Just at night, General Paine’s division made a demonstration towards the lower fort, driving in the enemy’s pickets. General Paine advanced almost to the ditch in front of the fort. Preparations were made to hold the ground, but during the night there came up a terrific thunder-storm and hurricane, which stopped all operations.
The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio, and the Tenth and Sixteenth Illinois, were the grand guard for the night. They had been under fire all day. They had endured the strain upon their nerves, but through the long night-hours they stood in the drenching rain, beneath the sheets of lurid flame, looking with sleepless eyes towards the front, prepared to repel a sortie or challenge spies.
At daybreak there was no enemy in sight. The fort was deserted. A citizen of the town came out with a flag of truce. The General who had called upon his men in high-sounding words, the officer who was going to make New Madrid a Thermopylæ, and himself a Leonidas in history,—the nine thousand infantry had gone! Two or three soldiers were found asleep. They rubbed their eyes and stared wildly when they were told that they were prisoners, that their comrades and commander had fled.
During the thunder-storm, the Rebel gunboats and steamers had taken the troops on board, and ferried them to the Tennessee shore near Island No. 10. They spiked their heavy guns, but Colonel Bissell’s engineers were quickly at work, and in a few hours had the guns ready for use again.
The Rebels left an immense amount of corn, in bags, and a great quantity of ammunition. They tumbled their wagons into the river.
General Pope set his men to work, and before night the guns which had been pointed inland were wheeled the other way. He sent a messenger to Commodore Foote, with this despatch:—
“All right! River closed! No escape for the enemy by water.”
All this was accomplished with the loss of seven killed and forty-three wounded. By these operations against New Madrid, and by the battle at Pea Ridge, in the southwestern part of the State, which was fought about the same time, the Rebels were driven from Missouri!