94. Running the Batteries
By CAPTAIN ALFRED T. MAHAN (1862)
AT ten o'clock that evening the gunboat Carondelet,
Commander Henry Walke, left her anchorage, during a heavy
thunderstorm, and successfully ran the batteries, reaching
New Madrid at one P.M. The orders to execute this daring move
were delivered to Captain Walke on the 30th of March. The
vessel was immediately prepared. Her decks were covered with
extra thicknesses of planking; the chain cables were brought
up from below and ranged as an additional protection. Lumber
and cord-wood were piled thickly around the boilers, and
arrangements made for letting the steam escape through the
wheel-houses, to avoid the puffing noise ordinarily issuing
from the pipes. The pilot-house for additional security, was
wrapped to a thickness of eighteen inches in the coils of a
large hawser. A barge, loaded with bales of hay, was made fast
on the port quarter of the vessel to protect the magazine.
The moon set at ten o'clock, and then too was felt the first
breath of a thunderstorm, which had been for some time
gathering. The Carondelet swung from her moorings and
started down the stream. The guns were in and ports closed.
No light was allowed about the decks. Within the darkened
casement of the pilot-house all her crew save two, stood in
silence, fully armed to repel boarding, should boarding
[_]
The Confederates had heavily fortified Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River.
be attempted. The storm burst in full violence as soon as her
head was fairly down stream. The flashes of lightning showed
her presence to the Confederates, who rapidly manned their
guns, and whose excited shouts and commands were plainly
beard on board as the boat passed close under the batteries.
On deck, exposed alike to the storm and to the enemy's fire,
were two men; one, Charles Wilson, a seaman, heaving the
lead, standing sometimes kneedeep in the water that boiled
over the forecastle; the other, an officer, Theodore Gilmore, on
the upper deck forward, repeating to the pilot the leadsman's
muttered, "No bottom."
The storm spread its sheltering wing over the gallant vessel,
baffling the excited efforts of the enemy, before whose eyes
she floated like a phantom ship; now wrapped in impenetrable
darkness, now standing forth in the full blaze of the lightning
close under their guns. The friendly flashes enabled the pilot,
William R. Hoel, who bad volunteered from another gunboat to
share the fortunes of the night, to keep her in the channel;
once only, in a longer interval between them, did the vessel get
a dangerous sheer toward a shoal, but the peril was revealed in
time to avoid it. Not till the firing had ceased did the squall
abate.
The passage of the Carondelet was not only one of the most
daring and dramatic events of the war; it was also the death-blow to the Confederate defence of this position. The
concluding events followed in rapid succession.
Having passed the island as related, on the night of the 4th,
the Carondelet on the 6th made a reconnoissance down the
river as far as Tiptonville, with
[_]
"Island No, 10 "was heavily fortified by the Confederates
General Granger on board, exchanging shots with the
Confederate batteries, at one of which a landing was made and
the guns spiked. That night the Pitts. burg also passed the
island, and at 6:30 A.M. of the 7th, the
Carondelet got under
way, in concert with Pope's operations, went down the river,
followed after an interval by the Pittsburg and engaged the
enemies' batteries, beginning with the lowest. This was
silenced in three-quarters of an hour, and the others made little
resistance. The
Carondelet then signalled her success to the
general and returned to cover the crossing of the army, which
began at once.
The enemy evacuated their works, pushing down towards
Tiptonville, but there were actually no means for them to
escape, caught between the swamps and the river. Seven
thousand men laid down their arms, three of whom were
general officers. At ten o'clock that evening the island and
garrison surrendered to the navy, just three days to an hour
after the Carondelet started on her perilous voyage. How
much of this result was due to the Carondelet and Pittsburg
may be measured by Pope's words to the flag-officer: "The
lives of thousands of men and the success of our operations
hang upon your decision; with two gunboats all is safe, with
one it is uncertain."