The expedition continued up White River as far as Crooked Point Cut-off, 63 miles above St. Charles, where the gun-boats were compelled to turn back by the falling of the water. Halleck and Grant meantime had decided to increase Fitch’s command by the addition of two regiments, which sailed for White River on the 26th of June, under convoy of the Conestoga. Commander John A. Winslow, of Kearsarge-Alabama fame, who was at this time in command of the forces afloat in White River, was ordered to give additional convoy as far up as the state of the water would permit. The bulk of the naval force was then withdrawn, the Lexington remaining to support Fitch in his subsequent operations up the river. Curtis reached Helena on the 13th of July without communicating with the gun-boats.
During the months of May and June, 1862, Farragut’s fleet had been slowly working up from New Orleans, receiving the surrender of the principal cities on the way, and having an occasional encounter with the Confederate batteries along the river. None of the latter were at this time of any great importance, although those at Grand Gulf inflicted some damage on two of the gun-boats which attacked them on June 9th. No serious obstruction, however, to the passage of the river from Cairo to the sea now existed, except at Vicksburg.
The advance division of Farragut’s squadron under Commander Lee in the Oneida had summoned Vicksburg to surrender on the 18th of May, but had met with a refusal. Farragut, arriving soon after, held a consultation with General Williams, who commanded a small detachment of Butler’s army, and the two came to the conclusion that they had not enough men to make an attempt on Vicksburg with any hope of success, and Farragut went back to New Orleans.
Soon after, Farragut received pressing instructions from the Navy Department to attack Vicksburg, and in consequence returned up the river with his squadron, the mortar-boats under Porter, and 3000 troops under Williams. On the night of the 26th of June Porter placed his mortar-boats in position, nine on the eastern and eight on the western bank, the latter, as at New Orleans, being dressed with bushes to prevent an accurate determination of their position. The next day they opened upon Vicksburg. On the 28th Farragut passed the batteries with all the vessels of his fleet, except the Brooklyn, Katahdin, and Kennebec, which dropped back, owing to a too rigid adherence to their original orders. No impression of any consequence was made on the forts, nor were the ships materially injured, notwithstanding the great advantage which the forts possessed in their plunging fire. The Hartford was principally damaged by the battery above the town, which was able to rake a passing ship in a position from which the latter could not reply. Farragut, in his report of July 2d, sums up the situation with the phrase:
“The forts can be passed, and we have done it, and can do it again as often as may be required of us. It will not, however, be an easy matter for us to do more than silence the batteries for a time, as long as the enemy has a large force behind the hills to prevent our landing and holding the place.”
While Farragut with the Western Gulf Squadron, so called, was passing the batteries at Vicksburg, the Mississippi flotilla was still at Memphis, except the rams now commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred W. Ellet, which had left Memphis about the 20th, and arrived above Vicksburg on the afternoon of the 24th. Here Ellet opened communication with Farragut across the neck of land opposite Vicksburg. Farragut replied, suggesting the coöperation of Davis’s iron-clads. Davis received this message at Memphis on the 28th, and the next day started down the river. During the interval, Ellet’s audacity was rewarded by another extraordinary success. Taking the Monarch and the Lancaster, the latter under Charles Rivers Ellet, a mere boy nineteen years of age, he steamed fifty miles up the Yazoo River. Ellet was in perfect ignorance of what he might find there, whether batteries, gun-boats, or torpedoes. His rams carried no armament. As a matter of fact there were at the time in the river two of Hollins’s former fleet, the Polk and the Livingston, and the last of Montgomery’s vessels, the Van Dorn. These were tied up abreast of a battery at Liverpool Landing, and above them was a barrier made from a raft. The Arkansas was at Yazoo City above the barrier, completing her preparations. The officer in charge at Liverpool Landing, Commander Robert F. Pinkney, on the approach of the rams set fire to his three gun-boats, and the purpose of Ellet’s visit being thus easily accomplished, he withdrew again to the Mississippi.1
Davis arrived above Vicksburg on the 1st of July, and joined Farragut with four gun-boats and six mortar-boats. The fleets remained here at anchor for several days, while the army was attempting to make a cut-off across the neck of the land opposite Vicksburg, and thus create a new channel out of range of the batteries on the bluffs. During this time Porter continued his daily bombardment. Beyond this nothing was attempted, there being no force of troops to make it worth while.
