“Soldiers: The Mississippi Valley is intrusted to your courage, to your discipline, to your patience; exhibit the coolness and vigilance you have heretofore, and hold it.”[23]
They thought they could hold the place. A Rebel officer wrote, on the 11th of March, to his friends thus: “General Mackall has put the rear in effective defence. The forts are impregnable. All are hopeful and ready. We will make this an American Thermopylæ, if necessary.”[24]
By this he intended to say that they would all die before they would surrender the place, and would make New Madrid as famous in history as that narrow mountain-pass in Greece, where the immortal three hundred under Leonidas fought the Persian host.
The Rebels had several gunboats on the river, each carrying three or four guns. The river was very high, and its banks overflowed. The country is level for miles around, and it was an easy matter for the gunboats to throw shells over the town into the woods upon General Pope’s army. The Rebels had over sixty pieces of heavy artillery, while General Pope had only his light field artillery; but he sent to Cairo for siege-guns, meanwhile driving in the enemy’s pickets and investing the place.
He detached Colonel Plummer, of the Eleventh Missouri, with three regiments and a battery of rifled Parrott guns, to take possession of Point Pleasant, ten miles farther down. The order was admirably executed. Colonel Plummer planted his guns, threw up intrenchments, and astonished the Rebels by sending his shells into a steamboat which was passing up with supplies.
Commodore Hollins, commanding the Rebel gunboats, made all haste down to find out what was going on. He rained shot and shell all day long upon Colonel Plummer’s batteries, but could not drive him from the position he had selected. He had made holes in the ground for his artillery, and the Rebel shot did him no injury. Hollins began at long range, then steamed up nearer to the batteries, but Plummer’s artillerymen, by their excellent aim, compelled him to withdraw. The next day Hollins tried it again, but with no better success. The river was effectually blockaded. No Rebel transport could get up, and those which were at Island No. 10 and New Madrid could not get down, without being subjected to a heavy fire.
General Mackall determined to hold New Madrid, and reinforced the place from Island No. 10, till he had about nine thousand troops. On the 11th of March four siege-guns were sent to General Pope. He received them at sunset. Colonel Morgan’s brigade was furnished with spades and intrenching tools. General Stanley’s division was ordered under arms, to support Morgan. The force advanced towards the town at dark, drove in the Rebel pickets, secured a favorable position within eight hundred yards of the fort. The men worked all night, and in the morning had two breastworks thrown up, each eighteen feet thick, and five feet high, with a smaller breastwork, called a curtain, connecting the two. This curtain was nine hundred feet long, nine feet thick, and three feet high. On each side of the breastworks, thrown out like wings was a line of rifle-pits. Wooden platforms were placed behind the breastworks, and the guns all mounted by daylight. Colonel Bissell, of the engineers, managed it all. In thirty-four hours from the time he received the guns at Cairo, he had shipped them across the Mississippi River, loaded them on railroad cars, taken them to Sykestown, twenty miles, mounted them on carriages, then dragged them twenty miles farther, through almost impassable mud, and had them in position within eight hundred yards of the river! The work was done so quietly that the Rebel pickets did not mistrust what was going on. At daybreak they opened fire upon what they supposed was a Union rifle-pit, and were answered by a shell from a rifled thirty-two pounder.
It was a foggy morning. The air was still, and the deep thunder rolled far away along the wooded stream. It woke up the slumbering garrison. Commodore Hollins heard it, and immediately there was commotion among the Rebel gunboats. They came to New Madrid. Hollins placed them in position above the town to open fire. The fog lifted, and all the guns of the fleet and the forts began to play upon the breastworks. General Pope brought up his heavy field guns, and replied. He paid but little attention to the fort, but sent his shot and shell at the gunboats. Captain Mower, of the First United States artillery, commanded the batteries, and his fire was so accurate that the gunboats were obliged to take new positions. Shortly after the cannonade began, a shot from the fort struck one of Captain Mower’s thirty-two pounders in the muzzle and disabled it; but he kept up his fire through the day, dismounting three guns in the lower fort and disabling two of the gunboats. Nearly all of the shells from the Rebel batteries fell harmlessly into the soft earth. There were very few of General Pope’s men injured. They soon became accustomed to the business, and paid but little attention to the screaming of the shot and the explosions of the shells. They had many hearty laughs, as the shells which burst in the ground frequently spattered them with mud.
There was one soldier in one of the Ohio regiments who was usually profane and wicked; but he was deeply impressed with the fact that so few were injured by such a terrific fire, and at night said to his comrades, seriously: “Boys, there is no use denying it; God has watched over us to-day.”