought they could hold the place. A Rebel officer wrote, on the 11th of March, to his friends thus: "General Mackall has put the rear in effective defence. The forts are impregnable. All are hopeful and ready.

We will make this an American Thermopylae, if necessary."[24]

[Footnote 24: Memphis Appeal.]

By this he intended to say that they would all die before they would surrender the place, and would make New Madrid as famous in history as that narrow mountain-pa.s.s in Greece, where the immortal three hundred under Leonidas fought the Persian host.

The Rebels had several gunboats on the river, each carrying three or four guns. The river was very high, and its banks overflowed. The country is level for miles around, and it was an easy matter for the gunboats to throw sh.e.l.ls over the town into the woods upon General Pope's army. The Rebels had over sixty pieces of heavy artillery, while General Pope had only his light field artillery; but he sent to Cairo for siege-guns, meanwhile driving in the enemy's pickets and investing the place.

He detached Colonel Plummer, of the Eleventh Missouri, with three regiments and a battery of rifled Parrott guns, to take possession of Point Pleasant, ten miles farther down. The order was admirably executed. Colonel Plummer planted his guns, threw up intrenchments, and astonished the Rebels by sending his sh.e.l.ls into a steamboat which was pa.s.sing up with supplies.

Commodore Hollins, commanding the Rebel gunboats, made all haste down to find out what was going on. He rained shot and sh.e.l.l all day long upon Colonel Plummer's batteries, but could not drive him from the position he had selected. He had made holes in the ground for his artillery, and the Rebel shot did him no injury. Hollins began at long range, then steamed up nearer to the batteries, but Plummer's artillerymen, by their excellent aim, compelled him to withdraw. The next day Hollins tried it again, but with no better success. The river was effectually blockaded.

No Rebel transport could get up, and those which were at Island No. 10 and New Madrid could not get down, without being subjected to a heavy fire.

General Mackall determined to hold New Madrid, and reinforced the place from Island No. 10, till he had about nine thousand troops. On the 11th of March four siege-guns were sent to General Pope. He received them at sunset. Colonel Morgan's brigade was furnished with spades and intrenching tools. General Stanley's division was ordered under arms, to support Morgan. The force advanced towards the town at dark, drove in the Rebel pickets, secured a favorable position within eight hundred yards of the fort. The men worked all night, and in the morning had two breastworks thrown up, each eighteen feet thick, and five feet high, with a smaller breastwork, called a curtain, connecting the two. This curtain was nine hundred feet long, nine feet thick, and three feet high. On each side of the breastworks, thrown out like wings was a line of rifle-pits. Wooden platforms were placed behind the breastworks, and the guns all mounted by daylight. Colonel Bissell, of the engineers, managed it all. In thirty-four hours from the time he received the guns at Cairo, he had s.h.i.+pped them across the Mississippi River, loaded them on railroad cars, taken them to Sykestown, twenty miles, mounted them on carriages, then dragged them twenty miles farther, through almost impa.s.sable mud, and had them in position within eight hundred yards of the river! The work was done so quietly that the Rebel pickets did not mistrust what was going on.

At daybreak they opened fire upon what they supposed was a Union rifle-pit, and were answered by a sh.e.l.l from a rifled thirty-two pounder.

It was a foggy morning. The air was still, and the deep thunder rolled far away along the wooded stream. It woke up the slumbering garrison.

Commodore Hollins heard it, and immediately there was commotion among the Rebel gunboats. They came to New Madrid. Hollins placed them in position above the town to open fire. The fog lifted, and all the guns of the fleet and the forts began to play upon the breastworks. General Pope brought up his heavy field guns, and replied. He paid but little attention to the fort, but sent his shot and sh.e.l.l at the gunboats.

Captain Mower, of the First United States artillery, commanded the batteries, and his fire was so accurate that the gunboats were obliged to take new positions. Shortly after the cannonade began, a shot from the fort struck one of Captain Mower's thirty-two pounders in the muzzle and disabled it; but he kept up his fire through the day, dismounting three guns in the lower fort and disabling two of the gunboats. Nearly all of the sh.e.l.ls from the Rebel batteries fell harmlessly into the soft earth. There were very few of General Pope's men injured. They soon became accustomed to the business, and paid but little attention to the screaming of the shot and the explosions of the sh.e.l.ls. They had many hearty laughs, as the sh.e.l.ls which burst in the ground frequently spattered them with mud.

