During that night the vessels still above were busy repairing damages and getting ready for the perils of the next day. Fearing the enemy might obstruct the channel by sinking the captured pump-boat across it, a shell was fired at her from time to time. The repairs were made before noon, but the Juliet being still crippled, the Hindman took her alongside, and so headed down for the batteries. Before going far the Juliet struck a snag, which made it necessary to go back and stop the leak. Then they started again, the remaining pump-boat following. When within five hundred yards the enemy opened a well-sustained fire, and a shot passed through the pilot-house of the Hindman, cutting the wheel-ropes. This made the vessel unmanageable, and the two falling off broadside to the stream drifted down under fire, striking now one shore and now the other but happily going clear. The guns under these circumstances could not be used very effectively, and the pump-boat suffered the more from the enemy's fire. Maitland was still piloting her, and when nearly opposite the batteries he was wounded in both legs by a shell. He dropped on his knees, unable to handle the wheel, and the boat ran into the bank on the enemy's side. Another shell struck the pilot-house, wounding him again in several places, and a third cut away a bell-rope and the speaking-tube. Rallying a little, Maitland now got hold of and rang another bell and had the boat backed across the river. The crew attempted to escape, but were all taken prisoners, the captain and one other having been killed. In the two days encounters the Juliet was hit nearly as often as the Cricket and lost 15 killed and wounded; the Hindman, though repeatedly struck and much cut up, only 3 killed and 5 wounded. The fire of the enemy's sharpshooters was very annoying for some miles farther down, but twelve miles below the batteries they met the Neosho going up to their assistance.
The main interest of the retreat of the squadron centres in the Eastport and her plucky little consorts, but the other vessels had had their own troubles in getting down the river. The obstacles to be overcome are described as enough to appal the stoutest heart by the admiral, who certainly was not a man of faint heart. Guns had to be removed and the vessels jumped over sand-bars and logs, but the squadron arrived in time to prevent any attack on the reserve stores before the main body of the army came up.
At Alexandria the worst of their troubles awaited them, threatening to make all that had yet been done vain. The river, which ordinarily remains high till June, had not only failed to reach its usual height but had so fallen that they could not pass the rapids. General W.T. Sherman, who had lived at Alexandria before the war, thought twelve feet necessary before going up, a depth usually found from March to June. At the very least seven were needed by the gunboats to go down, and on the 30th of April of this year there were actually only three feet four inches. The danger was the greatest that had yet befallen the fleet, and seemingly hopeless. A year before, in the Yazoo bayous, the position had been most critical, but there the peril came from the hand of man and was met and repelled by other men. Here Nature herself had turned against them, forsaking her usual course to do them harm. Ten gunboats and two tugs were thus imprisoned in a country soon to pass into the enemy's hands by the retreat of the army.
Desperate as the case seemed, relief came. Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, of the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers, was at this time acting as Chief Engineer of the Nineteenth Army Corps, General Franklin's. He was a man who had had much experience on the watercourses of the Northwestern country, and had learned to use dams to overcome obstacles arising from shallow water in variable streams. The year before he had applied this knowledge to free two transport steamers, which had been taken when Port Hudson fell, from their confinement in Thompson's Creek, where the falling water had left them sunk in the sand. As the army fell back, and during its stay at Grand Ecore, he had heard rumors about the scant water at the Falls, and the thought had taken hold of his mind that he might now build a dam on a greater scale and to a more vital purpose than ever before.
