Part 10 (2/2)

Reconnoissances into the enemy's country, as the Yazoo Valley, were to be made, or troops carried in transports from point to point; gunboats went along with their heavy yet manageable artillery, feeling doubtful places with their sh.e.l.ls and clearing out batteries or sharpshooters when found. The service was not as easy as it sounds.

It would be wrong to infer that their power was always and at once recognized. Often they were outnumbered in guns, and a chance shot in a boiler or awkward turn of a wheel, throwing the vessel aground, caused its loss. Even when victorious they were often hardly used. The limits of this book will permit the telling of but two or three stories.

In the latter part of June, 1864, General Steele, commanding the Union troops in Arkansas, wished to move some round in transports from Duval's Bluff on the White River to the Arkansas, hoping to reach Little Rock in this way. One attempt was made, but, the enemy being met in force on the Arkansas, the transports were turned back.

Lieutenant Bache a.s.sured him that the trip could not be made, but as the General thought otherwise, he consented to try again and left the Bluff with a large convoy on the 24th, having with him of armed vessels the Tyler, his own, the Naumkeag and Fawn. The two latter were tinclads, the first an unarmored boat. When about twenty miles down, two men were picked up, part of the crew of the light-draught Queen City, which had been captured by the Confederates five hours before.

It was then nine o'clock. Bache at once turned the transports back and went ahead fast himself to take or destroy the lost boat before her guns could be removed. Before reaching Clarendon two reports were heard, which came from the Queen City, blown up by the enemy when the others were known to be coming. The three boats formed line ahead, the Tyler leading, Naumkeag second, and Fawn third, their broadsides loaded with half-second shrapnel and canister. As they drew near, the enemy opened with seven field pieces and some two thousand infantry and put one of their first shots through the pilot-house of the Tyler, the vessels being then able to reply only with an occasional sh.e.l.l from their bow guns. As they came nearly abreast they slowed down and steamed by, firing their guns rapidly. When under the batteries the Fawn received a shot through her pilot-house, killing the pilot and carrying away the bell gear, at the same time ringing the engine-room bell, causing the engineers to stop the boat under fire. Some little delay ensued in fixing the bells, the paymaster took the wheel, and the Fawn, having another shot in the pilot-house, pa.s.sed on. As soon as the Tyler and Naumkeag were below they turned and steamed up again, delivering a deliberate fire as they pa.s.sed, in the midst of which the enemy ran off, leaving behind them most of their captures, including a light gun taken from the Queen City. The boats were struck twenty-five times, and lost 3 killed and 15 wounded. The Queen City had been taken by surprise, and her engines disabled at the first fire. She lost 2 killed and 8 wounded, including her commander; and, while many of her crew escaped to the opposite bank, many were taken prisoners.

The main course of the war in the West having now drifted away from the Mississippi Valley to the region south and southeast of Nashville, embracing Southern and Eastern Tennessee and the northern parts of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the convoy and gunboat service on the Tennessee and c.u.mberland a.s.sumed new importance. An eleventh division was formed on the upper waters of the Tennessee, above Muscle Shoals, under the command of Lieutenant Moreau Forrest; Lieutenant-Commander s.h.i.+rk had the lower river, and Fitch still controlled the c.u.mberland. When Hood, after the fall of Atlanta, began his movement toward Tennessee in the latter part of October, General Forrest, the active Confederate cavalry leader, who had been stationed at Corinth with his outposts at Eastport and on the Tennessee River, moved north along the west bank, and with seventeen regiments of cavalry and nine pieces of artillery appeared on the 28th before Fort Heiman, an earthwork about seventy-five miles from Paducah. Here he captured two transports and a light-draught called the Undine. On the 2nd of November he had established batteries on the west bank both above and below Johnsonville, one of the Union army's bases of supplies and a railway terminus, thus blockading the water approach and isolating there eight transports, with barges, and three light-draughts, the Key West, Elfin, and Tawah. Nevertheless, the three boats went down and engaged the lower battery, and though they found it too strong for them they retook one of the transports.

Meantime s.h.i.+rk had telegraphed the Admiral and Fitch, and the latter came to his a.s.sistance with three of the c.u.mberland River light-draughts. Going on up the Tennessee Fitch picked up three other light-draughts, and on the morning of the 4th approached the lower battery from below, Lieutenant King, the senior officer above, coming down at the same time. The enemy then set fire to the Undine, but the channel was so narrow and intricate that Fitch did not feel justified in attempting to take his boats up, and King was not able to run by.

