Читать книгу The Boys of '61 or, Four Years of Fighting, Personal Observations with the Army and Navy - Charles Carleton Coffin - Страница 15

Table of Contents

Feb., 1862.

At last the Rebel lines were broken. Commodore Foote had opened a gateway to the heart of the Confederacy by the capture of Fort Henry on the 6th of February. While up Green River I learned of the intended movement, and hastened to be present, but was delayed between Evansville and Paducah, and was not in season to see the engagement.

Late on the Friday evening after I saw Commodore Foote in Cairo. He had just returned from Fort Henry.

"Can you favor me with an account of the affair?" I asked.

"It will give me great pleasure to do so after I have prepared my despatches for Washington," he replied.

It was past midnight when he came to my room. He sat down, and leaned back wearily in his chair. But soon recovering his usual energy, gave the full details of the action. He had prepared his instructions to his crews several days before the battle, and upon mature thought, saw nothing to change.

To the commanders and crews he said, that it was very necessary to success that they should keep cool. He desired them to fire with deliberate aim, and not to attempt rapid firing, for four reasons, viz. that with rapid firing there was always a waste of ammunition; that their range would be wild; that the enemy would be encouraged unless the fire was effectual; that it was desirable not to heat the guns.

With these instructions he led his fleet up the narrow channel under cover of Pine Island, thus avoiding long-range shot from the rifled guns which it was known the enemy had in position to sweep the main channel. He steamed slow, to allow the troops time to gain their position.

He visited each vessel and gave personal directions. He took his own position in the pilot-house of the Cincinnati. The St. Louis was on his right hand and the Carondelet and Essex were on his left, with the Tyler, Connestoga, and Lexington in rear. There is an island a mile and a quarter below the fort. When the head of the island was reached the boats came into line and were within easy range.

"Do just as I do," was his last order to the commanders.

The Cincinnati opened, and the other vessels were quick to follow the Commodore's example.

"I had a definite purpose in view," said he, "to take the fort at all hazards. It was necessary for the success of the cause. We have had disaster upon disaster, and I intended, God helping me, to win a victory. It made me feel bad when I saw the Essex drop out of the line, but I knew that the fort couldn't stand it much longer. I should have opened my broadsides in a minute or two, if Tilghman had not surrendered, and that I knew would settle the question. We were not more than four hundred yards distant."

He said that when the Essex dropped behind the Rebels set up a tremendous cheer, and redoubled their fire; but being excited their aim was bad.

"There is nothing like keeping perfectly cool in battle," said he.

"When Tilghman came into my cabin," said the Commodore, "he asked for terms, but I informed him that his surrender must be final."

"Well, sir, if I must surrender, it gives me pleasure to surrender to so brave an officer as you," said Tilghman.

"You do perfectly right to surrender, sir; but I should not have surrendered on any condition."

"Why so? I do not understand you."

"Because I was fully determined to capture the fort or go to the bottom."

The Rebel general opened his eyes at this remark, but replied, "I thought I had you, Commodore, but you were too much for me."

"But how could you fight against the old flag?"

"Well, it did come hard at first; but if the North had only let us alone there would have been no trouble. But they would not abide by the Constitution."

"You are mistaken, sir. The North has maintained all of her Constitutional obligations. You of the South have perjured yourselves. I talked to him faithfully," said the zealous officer.

The Commodore was now nervously restless, but said: "I never slept better in my life than I did the night before going into the battle, and I never prayed more fervently than I did yesterday morning, that God would bless the undertaking, and he has signally answered my prayer. I don't deserve it, but I trust that I shall be grateful for it. But I couldn't sleep last night for thinking of those poor fellows on board the Essex, who were wounded and scalded. I told the surgeons to do everything possible for them. Poor fellows! I must go and see that they are well cared for."

It was one o'clock in the morning, yet exhausted as he was, he went to see that the sufferers were having every possible attention.