His idea, first broached to General Franklin, was through him conveyed to Banks and Porter, and generally through the army. Franklin, himself an engineer, thought well of it, and so did some others; but most doubted, and many jeered. The enemy themselves, when they became aware of it, laughed, and their pickets and prisoners alike cried scoffingly, "How about that dam?" But Bailey had the faith that moves mountains, and he was moreover happy in finding at his hands the fittest tools for the work. Among the troops in the far Southwest were two or three regiments from Maine, the northeasternmost of all the States. These had been woodmen and lumbermen from their youth, among their native forests, and a regiment of them now turned trained and willing arms upon the great trees on the north shore of the Red River; and there were many others who, on a smaller scale and in different scenes, had experience in the kind of work now to be done. Time was pressing, and from two to three thousand men were at once set to work on the 1st of May. The Falls are about a mile in length, filled with rugged rocks which, at this low water, were bare or nearly so, the water rushing down around, or over, them with great swiftness. At the point below, where the dam was to be built, the river is 758 feet wide, and the current was then between nine and ten miles an hour. From the north bank was built what was called the "tree dam," formed of large trees laid with the current, the branches interlocking, the trunks down stream and cross-tied with heavy timber; upon this was thrown brush, brick, and stone, and the weight of water as it rose bound the fabric more closely down upon the bottom of the river. From the other bank, where the bottom was more stony and trees less plenty, great cribs were pushed out, sunk and filled with stone and brick—the stone brought down the river in flat-boats, the bricks obtained by pulling down deserted brick buildings. On this side, a mile away, was a large sugar-house; this was torn down and the whole building, machinery, and kettles went to ballast the dam. Between the cribs and the tree dam a length of 150 feet was filled by four large coal barges, loaded with brick and sunk. This great work was completed in eight working days, and even on the eighth, three of the lighter vessels, the Osage, Neosho, and Fort Hindman, were able to pass the upper falls and wait just above the dam for the chance to pass; but the heavier vessels had yet to delay for a further rise. In the meantime the vessels were being lightened by their crews. Nearly all the guns, ammunition, provisions, chain cables, anchors, and everything that could affect the draught, were taken out and hauled round in wagons below the falls. The iron plating was taken off the Ozark, and the sides of our old friends the Eads gunboats, the four survivors of which were here, as ever where danger was. This iron, for want of wagons, could not be hauled round, so the boats ran up the river and dumped it overboard in a five-fathom hole, where the shifting sand would soon swallow it up. Iron plating was then too scarce and valuable to the Confederates to let it fall into their hands. Eleven old 32-pounders were also burst and sunk.
The dam was finished, the water rising, and three boats below, when, between 7 and 10 A.M. of the 9th, the pressure became so great as to sweep away two of the barges in midstream and the pent-up water poured through. Admiral Porter rode round to the upper falls and ordered the Lexington to pass them at once and try to go through the dam without a stop. Her steam was ready and she went ahead, passing scantly over the rapids, the water falling all the time; then she steered straight for the opening, where the furious rushing of the waters seemed to threaten her with destruction. She entered the gap, which was but 66 feet wide, with a full head of steam, pitched down the roaring torrent, made two or three heavy rolls, hung for a moment on the rocks below, and then, sweeping into deep water with the current, rounded to at the bank, safe. One great cheer rose from the throats of the thousands looking on, who had before been hushed into painful silence, awaiting the issue with beating hearts. The Neosho followed, but stopping her engine as she drew near the opening, was carried helplessly through; for a moment her low hull disappeared in the water, but she escaped with a hole in her bottom, which was soon repaired. The Hindman and Osage came through without touching.
The work on the dam had been done almost wholly by the soldiers, who had worked both day and night, often up to their waists and even to their necks in the water, showing throughout the utmost cheerfulness and good humor. The partial success, that followed the first disappointment of the break, was enough to make such men again go to work with good will. Bailey decided not to try again, with his limited time and materials, to sustain the whole weight of water with one dam; and so, leaving the gap untouched, went on to build two wing-dams on the upper falls. These, extending from either shore toward the middle of the river and inclining slightly down stream, took part of the weight, causing a rise of 1 foot 2 inches, and shed the water from either side into the channel between them. Three days were needed to build these, one a crib-and the other a tree-dam, and a bracket-dam a little lower down to help guide the current. The rise due to the main dam when breached was 5 feet 4½ inches, so that the entire gain in depth by this admirable engineering work was 6 feet 6½ inches. On the 11th the Mound City, Carondelet, and Pittsburg came over the upper falls, but with trouble, the channel being very crooked and scarcely wide enough. The next day the remaining boats, Ozark, Louisville, and Chillicothe, with the two tugs, also came down to the upper dam, and during that and the following day they all passed through the gap, with hatches closely nailed down and every precaution taken against accident. No mishap befell them beyond the unshipping of rudders, and the loss of one man swept from the deck of a tug. The two barges which had been carried out at the first break of the dam stuck just below and at right angles to it, and there staid throughout, affording an excellent cushion on the left side of the shoot. What had been a calamity proved thus a benefit. The boats having taken on board their guns and stores as fast as they came below, that work was completed, even by the last comers, on the 13th, and all then steamed down the river with the transports in company. The water had become very low in the lower part, but providentially a rise of the Mississippi sent up so much back-water that no stoppage happened.
RED RIVER DAM.[ToList]