MINES AND TORPEDOES AT COLUMBUS.

237

supply of torpedoes remaining.' Desolation was visible everywhere-huts, tents, and barricades presenting but their blackened remains." A number of heavy cannon had been spiked and rolled off the bluff into the river. A train on fire, connected with both ends of a magazine, was cut, and safety was soon secured. A garrison of a little over two thousand men, including four hundred cavalry, was left to hold the post.

We have observed that Polk and his confederates, on retiring from Columbus, took position on the Mississippi shores and Island Number Ten

below.

New Madrid, on the Missouri side of the river, to which many of the troops went, had been much strengthened by Jeff. Thompson, who had occupied it for some time, and had strong military works there, one of which was

1 These torpedoes were numerous and formidable, and, had men been there to fire those in the river, by the electrical batteries on the shore, there might have been much damage done to Foote's flotilla, had it gone near.

TORPEDOES.

These, and "infernal machines," found in mines in the bluff, attested the great danger to which the National forces would have been exposed in an assault upon the Confederate works, which were of immense strength from the water to the table-land above. In the bluff near the grand battery above Columbus a cavern was discovered, in which were found electrical machines, having a connection by wires with portable mines in several directions, so arranged as to destroy troops that

night be gathered above them. These mines were iron casks, something of a rear shape, abont three feet in height, with an iron cap. fastened with eight screws. In each

INFERNAL MACHINE.

was a 4-pound shell, with grape and canister shot, "surrounded by about two bushels of coarse powder," wrote an eye-witness. On the bottom of each cask was a wooden box, to which, and entering the powder, were fastened insulated wires, connecting with the electrical machines in the cavern. Several other caverns were found with these machines connecting with mines, to the number, it was supposed, of nearly one hundred. The torpedoes found in the river and on the shore were pointed cylinders, about three feet in length, containing fifty or sixty pounds of powder, which was to be ignited by electricity. The electrical inachines were very much like those used in telegraph

offices.

2 This was the appearance of Island Number Ten, to the eye of the author, from a Mississippi steamer in April, 1866. It lies in a sharp bend of the Mississippi, about 40 iniles below Columbus, and within the limits of Kentucky.

New Madrid is the capital of New Madrid County, Missouri, 79 miles below Cairo, and 947 miles above New Orleans, by the winding river. Island Number Ten is about ten miles above it. The islands in the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Ohio River downward, are distinguished by numbers, this, as its name implies, being the tenth. 4 See page 58.

238

BEAUREGARD AND HIS CALL FOR BELLS.

called Fort Thompson.'. The post was now in charge of General Gantt, of Arkansas. The town was at the junction of a bayou and the Mississippi, at a sharp turn of that stream, and was naturally an eligible position to repel an enemy approaching by water, from above or below. In addition to its land defenses, it was now guarded by a flotilla of six gun-boats, carrying from four to eight heavy guns each, which had been sent up from New Orleans, under the command of the incompetent Hollins. The country around New Madrid being flat, and the water in the river, at the time we are considering, very high, the cannon of the flotilla commanded the land approaches to the town for a long distance. This post, although about a thousand miles away from New Orleans, was, with Island Number Ten, a few miles above, regarded as the key to the lower Mississippi, and the metropolitan city on its banks, and therefore an object of great importance to both parties.

When the garrison at New Madrid was re-enforced from Columbus, it was placed under the charge of General McCown, while the troops on Island Number Ten were commanded by General Beauregard. These officers had scarcely established their quarters at their respective posts, when they were disturbed by the thunder of the Union troops, who were bent upon the redemption of the navigation of the Mississippi from the control of rebel cannon and vessels. It was confidently expected at Richmond, however, that, at this great bend in the river, they might say to the National

1 This was an irregular bastioned work, mounting fourteen heavy guns, and situated about half a mile below New Madrid. There was another similar, but smaller work at the upper end of the town, mounting seven heavy guns. Between them was a continuous line of intrenchments and defensive works.

2 See page 114.

Beauregard, who had just been appointed to the command of the Department of Mississippi, was in immediate command of the troops, and the property at Jackson, Tennessee, after the evacuation of Columbus; and, inspired by an appeal from the Ordnance Department at Richmond, he there indulged in his favorite amusement of issuing sensation orders. He sent forth one dated the 8th of March, addressed "To the Planters of the Mississippi Valley," telling them that more than once a people fighting with an enemy less ruthless than theirs, for "imperiled rights not more dear and sacred," for “homes and a land not more worthy of resolute and unconquerable men," and for "interests of far less magnitude than theirs, had not hesitated to melt and mould into cannon the precious bells surmounting their houses of God, which had called generations to prayer. The priesthood," he told them, “had ever sanctioned and consecrated the conversion, in the hour of their country's need, as one holy and acceptable in the sight of God. We want cannon," he continued, “as greatly as any people who ever, as history tells you, melted their church bells to supply them;" so he, their General, called upon them to send their "plantation bells to the nearest railroad depot," subject to his order, "to be melted into cannon for the defense of their plantations." There was a liberal response to this call, and not only “plantation bells" but church bells were offered for the purpose. "In some cities," wrote a soldier in the Confederate army, "every church gave up its bell. Court-houses, factories, 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."— See Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army, by an impressed New Yorker (William G. Stevens), page 84.