This was on Saturday morning; the next day he went to church as usual. The minister was not there, and after waiting awhile the audience one by one began to drop off, whereupon Commodore Foote entered the pulpit, and conducted the exercises, reading the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel, and addressed the congregation, urging sinners to repentance, picturing the unspeakable love of Christ, and the rewards which await the righteous, and closing the services by a fervent prayer. It was as unostentatious as all his other acts, undertaken with a dutiful desire to benefit those about him, and to glorify God. That was his aim in life.

The Rebel troops which were in and around Fort Henry fled in dismay soon after the opening of the bombardment, leaving all their camp equipage. In the barracks the camp-fires were still blazing, and dinners cooking, when our troops entered. Books, letters half written, trunks, carpet-bags, knives, pistols, were left behind, and were eagerly seized by the soldiers, who rent the air with shouts of laughter, mingled with the cheers of victory.

Although not present, a letter fell into my hands written by a father in Mississippi to his sons, which gives an insight into the condition of affairs in the Confederacy at that time:—

"Bear Creek, Miss., Dec. 16, 1861.

"To my dear Boys Sammie and Thomas:—

"After a long silence I will tell you some little news. I told C. D. Moore to tell you that paper was very scarce in this wooden world. I went to Vaidere to get this, and was glad to get it at 50 cents per quire.

"The health of our country is pretty good. Crops are very short; corn and cotton—especially cotton—not quite half a crop, though it doesn't matter, as we can't get any money for it. For my part I know not what we are to do. I haven't a red cent. My intention now is to plant only about eight acres in cotton; that will make enough to buy or barter my groceries. I fear, my children, we will not live to see as prosperous a time after this revolution as there was before it. I often think of the language of our Saviour: 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani,'—My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I verily believe all this calamity has come upon us for our wickedness. Religion is down like cotton—not worth much; and by the actions of good brethren it might be bought for a mere trifle, though if we were to judge from its sparseness, like salt, it would be worth $40 per sack.

"O my God, what will become of us? Go, if you please, to the churchyard, and you will hear nothing but secular affairs and war, war! Dull times everywhere. Money scarce; pork high—10 to 12–½ cents per pound; salt the same; coffee $1.50 per pound, and none to be had at that; calico 30 to 50 cents per yard; domestics 20 to 25 cents per yard; sugar 6 to 12–½ cents; molasses 30 to 40 cents, and everything in the same ratio."

The capture of Fort Donelson and the troops defending it, was the first great achievement of the Union armies. The affair at Mill Spring, and the taking of Roanoke Island by Burnside, were important, but minor engagements when compared with the breaking in of the Rebel line of defence on the Cumberland and Tennessee. The fighting on Saturday, the last day of the series of battles, was desperate and bloody. The ground on the right in the morning, when the Rebels moved out and overwhelmed McClernand, was hotly contested. Grant's lines were so extended and necessarily thin that the Rebels were enabled to push McClernand back nearly two miles. This was done by Pillow and Bushrod Johnson, who gained McClernand's flank. Buckner, however, who was to strike McClernand's left, was slow in advancing. Had he moved as rapidly as the other divisions, McClernand would have been utterly routed. It was then that W. H. L. Wallace, of Illinois, showed his great military ability. He had been in the Mexican war, was courageous, and had that power of presence which made every man feel that he was under the eye of his commander. Then, too, General Logan animated his men, and held them in close contact with the Rebels till wounded.

The charge of General C. P. Smith's division on the left, in the afternoon of Saturday, was sublime. General Smith was an old soldier, who had served in Mexico. His hair was long and white, and as he rode along his lines, making arrangements for the advance, he was the most conspicuous of all men on the field. He paid no heed to the rifle and musket balls which were singing about his ears; he sat firmly on his horse. When his lines were ready, he led them, with his cap on the point of his sword.

It was sunset or nearly that hour, when his division moved to the attack of the outer works, at the southwest angle of the fort. There was a steady advance through an open field—a rush up the hill—a cheer—the rout of Hanson's brigade of Rebels, the Second Kentucky, Twentieth Mississippi, and Thirtieth Tennessee—a long, loud shout of triumph, mingled with the roar of cannon, and the rolls of musketry from the fort, pouring upon them a concentrated fire!

