Part 18 (1/2)

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.