[CHAPTER XVIII.]
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.
Tempest.
If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to lay my head.
Ibid.
Starting down the Mississippi.
On the 14th of March, the flotilla again started down the Mississippi, steaming slowly by Columbus, where Venus followed close upon Mars, in the form of two women disbursing pies and some other commodities to sailors and soldiers. The next day we anchored above Island Number Ten, where Beauregard had built formidable fortifications.
A fast little Rebel gunboat, called the Grampus, ran screeching away from the range of our guns. Below her we could read with glasses the names painted upon the many steamers lying in front of the enemy's works, and see the guns upon a great floating battery.
Our gunboats fired one or two experimental shots, and the mortar-rafts, with tremendous explosions, began to throw their ten-inch shells, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds each. Great results were expected from these enormous mortars, but they proved inaccurate. Our shots fell among the batteries and steamboats of the enemy, throwing up clouds of dirt and sheets of water. The Rebel guns replied with great puffs of smoke; but their missiles, bounding along the river, fell three-quarters of a mile short.