The scene at Donelson on Sunday morning, the day of surrender, was exceedingly exhilarating—the marching in of the victorious divisions—the bands playing, their flags waving, the cheers of the troops—the gunboats firing a salute—the immense flotilla of river steamboats gayly decorated! The New Uncle Sam was the boat on which General Grant had established his head-quarters. The Uncle Sam, at a signal from Commodore Foote, ranged ahead, came alongside one of the gunboats, and, followed by all the fleet, steamed up river past Fort Donelson, thick with Confederate soldiers—past the intrenched camp of log-huts, past a school-house on a hill, above which waved the hospital flag—and on to Dover, the gunboats thundering a national salute the while.

A warp was thrown ashore, the plank run out. I sprang up the bank, and mingled among the disconsolate creatures—a care-worn, haggard, melancholy crowd which stood upon the heights above. They all told one story, claiming that they had fought well; that we outnumbered them; that there was a disagreement among their officers; that we had got General Buckner; that Floyd and Pillow had escaped; that Floyd had taken four regiments of his brigade; that there were four steamers; that they went off crowded with soldiers, the guards sunk to the water's edge.

The town of Dover is the county seat of Stewart, and a point where the farmers ship their produce. It is a straggling village on uneven ground, and contains perhaps five hundred inhabitants. There are a few buildings formerly used for stores, a doctor's office, a dilapidated church, a two-story square brick court-house, and a half-dozen decent dwellings. But the place had suffered greatly while occupied by the Secession forces. Nearly every building was a hospital. Trees had been cut down, fences burned, windows broken, and old buildings demolished for fuel.

We came upon a squad of soldiers hovering around a fire. Some were wrapped in old patched bedquilts which had covered them at home. Some had white blankets, made mostly of cotton. Others wore bright bocking, which had evidently been furnished from a merchant's stock. One had a faded piece of threadbare carpet. Their guns were stacked, their equipments thrown aside, cartridge-boxes, belts, and ammunition trampled in the mud. There were shot-guns, single and double-barreled, old heavy rifles, flint-lock muskets of 1828, some of them altered into percussion locks, with here and there an Enfield rifle.

A few steps brought me to the main landing, where the Confederate stores were piled, and from which Floyd made his escape. The gunboats were lying off the landing, and a portion of McClernand's division was on the hills beyond, the stars and stripes and the regimental banners waving, and the bands playing. Away up on the hill Taylor's battery was firing a national salute.

There were sacks of corn, tierces of rice, sides of bacon, barrels of flour, hogsheads of sugar, sufficient for several days' rations. Then there was a dense crowd of Secessionists, evidently the rabble, or the débris of the army, belonging to all regiments. Some were sullen, some indifferent, some evidently felt a sense of relief, mingled with their apprehensions for the future. Among them were squads of our own soldiers, with smiling faces, feeling very much at home, but manifesting no disposition to add to the unhappiness of the captured.

General McClernand's division had marched down to the outskirts of the village, and was keeping guard. A private ran into the court-house and threw the flag of the Union to the breeze from the belfry. Soldiers of our army were inspecting the shops of the place. In the basement of a store was the Confederate arsenal. There were piles of rifles, old shot-guns, many of them ticketed with the owner's name. There were many hunter's rifles, which had done good service in other days among the mountains and forests of Tennessee, but, for use in battle, of but little account.

In another building was the Commissary department. There were hogsheads of sugar, barrels of rice, boxes of abominable soap, and a few barrels of flour. Later in the day we saw soldiers luxuriating like children in the hogsheads of sugar. Many a one filled his canteen with New Orleans molasses and his pockets with damp brown sugar. Looking into a store we found a squad of soldiers taking things of no earthly use. One had a looking-glass under his arm, one a paper of files, another several brass candlesticks, one a package of bonnets.

The Mississippians and Texans were boiling over with rage against Floyd and Pillow for having deserted them.

"Floyd always was a d—d thief and sneak," said one.

