CAPTURE OF ISLAND No. 10 AND THE REBEL ARMY.
After the surrender of the forts at New Madrid, Colonel Bissell’s engineer regiment was engaged for four days unspiking guns, changing batteries, and establishing new works. Then they were sent over by General Pope to ascertain whether it would be practicable to establish batteries opposite Island No. 10, and enfilade the rebel works on the Tennessee shore. They spent three days in the swamps, living in their canoes with negroes, but found the project impracticable. Colonel Bissell, however, stated that he could by hard labor get steamboats and flatboats through the woods and bayous, and by that means avoid the batteries on the island, and bring the vessels to New Madrid, whence General Pope’s army could be transported to a point nearly opposite, and take all the enemy’s works in the rear.
General Pope at once gave him a carte blanche, and he sent to Cairo for four steamboats, six flats, and such guns as could be spared. They sent the steamers W. B. Terry, John Trio, Gilmore, and Emma, with the barges, a quantity of lumber, etc., and one eight-inch columbiad and three thirty-two pounders. Tools were not needed, for the regiment carried everything, from the heaviest ropes and screws down to fine steel drills for unspiking guns.
The route was about twelve miles long, of which two traversed were through thick timber, and the remaining ten narrow, crooked bayous, choked up with brush and small trees. They cut their way through, the track being fifty feet wide, of which thirty feet was required for the hulls of the boats. The timber was cut four feet below the surface of the water. In one short stretch they cut seventy-five trees, not one less than two feet through. The machines were rigged from rafts and flats, and each worked by about twenty men. In the first place three large launches went ahead to cut out and clear away the underbrush and driftwood; then three rafts followed, on which were the axemen, followed by the saws, two large barges, and one of the steamboats. Very large lines were provided to run from the capstan of the steamboat and haul out by snatchblocks what the men could not handle. Men were engaged all the time in the fleet which followed, converting the flatboats into floating batteries.
BOMBARDMENT OF ISLAND NO. 10.
1. Rebel Floating Battery.—2. Rebel Gunboats and Rams.—3. Federal Gunboats.—4. Point Pleasant.—5. Island No. 10.—6. Smith’s Landing.—7. Mortar Boats.
From the starting point on the river to the levee the distance is about five hundred feet; here the water was shallow and the route full of stumps. It took one whole day to pass this point. Then they cut in the levee. Here the fall was over two feet, and the rush of water tremendous. The largest boat was dropped through with five lines out ahead. Then a corn field, overflowed from a cut in the levee, where a channel was cut by the swift water, and floated them onward nearly a quarter of a mile to the woods. Here was great labor—two straight and long miles to the nearest point in the bayou. It took eight days to get through this distance. Then came Wilson’s Bayou, East Bayou, and St. John’s Bayou, which empties into the Mississippi at New Madrid. It sometimes took twenty men a whole day to get out a half sunken tree across the bayou; and as none of the rafts or flats could get by, this always detained the whole fleet. The water, after they got in the woods, was about six feet deep, with a gentle current setting across the peninsula. In the East Bayou the current was tremendous, and the boats had to be checked down with heavy head lines. Here they found some obstructions, caused by heaps of driftwood, but a few sturdy blows dislodged some of the logs and sent the whole mass floating down the current.
While the engineers were engaged in this herculean enterprise, the gunboat Carondelet ran safely by the rebel batteries on the island, and reached New Madrid on the night of April 4th. On the succeeding night another boat, the Pittsburg, ran the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire unscathed, in time to convoy the transports as they entered the river.
On the 6th of April the two gunboats attacked and destroyed four batteries erected by the rebels on the Tennessee shore. On the 7th, by daylight, the divisions of Generals Paine and Stanley were marched to Tiptonville, fifteen miles down the river from New Madrid. The rebels had retreated in that direction the afternoon before, and it was thought that they were endeavoring to cross over Reelfoot lake. The troops were pushed forward with all possible speed, and at night encamped at Tiptonville and Merriwether’s, while a strong force was posted at the only point where by any possibility the rebels could cross the lake, some four miles from the town. Squads of rebel soldiers kept in sight of the Union pickets during the night, and at times would come boldly up and surrender themselves as prisoners of war. At daylight General Pope and staff, and Assistant Secretary of War Scott, went down to the locality, and General Pope assumed the full command. It was expected that some resistance would be made, and no one surmised that the enemy, who it was learned had marched over from Island No. 10, had concluded to give himself up. But shortly after sunrise General Pope received a message from the General commanding the Confederates, stating that he had surrendered the island and fortifications to Commodore Foote the night before, and that the forces under his command were ready to follow the “fortunes of war;” and he requested General Pope to receive and march them into camp. General Pope gave directions for the Confederate troops to come into camp and go through the formula. Accordingly about four thousand rebels were marched in and stacked their arms.
On the same day Island No. 10 was surrendered to Commodore Foote, with all its war material; and all the gunboats and transports fell into the hands of the victors.