Camp, Court and Siege. Wickham Hoffman
sight to see the long line of gun-boats and transports following each other in Indian file at regular intervals. Navy and army boats combined, we numbered about twenty sail—if I may apply that word to steamers. On our way up, the flag-ship, the famous Hartford, was nearly lost. She grounded on a bank in the middle of the river, and with a falling stream. Of course there was the usual talk about a rebel pilot; but no vessel with the draught of the Hartford, a sloop-of-war, had ever before ventured to ascend above New Orleans. The navy worked hard all the afternoon to release her, but in vain. The hawsers parted like pack-thread. I was on board when a grizzled quartermaster, the very type of an old man-of-warsman, came up to the commodore on the quarter-deck, and, pulling his forelock, reported that there was a six-inch hawser in the hold. Farragut ordered it up at once. Two of our army transports, the most powerful, were lashed together, the hawser passed round them, and slackened. They then started with a jerk. The Hartford set her machinery in motion, the gun-boat lashed along-side started hers, and the old ship came off, and was swept down with the current. It required some seamanship to disentangle all these vessels.
We found that the waters had subsided since our last visit to Vicksburg, and so landed at Young's Point, opposite the town. Some years previously there had been a dispute between the State authorities of Louisiana and of Mississippi, and the Legislature of the former had taken steps to turn the river, and cut off Vicksburg by digging a canal across the peninsula opposite. This we knew, and decided to renew the attempt. We soon found traces of the engineers' work. The trees were cut down in a straight line across the Point. Here we set to work. Troops were sent to the different plantations both up and down the river, and the negroes pressed into the service. It was curious to observe the difference of opinion among the old river captains as to the feasibility of our plan. Some were sure that the river would run through the cut; others swore that it would not, and could not be made to. The matter was soon settled by the river itself; for it suddenly rose one night, filled up our ditch, undermined the banks, and in a few hours destroyed our labor of days. A somewhat careful observation of the Mississippi since has satisfied me that if a canal be cut where the stream impinges upon the bank, it will take to it as naturally as a duck does to water. But when the current strikes the opposite bank, as it does at Young's Point, you can not force it from its course. Had we attempted our canal some miles farther up, where the current strikes the right bank, we should have succeeded. Grant, the next year, renewed our ditch-digging experiment in the same place, and with infinitely greater resources, but with no better success.
Farragut had now made his preparations to run by the batteries. He divided his squadron into three divisions, accompanying the second division himself. The third was under command of Captain Craven, of the Brooklyn. We stationed Nim's light battery—and a good battery it was—on the point directly opposite Vicksburg, to assist in silencing the fire of one of the most powerful of the shore batteries. Very early in the morning Farragut got under way; two of his divisions passed, completely silencing the rebel batteries. The third division did not attempt the passage. This led to an angry correspondence between the commodore and Craven, and resulted in Craven's being relieved, and ordered to report to Washington. There was a great difference of opinion among naval officers as to Craven's conduct. He was as brave an officer as lived. He contended that it was then broad daylight, that the gunners on shore had returned to their guns, and that his feeble squadron would have been exposed to the whole fire of the enemy, without any adequate object to be gained in return. Farragut replied that his orders were to pass, and that he should have done it at all hazards.
And now an incident occurred which mortified the commodore deeply. His powerful fleet, re-enforced by Davis, lay above Vicksburg. The weather was intensely hot, and the commodore, contrary to his own judgment, as he told Williams, but on the urgent request of his officers, had permitted the fires to be extinguished. Early one morning we had sent a steamboat with a party up the river to press negroes into our canal work. Suddenly a powerful iron-clad, flying the Confederate colors, appeared coming out of the Yazoo River. There was nothing for our unarmed little boat to do but to run for it. The Arkansas opened from her bow-guns, and the first shell, falling among the men drawn up on deck, killed the captain of the company, and killed or wounded ten men. It is so rarely that a shell commits such havoc, that I mention it as an uncommon occurrence.
The firing attracted the attention of the fleet, and they beat to quarters. But there was no time to get up steam. The Arkansas passed through them all almost unscathed, receiving and returning their fire. The shells broke against her iron sides without inflicting injury. The only hurt she received was from the Richmond. Alden kept his guns loaded with powder only, prepared to use shell or shot as circumstances might require. He loaded with solid shot, and gave her a broadside as she passed. This did her some damage, but nothing serious.
In the mean time the alarm was given to the transports. Farragut had sent us an officer to say that the Arkansas was coming, that he should stop her if he could, but that he feared that he could not. The troops were got under arms, and our two batteries ordered to the levee. A staff officer said to General Williams, "General, don't let us be caught here like rats in a trap; let us attempt something, even if we fail." "What would you do?" said the general. "Take the Laurel Hill, put some picked men on board of her, and let us ram the rebel. We may not sink her, but we may disable or delay her, and help the gun-boats to capture her." "A good idea," said the general; "send for Major Boardman." Boardman, the daring officer to whom I have before referred, had been brought up as a midshipman. He was known in China as the "American devil," from a wild exploit there in scaling the walls of Canton one dark night when the gates were closed; climbing them with the help of his dagger only, making holes in the masonry for his hands and feet. He was afterward killed by guerrillas, having become colonel of his regiment. Boardman came; the Laurel Hill was cleared; twenty volunteers from the Fourth Wisconsin were put on board, and steam got up. The captain refused to go, and another transport captain was put in command. We should have attempted something, perhaps failed; but I think one or other of us would have been sunk. But our preparations were all in vain. The Arkansas had had enough of it for that day. She rounded to, and took refuge under the guns of Vicksburg.
Reporting this incident to Butler subsequently, he said, "You would have sunk her, sir; you would have sunk her."
Farragut, as I have said, was deeply mortified. He gave orders at once to get up steam, and prepared to run the batteries again, determined to destroy the rebel ram at all hazards. He had resolved to ram her with the Hartford as she lay under the guns of Vicksburg. It was with great difficulty he was dissuaded from doing so, and only upon the promise of Alden that he would do it for him in the Richmond. Farragut, in his impulsive way, seized Alden's hand, "Will you do this for me, Alden? will you do it?" The rapidity of the current, the unusual darkness of the night, and the absence of lights on the Arkansas and on shore, prevented the execution of the plan. To finish with the Arkansas, she afterward came down the river to assist in the attack on Baton Rouge. Part of her machinery gave out; she turned and attempted to return to Vicksburg, was pursued by our gun-boats, run ashore, abandoned, and burned.
The rebels never had any luck with their gun-boats. They always came to grief. They were badly built, badly manned, or badly commanded. The Louisiana, the Arkansas, the Manassas, the Tennessee, the Albemarle—great things were expected of them all, and they did nothing.
But we were as far from the capture of Vicksburg as ever. Fever attacked our men in those fatal swamps, and they became thoroughly discouraged. The sick-list was fearful. Of a battery of eighty men, twenty only were fit for duty. The Western troops, and they were our best, were homesick. Lying upon the banks of the Mississippi, with transports above Vicksburg convenient for embarkation, they longed for home. The colonels came to Williams, and suggested a retreat up the river, to join Halleck's command. Williams held a council of war. He asked me to attend it. The colonels gave their opinions, some in favor of, and others against, the proposed retreat. When it came to my turn, I spoke strongly against it. I urged that we had no right to abandon our comrades at New Orleans; that it might lead to the recapture of that city; that if our transports were destroyed, we should at least attempt to get back by land. I do not suppose that Williams ever entertained the least idea of retreating up the river, but thought it due to his officers to hear what they had