Just before sunset we took a ramble through the grounds and encampments of the Rebels, who were falling into line preparatory to embarking upon the steamers. Standing on a hill beyond the village, we had at one view almost all their force. Hogarth never saw such a sight; Shakespeare, in his conceptions of Falstaff's tatterdemalions, could not have imagined the like—not that they were deficient in intellect, or wanting in courage, for among them were noble men, brave fellows, who shed tears when they found they were prisoners of war, and who swore with round oaths that they would shoot Floyd as they would a dog, if they could get a chance, but that for grotesque appearance they were never equalled, except by the London bagmen and chiffoniers of Paris.

There were all sorts of uniforms, brown-colored predominating, as if they were in the snuff business and had been rolled in tobacco-dust. There was sheep gray, iron gray, blue gray, dirty gray, with bed blankets, quilts, buffalo-robes, pieces of carpeting of all colors and figures, for blankets. Each had his pack on his shoulder. Judging by their garments, one would have thought that the last scrapings, the odds and ends of humanity and of dry goods, had been brought together.

The formal surrender of the fort took place in the cabin of the New Uncle Sam in the evening. Buckner sat on one side of the table and General Grant on the other. Buckner was attended by two of his staff. The Rebel commander was in the prime of life, although his hair had turned iron gray. He was of medium stature, having a low forehead and thin cheeks, wore a moustache and meagre whiskers. He had on a light-blue kersey overcoat and a checked neckcloth. He was smoking a cigar, and talking in a low, quiet tone. He evidently felt that he was in a humiliating position, but his deportment was such as to command respect when contrasted with the course of Floyd and Pillow. His chief of staff sat by his side.

Buckner freely gave information relative to his positions, his forces, their disposition, and his intentions. He expected to escape, and claimed that the engagements on Saturday were all in favor of the Confederates. No opprobrious words were used by any one. No discussions entered into. He asked for subsistence for his men, and said that he had only two days' provisions on hand. He had favors to ask for some of his wounded officers, all of which were readily acceded to by General Grant, who was very much at ease, smoking a cigar, and conducting the business with dignity, yet with despatch.

The prisoners were taken on board of the transports, the men on the lower deck, and the officers having the freedom of the boat. The saloons and cabins, berths and state-rooms were filled with the wounded of both armies.

"The conditions of the surrender have been most shamefully violated," said a tall, dark-haired, black-eyed Mississippi colonel, on board the Belle of Memphis.

"How so?" I asked.

"It was agreed that we should be treated like gentlemen, but the steward of the boat won't let us have seats at the table. He charges us a half-dollar a meal, and refuses Confederate money."

"Well, sir, you fare no worse than the rest of us. I paid for a state-room, but the surgeon turned me out and put in a wounded man, which was all right and proper, and at which I have no complaint to make, and I shall think myself well off if I can get hard-tack."

While conversing with him, a Mississippi captain came up—a tall, red-whiskered, tobacco-chewing, ungainly fellow, with a swaggering air. "This is d—d pretty business. They talk of reconstructing the Union, and begin by rejecting our money. I don't get anything to eat," he said.

I directed his attention to a barrel of bacon and several boxes of bread which had been opened for the prisoners, and from which they were helping themselves. He turned away in disgust, saying—

"Officers are to be treated according to their rank—like gentlemen—and I'll be d—d if I don't pitch in and give somebody a licking!"

Some of the officers on board conducted themselves with perfect decorum. One young physician gave his services to our wounded.

Although Commodore Foote had been wounded in the gunboat attack upon the fort, he intended to push up the river to Nashville, and intercept General Albert Sidney Johnston, who he knew must be falling back from Bowling Green, but he was stopped by a despatch from General Halleck to General Grant. "Don't let Foote go up the river."

The gunboats could have reached Nashville in eight hours. Floyd and Pillow, who made their escape from Donelson at sunrise, reached the city before noon, while the congregations were in the churches. Had Commodore Foote followed he would have been in the city by three o'clock, holding the bridges, patrolling the rivers, and cutting off Johnston's retreat. Buell had between thirty and forty thousand men, Johnston less than twenty. On the heel of the demoralization incident to the rout at Mill Springs, Fort Henry, and the loss at Donelson, the entire Rebel army in the West could have been destroyed, but for the dictation of General Halleck, sitting in the planter's house five hundred miles distant.