While matters were in this condition, it was resolved between the two flag-officers that a detachment of gun-boats should make a reconoissance in force up the Yazoo River. The shoalness and narrowness of the stream led them to take vessels of the upper squadron in preference to those of the lower, and the following were selected: the Carondelet, Commander Henry Walke; Tyler, Lieutenant William Gwin, and Queen of the West. The Arkansas, an armored ram with a heavy battery, was known to be up the river, and Farragut in his report mentions her as one of the objects of investigation.
The engagement that followed has been the subject of much discussion. The Queen of the West, which had no weapons except her ram and the muskets of the sharp-shooters, and possibly a borrowed howitzer, immediately proceeded down the river. The Tyler, a very vulnerable wooden gun-boat, also retreated, placing herself under the protection of the Carondelet. The latter therefore became the principal antagonist of the Confederate ram. It now became a question for Walke of the Carondelet to decide whether he would advance to meet the Arkansas bows on, trusting to the skillful management of the helm to avoid a ram-thrust, or would retreat, engaging her with his stern guns. He chose the latter course.2
THE CONFEDERATE RAM “ARKANSAS” RUNNING THROUGH THE UNION FLEET AT VICKSBURG, JULY 15, 1862.
The Arkansas was decidedly the superior vessel. Apart from the fact that she was larger, and had at the beginning of the contest somewhat greater speed, she had a more efficient battery, and a far more complete and impenetrable armor protection. Indeed the Eads gun-boats, of which the Carondelet was one, were by no means fully armored, their two and one-half inch plating on the casemate covering only the forward end and that part of the sides abreast of the machinery. The stern was not armored at all. The side armor had no heavy backing, and such as it was could only ward off a shot directly abeam. It was by no means a complete protection to the boilers, as was shown in the catastrophe at St. Charles. The Arkansas on the other hand had three inches of railroad iron surrounding her casemate, with a heavy backing of timber and cotton bales. She had, besides, her ram, which experience had shown was a weapon much to be dreaded. However, the position adopted by Walke was the one which, by exposing his weakest point, gave the enemy the benefit of his superiority. The Carondelet, instead of presenting her armored bow, armed with three rifled guns, 30, 50, and 70 pounders, presented her unarmored stern, armed with two smooth-bore 32-pounders. That she escaped total destruction in the running fight of an hour or so that ensued with the two 8-inch guns in the Arkansas’s bow is little short of a miracle. Walke made a very good fight of it, and both he and Gwin of the Tyler, who pluckily supported the Carondelet, inflicted much injury on their antagonist, riddling her smoke-stack so as nearly to destroy her speed, wounding her captain twice, damaging her wheel, and killing her Yazoo pilot. When near the mouth of the river, the Carondelet’s steering gear was disabled and she ran in close to the bank, where the water was too shoal for the Arkansas to follow her. The latter, therefore, passed her, the two vessels exchanging broadsides, and the Arkansas continued on her course to Vicksburg.
Her approach caught the two flag-officers fairly napping. Notwithstanding their knowledge of her presence in the Yazoo, and the heavy firing that had been heard for mo
re than an hour, there was, out of the combined fleet of twenty vessels or thereabouts, but one that had steam up, the captured ram General Bragg, and she did nothing. The Arkansas dashed boldly through the mass of clustered vessels, receiving the broadside of each ship as she passed, and delivering her fire rapidly in return. Her audacity was rewarded by success, for though she was badly battered, she was neither stopped nor disabled. On the other hand, her shot, penetrating the boiler of the ram Lancaster, used up that vessel and caused considerable loss of life among her crew. The Benton, Davis’s flagship, got under way after Brown had passed, and followed him “at her usual snail’s pace,” to borrow Davis’s phrase, without overtaking him. In a few minutes the Arkansas was under the guns of Vicksburg.
A week before, on the 7th of July, Farragut had written to the department that he hoped “soon to have the pleasure of recording the combined attack by army and navy, for which we all so ardently long.” In the course of the week that had elapsed these hopes had been pretty well extinguished. The canal had turned out a failure, and the prospect that a considerable force of troops would arrive had been growing every day more remote. Before the Arkansas made her appearance, therefore, Farragut had already been meditating a return down the river, and the falling of the water and the prevalence of sickness in his crews admonished him to hasten. He also wished to damage the Arkansas in the rush by, so as to recover in some measure the prestige lost through her successful passage of the fleet. Preparations were therefore made for the descent on that very afternoon.