Fitch, whose judgment and courage were well proved, said that the three blocked gunboats were fought desperately and well handled, but that they could not meet successfully the heavy rifled batteries then opposed to them in such a channel. All three were repeatedly struck and had several of their guns disabled. They then retired to the fort, where the enemy opened on them in the afternoon with a battery on the opposite sh.o.r.e. After firing away nearly all their ammunition, and being further disabled, Lieutenant King, fearing that they might fall into the enemy's hands, burnt them with the transports. The place was relieved by General Schofield twenty-four hours later, so that if King had patiently held on a little longer his pluck and skill would have been rewarded by saving his vessels. At about the same time, October 28th, General Granger being closely pressed in Decatur, Alabama, above the Muscle Shoals, the light-draught General Thomas, of the Eleventh Division, under the command of Acting-Master Gilbert Morton, at great risk got up in time to render valuable service in repelling the attack.

The Union forces continued to fall back upon Nashville before the advance of Hood, who appeared before the city on the 2d of December, and by the 4th had established his lines round the south side. His left wing struck the river at a point four miles below by land, but eighteen by the stream, where they captured two steamers and established a battery. Fitch, receiving word of this at 9 P.M., at once went down with the Carondelet and four light-draughts to attack them. The boats moved quietly, showing no lights, the Carondelet and Fairplay being ordered to run below, giving the enemy grape and canister as they pa.s.sed in front, and then to round to and continue the fight up stream, Fitch intending to remain above with the other boats. The Carondelet began firing when midway between the upper and lower batteries, and the enemy replied at once with heavy musketry along the whole line and with his field pieces. The river at this place is but eighty yards wide, but the enemy, though keeping up a hot fire, fortunately aimed high, and the boats escaped without loss in an action lasting eighty minutes. The two steamers were retaken and the enemy removed their batteries; but they were shortly reestablished.

On the 6th Fitch again engaged them with the Neosho and Carondelet, desiring to pa.s.s a convoy below, but the position was so well chosen, behind spurs of hills and at a good height above the river, that only one boat could engage them at one time and then could not elevate her guns to reach the top without throwing over the enemy. The Neosho remained under a heavy fire, at thirty yards distance, for two and a half hours, being struck over a hundred times and having everything perishable on decks demolished; but the enemy could not be driven away. The river being thus blockaded the only open communication for the city was the Louisville Railroad, and during the rest of the time the gunboats, patrolling the c.u.mberland above and below, prevented the enemy's cavalry from crossing and cutting it.

When Thomas made his attack of the 15th, which resulted in the entire defeat and disorganization of Hood's army, Fitch, at his wish, went down and engaged the attention of the batteries below until a force of cavalry detached for that special purpose came down upon their rear.

These guns were taken and the flotilla then dropped down to the scene of its previous fights and engaged till dark such batteries as it could see. The routed and disorganized army of the enemy were pressed as closely as the roads allowed down to the Tennessee, where Lieutenant Forrest of the Eleventh District aided in cutting off stragglers. Admiral Lee, who was at once notified, pressed up the river with gunboats and supply steamers as far as the shoals; but the low state of the river prevented his crossing them. The destruction of boats and flats along the river, however, did much to prevent stragglers from crossing and rejoining their army.

This was the last of the very important services of the Mississippi Squadron. Five months later, in June, 1865, its officers received the surrender of a small naval force still held by the Confederates in the Red River. Our old friend, the ram Webb, which had heretofore escaped capture, ran out of the Red River in April with a load of cotton and made a bold dash for the sea. She succeeded in getting by several vessels before suspected, and even pa.s.sed New Orleans; but the telegraph was faster than she, and before reaching the forts she was headed off by the Richmond, run ash.o.r.e, and burned. On the 14th of August, 1865, Admiral Lee was relieved and the Mississippi Squadron, as an organization, ceased to be. The vessels whose careers we have followed, and whose names have become familiar, were gradually sold, and, like most of their officers, returned to peaceful life.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] These were mostly slaves who were running from their masters.

[21] Colonel Brent, Taylor's Chief of Artillery, reported that there were only four Confederate pieces, two 12-pounders and two howitzers, in this attack; instead of eighteen, as stated by Porter. Brent was not present, and Captain Cornay, commanding the battery, was killed. The pilot Maitland, who was captured the next day, states, in a separate report made two months later, that he heard among the enemy that the number was eighteen. Phelps, who, like the admiral, was hardened to fire, speaks of them as numerous. The reader must decide for himself the probability of four smooth-bore light pieces striking one small boat thirty-eight times in five minutes, besides badly disabling three others.