There was one soldier in one of the Ohio regiments who was usually profane and wicked; but he was deeply impressed with the fact that so few were injured by such a terrific fire, and at night said to his comrades, seriously: "Boys, there is no use denying it; G.o.d has watched over us to-day."

His comrades also noticed that he did not swear that night.

Just at night, General Paine's division made a demonstration towards the lower fort, driving in the enemy's pickets. General Paine advanced almost to the ditch in front of the fort. Preparations were made to hold the ground, but during the night there came up a terrific thunder-storm and hurricane, which stopped all operations.

The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio, and the Tenth and Sixteenth Illinois, were the grand guard for the night. They had been under fire all day. They had endured the strain upon their nerves, but through the long night-hours they stood in the drenching rain, beneath the sheets of lurid flame, looking with sleepless eyes towards the front, prepared to repel a sortie or challenge spies.

At daybreak there was no enemy in sight. The fort was deserted. A citizen of the town came out with a flag of truce. The General who had called upon his men in high-sounding words, the officer who was going to make New Madrid a Thermopylae, and himself a Leonidas in history,--the nine thousand infantry had gone! Two or three soldiers were found asleep. They rubbed their eyes and stared wildly when they were told that they were prisoners, that their comrades and commander had fled.

During the thunder-storm, the Rebel gunboats and steamers had taken the troops on board, and ferried them to the Tennessee sh.o.r.e near Island No.

10. They spiked their heavy guns, but Colonel Bissell's engineers were quickly at work, and in a few hours had the guns ready for use again.

The Rebels left an immense amount of corn, in bags, and a great quant.i.ty of ammunition. They tumbled their wagons into the river.

General Pope set his men to work, and before night the guns which had been pointed inland were wheeled the other way. He sent a messenger to Commodore Foote, with this despatch:--

"All right! River closed! No escape for the enemy by water."

All this was accomplished with the loss of seven killed and forty-three wounded. By these operations against New Madrid, and by the battle at Pea Ridge, in the southwestern part of the State, which was fought about the same time, the Rebels were driven from Missouri!

CHAPTER XI.

OPERATIONS AT ISLAND NUMBER TEN.

Commodore Foote, having repaired the gunboats disabled at Fort Donelson, sailed from Cairo the day that New Madrid fell into the hands of General Pope. He had seven gunboats and ten mortars, besides several tugs and transports. Colonel Buford, with fifteen hundred troops, accompanied the expedition.

The mortars were untried. They were the largest ever brought into use at that time, weighing nineteen thousand pounds, and throwing a sh.e.l.l thirteen inches in diameter. The accompanying diagram will perhaps give you an idea of their appearance. You see the mortar mounted on its carriage, or bed as it is called. The figures 1, 1 represent one cheek of the bed, a thick wrought-iron plate. The figures 2, 2 represent the heads of the bolts which connect the cheek in view to the one on the other side. The bed stands on thick timbers, represented by 3, and the timbers rest on heavy sleepers, 4. Figure 5 represents a thick strap of iron which clasps the trunion or axis of the mortar, and holds it in its place. This strap is held by two other straps, 6, 6, all iron, and very strong. The figure 7 represents what is called a bolster. You see it is in the shape of a wedge. It is used to raise or depress the muzzle of the mortar. The figure 8 represents what is called a quoin, and keeps the bolster in its place. The figure 9 represents one of the many bolts by which the whole is kept in place on the boat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MORTAR.]

The boat is built like a raft, of thick timbers, laid crosswise and bolted firmly together. It is about thirty feet long and twelve wide, and has iron plates around its sides to screen the men from Rebel sharpshooters. The mortar is more than four feet in diameter. It is thicker than it is long. To fire a mortar accurately requires a good knowledge of mathematics, of the relations of curves to straight lines, for the sh.e.l.l is fired into the air at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. The gunner must calculate the distance from the mortar to the enemy in a straight line, and then elevate or lower the muzzle to drop his sh.e.l.l not too near, neither too far away. He must calculate the time it will take for the sh.e.l.l to describe the curve through the air. Then he must make his fuses of the right length to have the sh.e.l.l explode at the proper time, either high in the air, that its fragments may rain down on the encampment of the enemy, or close down to the ground among the men working the guns. It requires skill and a great deal of practice to do all this.

The mortar flotilla was commanded by Captain Henry E. Maynadier, a.s.sisted by Captain E. B. Pike of the engineers. There were four Masters of Ordnance, who commanded each four mortars. Each mortar-boat had a crew of fifteen men; three of them were Mississippi flatboatmen, who understood all about the river, the currents and the sand-bars.