Already on the 10th Porter had left his station below Vicksburg with twelve of his mortar-boats, which were to be sent round to the James River. Most of the gun-boats of the mortar-flotilla went with him to tow the schooners down. The force that remained was composed of six mortar-schooners, under Commander W. B. Renshaw, with the ferry-boat Westfield. On the afternoon of the 15th these were moved up into position on the west bank of the river (with the exception of one, the Sidney C. Jones, which had run on shore and was blown up), and by half-past 3 they were engaged with the batteries. Davis, in the river above, also stationed three of his vessels, the Benton, Louisville, and Cincinnati, in position to attack the upper batteries, and to aid in covering Farragut’s passage. Toward 7 in the evening the fleet got under way, consisting of the four sloops, the Hartford, Richmond, Oneida, and Iroquois, four gun-boats, and the ram Sumter, which Davis had lent for the special purpose of attacking the Arkansas. The fleet made a gallant dash past the batteries, meeting with little loss, but the attack on the Arkansas was a failure, for she had shifted her position and could not be readily distinguished by the flashes of the guns. A single 11-inch shot, however, reached the ram and inflicted very serious injury, especially to the engine.
Early on the morning of the 22d, Farragut’s reunited squadron being now at anchor below Vicksburg, another attempt was made on the Arkansas. While the upper and the lower fleets were drawing the fire of the batteries in their neighborhood, the Essex, under Commodore William D. Porter, started down the river, followed by the Queen of the West, Lieutenant-Colonel A. W. Ellet. The crew of the Arkansas was small, but they were skillfully handled. The assailants tried to ram her in succession, but as each came on the beak of the Confederate was turned toward them, and they only succeeded in giving a glancing blow, and, sheering off, ran on the bank. Extricating themselves with difficulty, they withdrew as rapidly as they could from their perilous position, the Essex going below and the Queen, temporarily disabled, resuming her station with the upper squadron. One shot from the Essex did serious damage on board the Arkansas.
The Essex and Sumter were now permanently detained below Vicksburg. Shortly after the last engagement Farragut sailed down the river with Williams and his troops. Davis had expected Farragut’s departure, but he had relied on the occupation by the land forces of the point opposite Vicksburg, by which he communicated with his vessels below. As these had now departed, nothing could be gained by staying longer in the neighborhood. Davis accordingly withdrew to Helena, and for the next four months Vicksburg was left unmolested.
Williams remained at Baton Rouge, with the Essex, Kineo, Katahdin, and Sumter, while Farragut continued to New Orleans with the rest of his fleet. At daylight on the 5th of August, Baton Rouge was unsuccessfully attacked by the Confederates under General John C. Breckinridge, and on the 6th the Arkansas was destroyed. The remaining events of the summer of 1862 were of little importance. Early in August a reconnoissance showed that the White River had fallen three feet and was impracticable for gun-boats. Later in the month a more important expedition was sent down the river. It was composed of the Benton, Mound City, and Bragg, together with four of Ellet’s rams, the Switzerland, Monarch, Samson, and Lioness, all under Lieutenant-Commander Phelps, with a detachment of troops under Colonel Charles R. Woods. At Milliken’s Bend, thirty miles above Vicksburg, the Confederate transport steamer Fairplay was captured, loaded with a heavy cargo of arms and ammunition. The gun-boats then penetrated far up the Yazoo River, and two of the rams even ascended the Sunflower for twenty miles. When the expedition returned to Helena, it had destroyed or captured a vast quantity of military supplies. It taught the Confederates a lesson, however, and it was a long time before the Federal fleet could again enter the Yazoo with impunity.
The experience of the gun-boats in the White River showed the necessity of obtaining light-draught vessels for service in the uncertain channels of the tributaries of the Mississippi, and each additional operation in these rivers confirmed the impression. As early as the 27th of June Davis had urgently recommended this step, and his recommendations, sustained by the earnest appeals of other officers, resulted in the creation of the “tin-clads,” or “light-draughts,” which during the next year performed invaluable service.