"Had I been permitted to carry out my intention we should have put an end to the rebellion in the West," said Commodore Foote.

General Halleck had endeavored to enforce his order No. 3, excluding negroes from his lines, but before daybreak on Sunday morning at Donelson a negro entered the lines, having made his way out from Dover, past the Rebel pickets. He reported that the Rebels were fleeing. Some of the officers suggested that he was sent out to lure Grant into a trap, and proposed to tie him up and give him a whipping.

"You may hang me, shoot me, do anything to me, if it a'n't as I tell you," was his earnest reply.

One hour later came the Rebel flag of truce from Buckner, asking for the appointment of Commissioners; but the information already obtained enabled Grant to reply: "I propose to move immediately upon your works."

The negro was a slave, who entered the Union lines in search of freedom—that which his soul most longed for. General Grant did not exclude him. Like a sensible man, he took no action in the matter, gave no directions as to what should be done with him. The slave being at liberty to decide for himself, took passage on a transport for Cairo. The steamer stopped at a landing for wood, when the slave was recognized by some of the citizens, who said that he belonged to a Union man, and demanded that he should be put off the boat. The captain of the steamer was inclined to accede to their demands; but the officers on board, knowing what service he had rendered, informed the captain that he need not be under any apprehensions of arrest by civil process, as martial law was in force. They kept the negro under their protection, and gave him his liberty, thus setting at defiance General Halleck and his pro-slavery order.

March, 1862.

A great many negroes came into the lines, and were welcomed by the soldiers. Among them was a boy, black as anthracite, with large, lustrous eyes, and teeth as white as purest ivory. He was thirteen years old, born in Kentucky, but for several years had lived near Dover. His master, he said, was a gentleman, owned twenty-four slaves. He had on a greasy shirt of snuff-colored jean, the genuine negro cloth, such as one half the Southern army was compelled to wear. His slouched hat was tipped back upon his head, showing a countenance indicative of intelligence.

"Well, my boy, what is your name?" I asked.

"Dick, massa."

"Where do you live?"

"About fourteen miles from Dover, massa, up near de rollin' mill."

"Is your master a Secessionist?"

"He was Secesh, massa, but he be Union now."

This was correct testimony, the master appearing with great boldness at General Grant's head-quarters to let it be known he was for the Union.

"Are you a slave, Dick?"

"I was a slave, but I's free now; I's 'fiscated."

"Where were you when the fight was going on at Fort Donelson?"

"At home; but when massa found de fort was took he started us all off for de Souf, but we got away and come down to Dover, and was 'fiscated."

The master was a Secessionist till his twenty-four chattels, which he was trying to run South, became perverse and veered to the North with much fleetness. Not only were these twenty-four started South, but ten times twenty-four, from the vicinity of Dover, and an hundred times twenty-four from Clarkesville, Nashville, and all along the Cumberland. When Donelson fell, the edifice of the Secessionists became very shaky in one corner.

Columbus was occupied on the 5th of March, the Rebels retiring to Island No. 10. Visiting the post-office, I secured several bushels of Southern newspapers, which revealed a state of general gloom and despondency throughout the Confederacy. Inspired by the events of 1861—the battles of Bull Run, Belmont, and other engagements—the Southern muse had struck its lyre.

The battle of Belmont had kindled a poetic flame in the breast of Jo. Augustine Signaigo, in the Memphis Appeal. The opening stanza is as follows:—

"Now glory to our Southern cause, and praises be to God,

That He hath met the Southron's foe, and scourged him with his rod;

On the tented plains of Belmont, there in their might the Vandals came.

And gave unto Destruction all they found, with sword and flame;

But they met a stout resistance from a little band that day,

Who swore that they would conquer, or return to mother clay."

After a description of the fight, we have the following warning in the tenth stanza:—

"Let the horrors of this day to the foe a warning be,

That the Lord is with the South, that His arm is with the free;

That her soil is pure and spotless as her clear and sunny sky,

And he who dare pollute it on her soil shall basely die;

For His fiat hath gone forth, e'en among the Hessian horde,

That the South has got His blessing, for the South is of the Lord."

