It was past one o'clock in the afternoon of as beautiful a day as ever dawned upon the earth, when a ball of bunting went up to the top of the Benton's flagstaff, and fluttered out into the battle signal. Then came a flash, a belching of smoke from her bows, a roar and reverberation rolling far away,—a screaming in the air, a tossing up of earth and an explosion in the Rebel works.
The highest artistic skill cannot portray the scene of that afternoon,—the flashes and flames,—the great white clouds, mounting above the boats, and floating majestically away over the dark gray forests,—the mortars throwing up vast columns of sulphurous cloud, which widen, expand, and roll forward in fantastic folds,—the shells one after another in swift succession rising, rotating, rushing upward and onward, sailing a thousand feet high, their course tracking a light gossamer trail, which becomes a beautiful parabola, and then the terrific explosion,—a flash, a handful of cloud, a strange whirring of the ragged fragments of iron hurled upwards, outwards, and downwards, crashing through the forests!
I was favored with a position on the Silver Wave steamer, lying just above the Benton, her wheels slowly turning to keep her in position to run down and help the gunboats if by chance they were disabled. The Rebel batteries on the mainland and on the Island, the Rebel steamers wandering up and down like rats in a cage, were in full view. With my glass I could see all that took place in and around the nearest battery. Columns of water were thrown up by the shot from the gunboats, like the first gush from the hose of a steam fire-engine, which falls in rainbow-colored spray. There were little splashes in the stream when the fragments of shell dropped from the sky. Round shot skipped along the surface of the river, tearing through the Rebel works, filling the air with sticks, timbers, earth, and branches of trees, as if a thunderbolt had fallen. There were explosions followed by volumes of smoke rising from the ground like the mists of a summer morning. There was a hissing, crackling, and thundering explosion in front and rear and overhead. But there were plucky men in the fort, who at intervals came out from their bomb-proof, and sent back a defiant answer. There was a flash, a volume of smoke, a hissing as if a flying fiery serpent were sailing through the air, growing louder, clearer, nearer, more fearful and terrific, crashing into the Benton, tearing up the iron plating, cutting off beams, splintering planks, smashing the crockery in the pantry, and breaking up the Admiral's writing-desk.
"Howling and screeching and whizzing,
The bomb-shells arched on high,
And then, like fiery meteors,
Dropped swiftly from the sky."
All through the sunny hours, till evening, the gunboats maintained their position. While around the bright flashes, clouds of smoke, and heavy thunderings brought to mind the gorgeous imagery of Revelation, descriptive of the last judgment.
While the bombardment was at its height, I received a package of letters, intrusted to my care. There was one postmarked from a town in Maine, directed to a sailor on the St. Louis. Jumping on board a tug, which was conveying ammunition to the gunboats, I visited the vessel to distribute the letters. A gun had burst during the action, killing and wounding several of the crew. It was a sad scene. There were the dead,—two of them killed instantly, and one of them the brave fellow from Maine. Captain Paulding opened the letter, and found it to be from one who had confided to the noble sailor her heart's affections,—who was looking forward to the time when the war would be over, and they would be happy together as husband and wife.
"Poor girl! I shall have to write her sad news," said the captain.
Day after day and night after night the siege was kept up, till it grew exceedingly monotonous. I became so accustomed to the pounding that, though the thirteen-inch mortars were not thirty rods distant from my quarters, I was not wakened by the tremendous explosions. Commodore Foote found it very difficult to fight down stream, as the water was very high, flooding all the country. Colonel Bissell, of General Pope's army, proposed the cutting of a canal through the woods, to enable the gunboats to reach New Madrid. It was an Herculean undertaking. A light-draft transport was rigged for the enterprise. Machinery was attached to the donkey-engine of the steamer by which immense cotton-wood trees were sawed off four feet under water.
There was something very enchanting in the operation,—to steam out from the main river, over corn-fields and pasture lands, into the dark forests, threading a narrow and intricate channel, across the country,—past the Rebel batteries. A transport was taken through, and a tugboat, but the channel was not deep enough for the gunboats.
Captain Stembel, commanding the Benton,—a brave and competent officer, Commodore Foote's right-hand man,—proposed to run the batteries by night to New Madrid, capture the Rebel steamer which Pope had caught in a trap, then turning head up stream take the Rebel batteries in reverse. The Commodore hesitated. He was cautious as well as brave. At length he accepted the plan, and sent the Pittsburg and Carondelet past the batteries at night. It was a bold undertaking, but accomplished without damage to the gunboats. The current was swift and strong, and they went with the speed of a race-horse.