CHAPTER VIII.

MOBILE.

Admiral Farragut resumed the command of his squadron on January 18th, 1864. His wish was to attack at once the defences of Mobile before the Confederates had finished the ironclads they were building; but troops were needed for the reduction of the forts, and the Red River expedition had diverted those that might have been available.

The city of Mobile is thirty miles from the Gulf, at the head of a great bay of the same name. The width of the bay varies from fifteen miles at the lower end to six at the upper; the depth throughout the greater part is from twelve to fourteen feet, shelving gently near the sh.o.r.es, but at the lower end there is a deep hole extending from the mouth north-northwest for six miles, with an average width of two and a half. In this the depth is from twenty to twenty-four feet. The princ.i.p.al entrance is from the Gulf direct, between Mobile Point, a long low projection from the mainland, on the east, and Dauphin Island on the west, the latter being one of the chain which bounds Mississippi Sound. The distance between these points is nearly three miles, but from Dauphin Island a bank of hard sand makes out under water both east and south, defining one side of the main s.h.i.+p channel, which closely skirts Mobile Point, and narrowing it to a little less than two thousand yards. Near the southeast point of this bank there rise two small islands, called Sand Islands, distant three miles from Mobile Point. The channel on the other side is bounded by a similar sand bank running seaward from the Point, the two approaching so that at Sand Islands they are not more than seven hundred and fifty yards apart. Vessels of very light draught could also enter the bay from Mississippi Sound, but it was not practicable for the fleet.

The entrance from the Gulf was guarded by two works, Fort Morgan on Mobile Point and Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island. The approach by Mississippi Sound was covered by Fort Powell, a small earthwork on Tower Island, commanding the channel which gave the most water, known as Grant's Pa.s.s. Gaines was too far distant from the main s.h.i.+p channel to count for much in the plans of the fleet. It was a pentagonal work mounting in barbette[22] three X-inch columbiads, five 32-, two 24-, and two 18-pounder smooth-bore guns, and four rifled 32-pounders; besides these it had eleven 24-pounder howitzers, siege and for flank defence. In Fort Powell there were[23] one X-inch, two VII-inch and one 32-pounder smooth-bore and two VII-inch Brooke rifles; these bore on the sound and channels, but the rear of the fort toward the bay was yet unfinished and nearly unarmed. The third and princ.i.p.al work, Fort Morgan, was much more formidable. It was five sided, and built to carry guns both in barbette and casemates; but when seized by the Confederates the embrasures of the curtains facing the channel were masked and a heavy exterior water battery was thrown up before the northwest curtain. The armament at this time cannot be given with absolute certainty.[24] The official reports of the United States engineer and ordnance officers, made after the surrender, differ materially, but from a comparison between them and other statements the following estimate has been made: Main fort seven X-inch, three VIII-inch and twenty-two 32-pounder smooth-bore guns,[25] and two VIII-inch, two 6.5-inch and four 5.82-inch rifles.[26] In the water battery there were four X-inch and one VIII-inch columbiads and two 6.5-inch rifles.[27] Of the above, ten X-inch, three VIII-inch, sixteen 32-pounders and all the rifles, except one of 5.82 calibre, bore upon the channel. There were also twenty flanking 24-pounder howitzers and two or three light rifles, which were useless against the fleet from their position.

Such were the sh.o.r.e defences. In the waters of the bay there was a little Confederate squadron under Admiral Franklin Buchanan, made up of the ram Tennessee and three small paddle-wheel gunboats, the Morgan, Gaines, and Selma, commanded respectively by Commander George W. Harrison, and Lieutenants J.W. Bennett and P.U. Murphy. They were unarmored, excepting around the boilers. The Selma was an open-deck river steamer with heavy hog frames; the two others had been built for the Confederate Government, but were poorly put together. The batteries were: Morgan, two VII-inch rifles and four 32-pounders; Gaines, one VIII-inch rifle and five 32-pounders; Selma, one VI-inch rifle, two IX-inch, and one VIII-inch smooth-bore sh.e.l.l-guns. Though these lightly built vessels played a very important part for some minutes, and from a favorable position did much harm to the Union fleet in the subsequent engagement, they counted for nothing in the calculations of Farragut. There were besides these a few other so-called ironclads near the city; but they took no part in the fight in the bay, and little, if any, in the operations before the fall of Mobile itself in the spring of 1865.

