There is no help for them on shore. There, within a dozen rods, are their friends, their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, children, they who urged them to join the service, who compelled them to enlist. All are powerless to aid them!
They who stand upon the shore behold those whom they love defeated, crushed, drowning, calling for help! It is an hour when heart-strings are wrung. Tears, cries, prayers, efforts, all are unavailing.
Commodore Davis beholds them. His heart is touched. “Save them, lads,” he says.
The crews of the Benton and Carondelet rush to their boats. So eager are they to save the struggling men that one of the boats is swamped in the launching. Away they go, picking up one here, another there,—ten or twelve in all. A few reach the shore and are helped up the bank by lookers-on; but fifty or sixty sink to rise no more. How noble the act! How glorious! Bright amid all the distress, all the horror, all the infamous conduct of men who have forsworn themselves, will shine forever, like a star of heaven, this act of humanity!
The General Price, General Beauregard, Little Rebel, and General Lovell—one half of the Rebel fleet—were disposed of. The other vessels attempted to flee. The Union fleet had swept steadily on in an unbroken line. Amid all the appalling scenes of the hour there was no lull in the cannonade. While saving those who had lost all power of resistance, there was no cessation of effort to crush those who still resisted.
A short distance below the Little Rebel, the Jeff Thompson, riddled by shot, and in flames, was run ashore. A little farther down-stream the General Bragg was abandoned, also in flames from the explosion of a nine-inch shell, thrown by the St. Louis. The crews leaped on shore, and fled to the woods. The Sumter went ashore, near the Little Rebel. The Van Dorn alone escaped. She was a swift steamer, and was soon beyond reach of the guns of the fleet.
The fight is over. The thunder of the morning dies away, and the birds renew their singing. The abandoned boats are picked up. The Jeff Thompson cannot be saved. The flames leap around the chimneys. The boilers are heated to redness. A pillar of fire springs upward, in long lances of light. The interior of the boat—boilers, beams of iron, burning planks, flaming timbers, cannon-shot, shells—is lifted five hundred feet in air, in an expanding, unfolding cloud, filled with loud explosions. The scattered fragments rain upon forest, field, and river, as if meteors of vast proportions had fallen from heaven to earth, taking fire in their descent. There is a shock which shakes all Memphis, and announces to the disappointed, terror-stricken, weeping, humiliated multitude that the drama which they have played so madly for a twelvemonth is over, that retribution for crime has come at last!
Thus in an hour’s time the Rebel fleet was annihilated. Commodore Montgomery was to have sent the Union boats to the bottom; but his expectations were not realized, his promises not fulfilled. It is not known how many men were lost on the Rebel side, but probably from eighty to a hundred. Colonel Ellet was the only one injured on board the Union fleet. The gunboats were uninjured. The Queen of the West was the only boat disabled. In striking contrast was the damage to Montgomery’s fleet:—
| Sunk, | General Price, | 4 guns |
| “ | General Beauregard, | 4 “ |
| “ | General Lovell, | 4 “ |
| Burned, | Jeff Thompson, | 4 “ |
| “ | General Bragg, | 3 “ |
| Captured, | Sumter, | 3 “ |
| “ | Little Rebel, | 2 “ |
| — | ||
| 24 |
The bow guns of Commodore Davis’s fleet only were used in the attack, making sixteen guns in all brought to bear upon the Rebel fleet. The Cairo and St. Louis fired broadsides upon the crews as they fled to the woods.