The New Orleans Picayune had an "Ode on the Meeting of the Southern Congress, by Henry Timrod," which opened in the following lofty lines:—

"Hath not the morning dawned with added light!

And will not evening call another star

Out of the infinite regions of the night

To mark this day in Heaven? At last, we are

A nation among nations; and the world

Shall soon behold, in many a distant port,

Another flag unfurled!"

This poet gave the following contrast between the North and South:—

"Look where we will, we cannot find a ground

For any mournful song!

Call up the clashing elements around,

And test the right and wrong!

On one side—pledges broken, creeds that lie,

Religion sunk in vague philosophy;

Empty professions; Pharisaic leaven;

Souls that would sell their birth-right in the sky;

Philanthropists who pass the beggar by,

And laws which controvert the laws of Heaven!

And, on the other, first, a righteous cause!

Then, honor without flaws,

Truth, Bible reverence, charitable wealth,

And for the poor and humble, laws which give

Not the mean right to buy the right to live,

But life, home and health.

To doubt the issue were distrust in God!

If in his providence He had decreed

That, to the peace for which we pray,

Through the Red Sea of War must lie our way,

Doubt not, O-brothers, we shall find at need

A Moses with his rod!"

The Vicksburg Citizen had thirty stanzas rehearsing the events of the year 1861. Two or three selections will be sufficient to show that the muse halted a little now and then:—

"Last year's holidays had scarcely passed,

Before momentous events came thick and fast;

Mississippi on the 9th of January went out,

Determined to stand strong, firm and stout.

* * * * *

"Major Anderson would not evacuate Sumter,

When Gen. Beauregard made him surrender—

And sent him home to his abolition master,

Upon a trot, if not a little faster.

"Then Old Abe Lincoln got awful mad,

Because his luck had turned out so bad;

And he grasped his old-fashioned steel pen,

And ordered out seventy-five thousand men.

"May the Almighty smile on our Southern race,

May Liberty and Independence grow apace,

May our Liberties this year be achieved,

And our distress and sorrow graciously relieved."

The bombardment of Island No. 10 commenced on the 9th of March, and continued nearly a month. General Pope moving overland, captured New Madrid, planted his guns, and had the Rebel steamboats in a trap. The naval action of March 17th was grand beyond description. The mortars were in full play. The Cincinnati, Benton, and St. Louis were lashed together, and anchored with their bows down stream. The Carondelet and Mound City were placed in position to give a cross-fire with the other three, while the Pittsburg was held in reserve.

It was past one o'clock in the afternoon of as beautiful a day as ever dawned upon the earth, when a ball of bunting went up to the top of the Benton's flagstaff, and fluttered out into the battle signal. Then came a flash, a belching of smoke from her bows, a roar and reverberation rolling far away—a screaming in the air, a tossing up of earth and an explosion in the Rebel works.

The highest artistic skill cannot portray the scene of that afternoon—the flashes and flames—the great white clouds, mounting above the boats, and floating majestically away over the dark gray forests—the mortars throwing up vast columns of sulphurous cloud, which widen, expand, and roll forward in fantastic folds—the shells one after another in swift succession rising, rotating, rushing upward and onward, sailing a thousand feet high, their course tracking a light gossamer trail, which becomes a beautiful parabola, and then the terrific explosion—a flash, a handful of cloud, a strange whirring of the ragged fragments of iron hurled upwards, outwards, and downwards, crashing through the forests!

