The Little Rebel was pierced through her hull by a half-dozen shots. Commodore Montgomery saw that the day was lost. He ran alongside the Beauregard, and, notwithstanding the vessel had surrendered, took the crew on board, to escape. But a shot from the Cairo passed through the boilers. The steam rushed out like the hissing of serpents. The boat was near the shore, and the crew jumped into the water, climbed the bank, and fled to the woods. The Cairo gave them a broadside of shells as they ran.
The Beauregard was fast settling. The Jessie Benton ran alongside. All had fled save the wounded. There was a pool of blood upon the deck. The sides of the casemate were stained with crimson drops, yet warm from the heart of a man who had been killed by a shell.
“Help, quick!” was the cry of Captain Maynadier.
We rushed on board in season to save a wounded officer. The vessel settled slowly to the bottom.
“I thank you,” said the officer, “for saving me from drowning. You are my enemies, but you have been kinder to me than those whom I called my friends. One of my brother officers when he fled, had the meanness to pick my pocket and steal my watch!”
Thus those who begun by stealing public property, forts, and arsenals, did not hesitate to violate their honor,—fleeing after surrendering, forsaking their wounded comrade, robbing him of his valuables, and leaving him to drown!
There is no cessation of the cannonade. The fight goes on. The Benton is engaged with the General Lovell. They are but a few rods apart, and both within a stone’s-throw of the multitude upon the shore.
Captain Phelps stands by one of the Benton’s rifled guns. He waits to give a raking shot, runs his eye along the sights, and gives the word to fire. The steel-pointed shot enters the starboard side of the hull, by the water-line. Timbers, braces, planks, the whole side of the boat seemingly, are torn out.
The water pours in. The vessel settles to the guards, to the ports, to the top of the casemate, reels, and with a lurch disappears. It is the work of three minutes.
The current sets swiftly along the shore. The plummet gives seventy-five feet of water. The vessel goes down like a lump of lead. Her terror-stricken crew are thrown into the current. It is an appalling sight. A man with his left arm torn, broken, bleeding, and dangling by his side, runs wildly over the deck. There is unspeakable horror in his face. He beckons now to those on shore, and now to his friends on board the boats. He looks imploringly to heaven, and calls for help. Unavailing the cry. He disappears in the eddying whirlpool. A hundred human beings are struggling for life, buffeting the current, raising their arms, catching at sticks, straws, planks, and timbers. “Help! help! help!” they cry. It is a wild wail of agony, mingled with the cannonade.