These brazen contributions were all sent to New Orleans, where they were found by General Butler, who sent the bells to Boston, to be used for a more peaceful purpose. They were sold at auction there in August following, by Colonel N. A. Thompson, who prefaced the sale by a patriotic speech.

Ten days before Beauregard's appeal for bell-metal, his Surgeon-General, Dr. Choppin, whom he had sent to New Orleans, after the fall of Fort Donelson, for the purpose, issued in that city the following characteristic address to his Creole brethren:

"SOLDIERS OF NEW ORLEANS: You are aware of the disasters which have befallen our arms in the West. Greater disasters still are staring us in the face. General Beauregard—the man to whom we must look as the saviour of our country-sends me among you to summon you to a great duty and noble deeds-invoking and inspired by the sacred love of country and of priceless liberty, he has taken the deathless resolution de les venger ou de les suivre. And, with the immortal confidence and holy fervor of a soul willing, if need be, to meet martyrdom, he calls upon you to join him, in order that he may restore to our country what she has lost,

* Tin, an essential article in the manufacture of brass cannon, was so scarce within the bounds of the Confederacy, that the Ordnance Department solicited the people to contribute bells for the purpose. It is said that sufficient bell-metal was sent to Richmond, from Freder icksburg alone, to make two light batteries.

POPE'S MARCH ON NEW MADRID.

239 forces, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;" but, like most of their calculations, this one signally failed.

While Johnston was pressing southward through Nashville with his fugitive army from Bowling Green, and Polk was trembling in his menaced works at Columbus, Halleck was giving impetus to a force destined to strike a fatal blow at the Confederates at New Madrid. He dispatched General Pope from St. Louis on the 22d of February, with a considerable body of troops, chiefly from Ohio and Illinois, to attack that post. Pope went down the Mississippi in transports, and landed at Commerce, in Missouri, on the 24th. He marched from there on the 27th, and three days afterward two companies of the Seventh Illinois cavalry, under Captain Webster, and a company of independent cavalry, under Captain Noleman, encountered the guerrilla chief M. Jeff. Thompson with about two hundred mounted men. These were routed, and pursued with great vigor to Thompson's lines at New Madrid, losing in their flight three pieces of artillery, and throwing away guns and every thing else that might lessen their speed. In the mean time Pope's main column moved on, traversed with the greatest difficulty overflowed miry swamps,' and on the day when the National standard was unfurled at Columbus" it appeared before New Madrid. Pope found the post occupied by five regiments of infantry and several companies of artillery, with Hollins's flotilla on the river. Satisfied that he could accomplish very little with his light artillery, he encamped out of range of the gun-boats, and sent

Colonel Bissell, of the Engineer Corps, to Cairo for heavy cannon.

a March 8,

1862.

Fearing the Confederates might be re-enforced from below, Pope sent Colonel J. B. Plummer, of the Eleventh Missouri, to Point Pleasant, ten or twelve miles down the river, to plant a battery, and blockade it at that

and lead you on to glory and independence. In tones rigid and sullen as the tollings of the funeral knell, bit with clarion accents that should send a quiver through every heart, and string the nerves of every man, he cries out the final refrain of that immortal hymn

"Aux armes citoyens! formez vos bataillons,

Marchons!

Marchons

Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!"

"Creoles of Louisiana, on to the work!"

1 "The men," said a newspaper correspondent, "waded in mud, ate in it, slept in it, were surrounded by it, as St. Helena is by the ocean."

240

CAPTURE OF NEW MADRID.

point. He took with him three regiments of infantry, three companies of cavalry, and a field battery of 10-pound Parrott guns. He formed rifle-pits for a thousand men, and planted his cannon in sunken batteries below them. This was done with perfect success in the face of cannonading from the Confederate gun-boats. This position commanded the passage of the river in the rear of Island Number Ten, and prevented supplies being furnished to that post across the peninsula formed by Reel Foot Lake and Madrid Bend. Pope's four siege-guns (three 32-pounders and an 8-inch mortar) arrived at near sunset," and at dawn the next morning (thirty-five hours after they left Bird's Point, on the Cairo and Fulton Railway) they were in position, within half a mile of Fort Thompson.' On that work and Hollins's flotilla he at once opened

a March 12, 1862.