I was favored with a position on the Silver Wave steamer, lying just above the Benton, her wheels slowly turning to keep her in position to run down and help the gunboats if by chance they were disabled. The Rebel batteries on the mainland and on the Island, the Rebel steamers wandering up and down like rats in a cage, were in full view. With my glass I could see all that took place in and around the nearest battery. Columns of water were thrown up by the shot from the gunboats, like the first gush from the hose of a steam fire-engine, which falls in rainbow-colored spray. There were little splashes in the stream when the fragments of shell dropped from the sky. Round shot skipped along the surface of the river, tearing through the Rebel works, filling the air with sticks, timbers, earth, and branches of trees, as if a thunderbolt had fallen. There were explosions followed by volumes of smoke rising from the ground like the mists of a summer morning. There was a hissing, crackling, and thundering explosion in front and rear and overhead. But there were plucky men in the fort, who at intervals came out from their bomb-proof, and sent back a defiant answer. There was a flash, a volume of smoke, a hissing as if a flying fiery serpent were sailing through the air, growing louder, clearer, nearer, more fearful and terrific, crashing into the Benton, tearing up the iron plating, cutting off beams, splintering planks, smashing the crockery in the pantry, and breaking up the Admiral's writing-desk.

"Howling and screeching and whizzing,

The bomb-shells arched on high,

And then, like fiery meteors,

Dropped swiftly from the sky."

All through the sunny hours, till evening, the gunboats maintained their position. While around the bright flashes, clouds of smoke, and heavy thunderings brought to mind the gorgeous imagery of Revelation, descriptive of the last judgment.

While the bombardment was at its height, I received a package of letters, intrusted to my care. There was one postmarked from a town in Maine, directed to a sailor on the St. Louis. Jumping on board a tug, which was conveying ammunition to the gunboats, I visited the vessel to distribute the letters. A gun had burst during the action, killing and wounding several of the crew. It was a sad scene. There were the dead—two of them killed instantly, and one of them the brave fellow from Maine. Captain Paulding opened the letter, and found it to be from one who had confided to the noble sailor her heart's affections—who was looking forward to the time when the war would be over, and they would be happy together as husband and wife.

"Poor girl! I shall have to write her sad news," said the captain.

Day after day and night after night the siege was kept up, till it grew exceedingly monotonous. I became so accustomed to the pounding that, though the thirteen-inch mortars were not thirty rods distant from my quarters, I was not wakened by the tremendous explosions. Commodore Foote found it very difficult to fight down stream, as the water was very high, flooding all the country. Colonel Bissell, of General Pope's army, proposed the cutting of a canal through the woods, to enable the gunboats to reach New Madrid. It was an Herculean undertaking. A light-draft transport was rigged for the enterprise. Machinery was attached to the donkey-engine of the steamer by which immense cotton-wood trees were sawed off four feet under water.

There was something very enchanting in the operation—to steam out from the main river, over corn-fields and pasture lands, into the dark forests, threading a narrow and intricate channel, across the country—past the Rebel batteries. A transport was taken through, and a tugboat, but the channel was not deep enough for the gunboats.

Captain Stembel, commanding the Benton—a brave and competent officer, Commodore Foote's right-hand man—proposed to run the batteries by night to New Madrid, capture the Rebel steamer which Pope had caught in a trap, then turning head up stream take the Rebel batteries in reverse. The Commodore hesitated. He was cautious as well as brave. At length he accepted the plan, and sent the Pittsburg and Carondelet past the batteries at night. It was a bold undertaking, but accomplished without damage to the gunboats. The current was swift and strong, and they went with the speed of a race-horse.

Their presence at New Madrid was hailed with joy by the troops. Four steamboats had worked their way through the canal. A regiment was taken on board each boat. The Rebels had a battery on the other side of the river at Watson's Landing, which was speedily silenced by the two gunboats. The troops landed, and under General Paine drove the Rebels from their camp, who fled in confusion, throwing away their guns, knapsacks, and clothing.

General Pope sent over the balance of his troops, and with his whole force moved upon General Mackall, the Rebel commander, who surrendered his entire command, consisting of nearly seven thousand prisoners, one hundred and twenty three guns, and an immense amount of supplies.

The troops of General Paine's brigade came across a farm yard which was well stocked with poultry, and helped themselves. The farmer's wife visited the General's head-quarters to enter a complaint.

"They are stealing all my chickens, General! I sha'n't have one left," she exclaimed, excitedly.

"I am exceedingly sorry, ma'am," said the General, with great courtesy; "but we are going to put down the rebellion if it takes every chicken in the State of Tennessee!"

The woman retired, evidently regarding the Yankees as a race of vandals.

East Tennessee refugees.