My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field

by Charles Carleton Coffin

See the Queen! Her great wheels whirl up clouds of spray, and leave a foaming path. She carries a silver train sparkling in the morning light. She ploughs a furrow, which rolls the width of the river. Our boat dances like a feather on the waves. She gains the intervening space between the fleets. Never moved a Queen so determinedly, never one more fleet,—almost leaping from the water. The Stars and Stripes stream to the breeze beneath the black banner unfolding, expanding, and trailing far away from her smoke-stacks. There is a surging, hissing, and smothered screaming of the pent-up steam in her boilers, as if they had put on all energy for the moment. They had;—flesh, blood, bones, iron, brass, steel,—animate and inanimate,—were nerved up for the trial of the hour!

Officers and men behold her in astonishment and admiration. For a moment there is silence. The men stand transfixed by their guns, forgetting their duties. Then the Rebel gunners, as if moved by a common impulse, bring their guns to bear upon her. She is exposed on the right, on the left, and in front. It is a terrible cross-fire. Solid shot scream past. Shells explode around her. She is pierced through and through. Her timbers crack. She quivers beneath the shock, but does not falter. On—on—faster—straight towards the General Beauregard.

The commander of that vessel adroitly avoids the stroke. The Queen misses her aim. She sweeps by like a race-horse, receiving the fire of the Beauregard on one side and the Little Rebel on the other. She comes round in a graceful curve, almost lying down upon her side, as if to cool her heated smoke-stacks in the stream. The stern guns of the Beauregard send their shot through the bulwarks of the Queen. A splinter strikes the brave commander, Colonel Ellet. He is knocked down, bruised, and stunned for a moment, but springs to his feet, steadies himself against the pilot-house, and gives his directions as coolly as if nothing had happened.

The Queen passes round the Little Rebel, and approaches the General Price.

“Take her aft the wheelhouse,” says Colonel Ellet to the pilot. The commander of the Price turns towards the approaching antagonist. Her wheels turn. She surges ahead to escape the terrible blow. Too late. There is a splintering, crackling, crashing of timbers. The broadside of the boat is crushed in. It is no more than a box of cards or thin tissue-paper before the terrible blow.

There are jets of flame and smoke from the loop-holes of the Queen. The sharpshooters are at it. You hear the rattling fire, and see the crew of the Price running wildly over the deck, tossing their arms. The unceasing thunder of the cannonade drowns their cries. A moment, and a white flag goes up. The Price surrenders.

But the Queen has another antagonist, the Beauregard. The Queen is motionless, but the Beauregard sweeps down with all her powers. There is another crash. The bulwarks of the Queen tremble before the stroke. There is a great opening in her hull. But no white flag is displayed. There are no cries for quarter, no thoughts of surrendering. The sharpshooters pick off the gunners of the Beauregard, compelling them to take shelter beneath their casemates.

We who see it hold our breaths. We are unmindful of the explosions around us. How will it end? Will the Queen sink with all her brave men on board?

But her consort is at hand, the Monarch, commanded by Captain Ellet, brother of Colonel Ellet. He was five or ten minutes behind the Queen in starting, but he has appeared at the right moment. He, too, has been unmindful of the shot and shell falling around him. He aims straight as an arrow for the Beauregard. The Beauregard is stiff, stanch, and strong, but her timbers, planks, knees, and braces are no more than laths before the powerful stroke of the Monarch. The sharpshooters pour in their fire. The engineer of the Monarch puts his force-pumps in play and drenches the decks of the Beauregard with scalding water. An officer of the Beauregard raises a white cloth upon a rammer. It is a signal for surrender. The sharpshooters stop firing. There are the four boats, three of them floating helplessly in the stream, the water pouring into the hulls, through the splintered planking.

Captain Ellet saw that the Queen was disabled, and took her in tow to the Arkansas shore. Prompted by humanity, instead of falling upon the other vessels of the fleet he took the General Price to the shore.