Commodore Foote's flotilla consisted of the Benton, 16 guns, which was his flag-s.h.i.+p, covered all over with iron plates, and commanded by Captain Phelps; the Mound City, 13 guns, commanded by Captain Kelty; the Carondelet, 13 guns, Lieutenant Walke; the Cincinnati, 13 guns, Captain Stemble; the St. Louis, 13 guns, Captain Dove; the Louisville, 13 guns, Lieutenant Paulding; the Pittsburg, 13 guns, Lieutenant Thompson; the Conestoga, 9 guns, Lieutenant Blodgett; in all, 103 guns and 10 mortars.

The Conestoga was used to guard the ammunition-boats, and took no part in the active operations. Commodore Foote had several small steam-tugs, which were used as tenders, to carry orders from boat to boat.

The Southern people thought that Island No. 10 could not be taken. On the 6th of March a newspaper at Memphis said:--

"For the enemy to get possession of Memphis and the Mississippi Valley would require an army of greater strength than Secretary Stanton can concentrate upon the banks of the Mississippi River. The gunboats in which they have so much confidence have proved their weakness. They cannot stand our guns of heavy calibre. The approach of the enemy by land to New Madrid induces us to believe that the flotilla is one grand humbug, and that it is not ready, and does not intend to descend the river. Foote, the commander of the Federal fleet, served his time under Commodore Hollins, and should he attempt to descend the river, Hollins will teach him that some things can be done as well as others."[25]

[Footnote 25: Memphis Argus.]

On Sat.u.r.day, the 15th of March, the fleet approached the island. The clouds were thick and lowering. The rain pattered on the decks of the gunboats, the fog settled upon the river. As the boats swept round a point of land, the old river pilot, who was on the watch, who knew every crook, turn, sand-bar, and all the objects along the bank, sung out, "Boat ahead!"

The sailors scrambled to the portholes; Captain Phelps sprang from the cabin to the deck.

There she was, a steamer, just visible through the fog a mile ahead. It was the Grampus, owned by Captain Chester of the steamer Alps, who had two of the mortar-boats in tow. He belonged to Pittsburg, and used to carry coal to Memphis. When the war broke out the Rebels seized his steamboats and his coal-barges, and refused to pay him for the coal they had already purchased. The act roused all his ire. He was a tall, athletic man, and had followed the river thirty years. Although surrounded by enemies, he gave them plain words.

"You are a set of thieves and rascals! You are cowards, every one of you!" he shouted.

He took off his coat, rolled up his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, bared his great brawny arms, dashed his hat upon the ground.

"Now come on! I'll fight every one of you, you infernal rascals! I'll whip you all! I challenge you to fight me! You call yourselves chivalrous people. You say you believe in fair play. If I whip, you shall give up my boats, but if I am beaten, you are welcome to them."

They laughed in his face, and said: "Blow away, old fellow. We have got your boats. Help yourself if you can."

A hot-headed secessionist cried out, "Hang the Yankee!"

The crowd hustled him about, but he had a few old friends, who took his part, and he succeeded in making his escape.

Captain Phelps looked a moment at the Grampus. He saw her wheels move.

She was starting off.

"Out with the starboard gun! Give her a shot!"

Lieutenant Bishop runs his eye along the sights of the great eleven-inch gun, which has been loaded and run out of the porthole in a twinkling.

There is a flash. A great cloud puffs out into the fog, and the shot screams through the air and is lost to sight. We cannot see where it fell. Another--another. Boom!--boom!--boom!--from the Cincinnati and Carondelet. But the Grampus is light-heeled. The distance widens. You can hardly see her, and at last she vanishes like a ghost from sight.

We were not more than four or five miles from the head of the island.

One by one the boats rounded to along the Kentucky sh.o.r.e. The sailors sprang upon the land, carrying out the strong warps, and fastening us to the trunks of the b.u.t.tonwood-trees.

There was a clearing and a miserable log-hut near by. The family had fled, frightened by the cannonade. We found them cowering in the woods,--a man, his wife and daughter. The land all around them was exceedingly rich, but they were very poor. All they had to eat was hog and hominy. They had been told that the Union troops would rob them of all they had, which was not likely, because they had nothing worth stealing! They were trembling with fear, but when they found the soldiers and sailors well-behaved and peaceable, they forgot their terror.