The Confederates formed in double line for their last battle, awaiting the approach of the flotilla. The latter, embarrassed by the enemy being in line with the city, kept under way, but with their heads up stream, dropping slowly with the current. The battle was opened by a shot from the Confederates, and then the flotilla, casting away its scruples about the city, replied with vigor. The Union rams, which were tied up to the bank some distance above, cast off at the first gun and steamed boldly down through the intervals separating the gunboats, the Queen of the West leading, the Monarch about half a mile astern. As they passed, the flotilla, now about three-quarters of a mile from the enemy, turned their heads down the river and followed, keeping up a brisk cannonade; the flag-ship Benton leading. The heights above the city were crowded by the citizens of Memphis, awaiting with eager hope the result of the fight. The ram attack was unexpected, and, by its suddenness and evident determination, produced some wavering in the Confederate line, which had expected to do only with the sluggish and unwieldy gunboats. Into the confusion the Queen dashed, striking the Lovell fairly and sinking her in deep water, where she went down out of sight. The Queen herself was immediately rammed by the Beauregard and disabled; she was then run upon the Arkansas shore opposite the city. Her commander received a pistol shot, which in the end caused his death. The Monarch following, was charged at the same time by the Beauregard and Price; these two boats, however, missed their mark and crashed together, the Beauregard cutting the Price down to the water-line, and tearing off her port wheel. The Price then followed the Queen, and laid herself up on the Arkansas shore. The Monarch successfully rammed her late assailant, the Beauregard, as she was discharging her guns at the Benton, which replied with a shot in the enemy's boiler, blowing her up and fatally scalding many of her people. She went down near shore, being towed there by the Monarch. The Little Rebel in the thickest of the fight got a shot through her steam-chest; whereupon she also made for the limbo on the Arkansas shore, where her officers and crew escaped.
The Confederates had lost four boats, three of them among the heaviest in their fleet. The remaining four sought safety in flight from the now unequal contest, and a running fight followed, which carried the fleet ten miles down the river and resulted in the destruction of the Thompson by the shells of the gunboats and the capture of the Bragg and Sumter. The Van Dorn alone made good her escape, though pursued some distance by the Monarch and Switzerland, another of the ram fleet which joined after the fight was decided. This was the end of the Confederate River Defence Fleet, the six below having perished when New Orleans fell. The Bragg, Price, Sumpter, and Little Rebel were taken into the Union fleet.
The city of Memphis surrendered the same day. The Benton and the flag-officer, with the greater part of the fleet, remained there till June 29th. On the 10th Davis received an urgent message from Halleck to open communication by way of the White River and Jacksonport with General Curtis, who was coming down through Missouri and Arkansas, having for his objective point Helena, on the right bank of the Mississippi. The White River traverses Arkansas from the Missouri border, one hundred and twenty miles west of the Mississippi, and pursuing a southeasterly and southerly course enters the Mississippi two hundred miles below Memphis, one hundred below Helena. A force was despatched, under Commander Kilty, comprising, besides his own ship, the St. Louis, Lieutenant McGunnegle, with the Lexington and Conestoga, wooden gunboats, Lieutenants Shirk and Blodgett. An Indiana regiment under Colonel Fitch accompanied the squadron. On the 17th of June, at St. Charles, eighty-eight miles up, the enemy were discovered in two earthworks, mounting six guns. A brisk engagement followed, the Mound City leading; but when six hundred yards from the works a 42-pound shell entered her casemate, killing three men in its flight and then exploding her steam-drum. Of her entire crew of 175, but 3 officers and 22 men escaped uninjured; 82 died from wounds or scalding, and 43 were either drowned or killed in the water, the enemy, in this instance, having the inhumanity to fire on those who were there struggling for their lives. Unappalled by this sickening catastrophe, the remaining boats pressed on to the attack, the Conestoga taking hold of the crippled vessel to tow her out of action. A few minutes later, at a signal from Colonel Fitch, the gunboats ceased firing, and the troops, advancing, successfully stormed the battery. The commander of the post was Captain Joseph Fry, formerly a lieutenant in the United States Navy, who afterward commanded the filibustering steamer Virginius, and was executed in Cuba, with most of his crew, when captured by the Spaniards in 1874. There being no further works up the stream and but one gunboat of the enemy, the Ponchartrain, this action gave the control of the river to the fleet.
After taking possession of St. Charles, the expedition went on up the river as far as a point called Crooked Point Cutoff, sixty-three miles above St. Charles, and one hundred and fifty-one miles from the mouth of the river. Here it was compelled to turn back by the falling of the water. The hindrance caused by the low state of the rivers led Davis to recommend a force of light-draught boats, armed with howitzers, and protected in their machinery and pilot-houses against musketry, as essential to control the tributaries of the Mississippi during the dry season. This was the germ of the light-draught gunboats, familiarly called "tinclads" from the thinness of their armor, which in the following season were a usual and active adjunct to the operations of the heavier vessels.
On the 29th of June, Flag-Officer Davis, who had received that rank but a week before, went down the river, taking with him the Benton, Carondelet, Louisville, and St. Louis, with six mortar-boats. Two days later, July 1st, in the early morning, Farragut's fleet was sighted, at anchor in the river above Vicksburg. A few hours more and the naval forces from the upper waters and from the mouth of the Mississippi had joined hands.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Letter of Colonel Ellet to Lieutenant McGunnegle. United States Navy.