On the 15th of October Davis was relieved of this command, having been appointed Chief of the Bureau of Navigation at the Navy Department. He was succeeded by Porter. Two important and much-needed changes in organization took place about this time, the first being the formal transfer of the squadron on the 1st of October from the War Department, under which it had first come into existence, to the Navy Department, which henceforth exercised exclusive direction of it. The second was the order of the Secretary of War of November 8th, directing Ellet to report “for orders and duty” to Porter. These two changes made the vessels in the Mississippi for the first time a homogeneous naval force, and swept away all the complications of command which had hitherto vexed and harassed its commander-in-chief.
Porter, as acting rear-admiral, assumed command of the Mississippi squadron at the naval depot at Cairo, which was now the headquarters. He received from Davis intact the squadron as it had come from Foote—the Benton, the seven Eads iron-clads, and the three Rodgers gun-boats. He had also Ellet’s nine rams and several very valuable captured vessels, including the Eastport, and Montgomery’s rams captured at Memphis—the Bragg, Pillow, Price, and Little Rebel. The only vessels that had been withdrawn were the Essex and Sumter, now in the river below Vicksburg. Porter was also getting at this very time an accession to his force in the new tin-clads,—the Brilliant, Rattler, Romeo, Juliet, Marmora, Signal, and others,—and an equally important accession of iron-clads, the Lafayette and Choctaw, altered steam-boats of great power, and the newly (and rather badly) constructed boats, Chillicothe, Indianola, and Tuscumbia.
On the 21st of November Porter issued orders from Cairo to Captain Henry Walke, then in command of the gun-boats patrolling the river below Helena, to enter the Yazoo and destroy the batteries as far up as possible. Accordingly, on the 11th of December the Marmora and Signal entered the river for twenty miles. They found that in the interval since Phelps’s raid in August, the Confederates had been by no means idle. The channel was full of scows and floats, indicating torpedoes, one of which exploded near the Signal, while another was discharged by musket-balls from the Marmora. Next day, as the river was rising, the light-draughts went in again, supported by two iron-clads,
the Cairo, Lieutenant-Commander T. O. Selfridge, and the Pittsburgh, Lieutenant Hoel. The Queen of the West also went in. About a dozen miles up, the Cairo was struck by two torpedoes, one exploding under her bow, the other under her quarter. She sank in twelve minutes, disappearing completely save the tops of her smoke-stacks. The discipline of the crew was perfect, the men remaining at quarters until they were ordered away, and no lives were lost. Several torpedoes were removed before the expedition returned to the mouth of the river.
The object of both these expeditions was to prepare for the attack on Chickasaw Bluffs. On December 23d, Porter, who had now come down from Cairo, went up the Yazoo with the Benton, Tyler, and Lexington, three tin-clads, and two rams. By three days’ incessant labor, under musketry fire from the banks, the fleet worked up to a point within range of the enemy’s heavy batteries at Haynes’s Bluff, whose fire the Benton sustained for two hours. The ship was not much damaged, but her commander, Gwin, one of the best officers in the squadron, was mortally wounded.
After the failure of the army at that point (December 29th) came the expedition against Arkansas Post. The vessels detailed by Porter for this movement were the iron-clads De Kalb, Lieutenant-Commander John G. Walker, Louisville, Lieutenant-Commander Elias K. Owen, and Cincinnati, Lieutenant George M. Bache; the ram Monarch, Colonel C. R. Ellet; the gun-boats Black Hawk, Lieutenant-Commander K. R. Breese, and Tyler, Lieutenant-Commander James W. Shirk; and the tin-clads Rattler, Lieutenant-Commander Watson Smith, and Glide, Lieutenant S. E. Woodworth. McClernand’s force, comprising Sherman’s and Morgan’s corps, accompanied the fleet in transports. As a feint the vessels ascended the White River, crossing over to the Arkansas by the cut-off. On the 9th of January the army landed three miles below the fort.
Fort Hindman was a square bastioned work, standing at a bend of the river, sufficiently high to command the surrounding country. It was commanded by Lieutenant Dunnington, who had done such good service at St. Charles, and defended by troops under General Churchill. On the side facing the river were three casemates, two of them at the angles containing each a 9-inch gun, and the intermediate one an 8-inch. On the opposite side the approaches were defended by a line of trenches a mile in length, beginning at the fort and terminating in an impassable swamp. In the main work and in the trenches were mounted fourteen lighter pieces, several of them rifled. Two or three outlying works were built on the levee below the fort, but these were exposed to an enfilading fire from the gun-boats, and at the first attack by the latter were promptly abandoned.
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