A CANNON TRUCK.3

b March 13.

a vigorous cannonade and bombardment. They replied with equal vigor, but in the course of a few hours three of the cannon in the fort were dismounted, and three of the gun-boats were disabled. The fierce artillery duel continued throughout the whole day, the Nationals continually extending their trenches, for the purpose of pushing their heavy batteries to the river bank during the night. General Paine, in the mean time, was making demonstrations against intrenchments on the Confederate right, supported by General Palmer's division. The Confederate pickets were driven in, and when night fell the entire insurgent force at New Madrid, on land and water, were in a perilous position. Their commanders perceived this, and during a furious thunder-storm, at about midnight, while the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio and Tenth and Sixteenth Illinois were on duty guarding the rifle-pits and batteries, they evacuated the post and fled to Island Number Ten, leaving almost every thing behind them. So precipitate was their flight that their suppers and lighted candles were in their tents, and their dead were left unburied. New Madrid presented a most pitiable spectacle. The original inhabitants had fled, and it had evidently been sacked and plundered by its Confederate occupants, for household articles were scattered in every direc tion. The human loss of the Confederates in this quick, sharp siege is not known. One hundred new graves and many bodies left unburied showed it to have been severe on the land. That of the Nationals was fifty-one killed and wounded."

1 These guns were carried twenty miles by railway, and dragged on trucks (such as is delineated in the engraving) twenty miles farther, over a miry road most of the way.

2 The heavy guns were handled by companies A and H, of the First U. S. Regular Infantry, under Captain! Mower.

3 See page 583, volume I.

They left thirty-three cannon, several thousand stand of small arms, a magazine full of fixed ammunition, several hundred boxes of musket cartridges, tents for an army of ten thousand men, intrenching tools, and a large number of horses, mules, and wagons.

Report of General John Pope to General Cullum, March 14, 1562; and statements to the author by eyewitnesses.

STRENGTH OF ISLAND NUMBER TEN.

241

a March 14, 1862.

Just before daylight on the morning after the siege, Brigadier-General David S. Stanley, whose command had been in the trenches all night, was relieved by Major-General Schuyler Hamilton; and, a little after dawn, a flag of truce appeared with information that the place was abandoned. When the fact was certified, Hamilton sent Captain Mower and his artillerists to plant the national flag on Fort Thompson. At almost the same hour, Commodore Foote left Cairo with a powerful fleet, composed of seven armored gun-boats, one not armored, and ten mortar-boats,' for the purpose of co-operating with General Pope. At Columbus he was joined by the Twenty-seventh Illinois, Colonel Buford, and some other troops, and moving down to Hickman, on the same shore of the Mississippi, he took possession of that place.' He did not tarry, but, pressing forward, his fleet appeared in sight of Island Number Ten the next day, when he carefully reconnoitered the Confederate position and prepared for a siege.

March 14.

• March 15.

Under the skillful and energetic management of General Beauregard, Island Number Ten had been made the most impregnable to assault of all the posts in the Mississippi valley. On the day of his arrival d March 5. there, he had assumed the command of the Department of the Mississippi, to which, as we have observed, he had recently been appointed, and had called General Bragg from Pensacola to his aid. He issued a stirring order, from Jackson, Tennessee, addressed to the inhabitants of his department, announcing his assumption of the command, and calling upon the men to arouse in defense of their "mothers, wives, sisters, and children." If high-sounding words and good engineering could have made Island Number

Ten impregnable, it would have

been so.

f March 15.

On Saturday night, Commodore Foote was prepared for action, and on Sunday morning he commenced the siege with a bombardment by the rifled guns of the Benton, his flag-ship. This was followed by the mortarboats, moored at proper points along the river shore, from which these immense pieces of ordnance hurled tons of iron upon the devoted island3

. March 5.

The fleet consisted of the gun-boats Benton, Lieutenant Phelps acting flag-captain; Cincinnati, Commander Stembel; Carondelet, Commander Walke; Mound City, Commander Kelley; Louisville, Commander Dove; Pittsburg, Lieutenant Thompson; St. Louis, Lieutenant Paulding; and Conestoga (not armored), Lientenant Blodgett. The mortar-boats were in charge of Captain H. E. Maynadier, commander of the squadron: Captain E. B. Pike, assistant commander; and Sailing-Masters Glassford, Gregory, Simonds, and Johnson. Hickman had been visited by National gun-boats once before. On the day when it was first occupied by the Confederates, the Tyler and Lexington approached that place, where they encountered a Confederate gun-boat called The Yankee. With this, and a masked battery of four rifled cannon on the shore, just above Hickman, the Tyler and Lexington fought about an hour, driving The Yankee to Hickman, silencing the shore battery, burning the tents near it with hot shot, and scattering the insurgents.

e Sept. 4. 1861.

The mortar was one of the earliest forms of cannon, being in use in Europe as early as 1435. Its name 18 derived from its form, which resembles the apothecaries' utensil of that name. The more ancient form is seen

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