The Tennessee was different. This was the most powerful ironclad built, from the keel up, by the Confederacy, and both the energy shown in overcoming difficulties and the workmans.h.i.+p put upon her were most creditable to her builders. The work was begun at Selma, on the Alabama River, one hundred and fifty miles from Mobile, in the spring of 1863, when the timber was yet standing in the forests, and much of what was to be her plating was still ore in the mines. The hull was launched the following winter and towed to Mobile, where the plating had already been sent from the rolling mills of Atlanta.

Her length on deck was 209 feet, beam 48 feet, and when loaded, with her guns on board, she drew 14 feet. The battery was carried in a casemate, equidistant from the bow and stern, whose inside dimensions were 79 feet in length by 29 feet in width. The framing was of yellow pine beams, 13 inches thick, placed close together vertically and planked on the outside, first with 5 inches of yellow pine, laid horizontally, and then 4 inches of oak laid up and down. Both sides and ends were inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees, and over the outside planking was placed the armor, 6 inches thick, in thin plates of 2 inches each, on the forward end, and elsewhere 5 inches thick.

Within, the yellow pine frames were sheathed with 2 inches of oak.

The plating throughout was fastened with bolts 1 inch in diameter, going entirely through and set up with nuts and washers inside. Her gunners were thus sheltered by a thickness of five or six inches of iron, backed by twenty-five inches of wood. The outside deck was plated with two-inch iron. The sides of the casemate, or, as the Confederates called it, the s.h.i.+eld, were carried down to two feet below the water-line and then reversed at the same angle, so as to meet the hull again six to seven feet below water. The knuckle thus formed, projecting ten feet beyond the base of the casemate, and apparently filled in solid, afforded a substantial protection from an enemy's prow to the hull, which was not less than eight feet within it. It was covered with four inches of iron, and being continued round the bows, became there a beak or ram. The pilot-house was made by carrying part of the forward end of the s.h.i.+eld up three feet higher than the rest. The casemate was covered with heavy iron gratings, through whose holes the smoke could rise freely, and it was pierced with ten ports, three in each end and two on each side. The vessel carried, however, only six guns; one VII-1/8-inch rifle at each end and two VI-inch rifles on each broadside. These were Brooke guns, made in the Confederacy; they threw 110-pound and 90-pound solid shot. The ports were closed with iron sliding shutters, five inches thick; a bad arrangement, as it turned out.

Though thus powerfully built, armored, and armed, the Tennessee must have been a very exasperating vessel to her commander. She had two grave defects; the first, perhaps unavoidable from the slender resources of the Confederacy, was lack of speed. Her engines were not built for her, but taken from a high-pressure river steamboat, and though on her trial trip she realized about eight knots, six seems to be all that could usually be got from her. She was driven by a screw, the shaft being connected by gearing with the engines. The other defect was an oversight, yet a culpable one; her steering chains, instead of being led under her armored deck, were over it, exposed to an enemy's fire. She was therefore a ram that could only by a favorable chance overtake her prey, and was likely at any moment to lose the power of directing her thrust.

Such as she was the Tennessee was ready for service early in March, 1864, when Commander J.D. Johnston was ordered as her captain. She was taken from the city, through one of the arms of the Alabama, to the mud flats which reach to a point twenty miles down the bay, and are called Dog River Bar. The least depth of water to be traversed was nine feet, but throughout the whole distance the fourteen feet necessary to float the vessel could not be counted upon. She was carried over on camels, which are large floats made to fit the hull below the water line, and fastened to it, on either side, by heavy chains pa.s.sing around them and under the keel, while the camels are filled with water. When the water was pumped out the buoyancy of the camels lifted the ram five feet, reducing her draught enough to let her go over the bar. Two months were taken up in building and placing the camels, during all which time Farragut was begging either for ironclads or for co-operation by the land forces, in reducing the forts. In either case he was willing to enter the bay, but he did not like to run the risk of getting inside with his wooden s.h.i.+ps crippled, the forts intact in his rear, and the enemy's ironclads to contend with as well. Neither a.s.sistance was given, and he was therefore compelled to look on while the Tennessee was moved from a position in which she could do no harm to one in which she became the princ.i.p.al menace to the attacking fleet. On the 18th of May she was finally towed across and anch.o.r.ed in the lower bay six miles from the entrance. That night the camels were removed, steam raised, and everything made ready to cross the outer bar and attack the fleet; but when the anchor was weighed the s.h.i.+p was found to be hard aground.

The intended attack was given up, and when the tide rose enough to float her, she was moved down to Fort Morgan, near which she remained from that time.

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