“What did you want the channel for!” asked Bill, not a little puzzled by the whole strange plan.
“Well, General Pope,” the captain explained, “wanted gunboats and transports to attack Island No. 10 and cut off the Confederates below the island, but Commander Foote of the river fleet did not think that his boats could run the island. So Colonel Bissell was ordered to dig a canal above the island and thus cut off the bend of Island No. 10 on which you came. If that could be done we could place guns, boats, and men and transports above and below Island No. 10, and the Confederates would have to get out.
“We did some great work. We had four steamboats, six coal-barges and four cannons. You see, we were ready to fight as well as work. Besides the Engineer Regiment, we had about 600 fighting men ready for battle.
“But things moved faster than we expected. On the night of April 4th Commander Henry Walke of the Carondelet ran the guns of Island No. 10.
“It was a very dark night and a storm was passing over the river. The Carondelet had been protected in vulnerable parts with coils of hawsers and chains, and a coal barge, loaded with hay, had been lashed to its port side.
“The pipes for the exhaust steam had been led into the wheel-house at the stern, so the puffing of the steam could not be heard.
“About ten o’clock, Commander Walke gave the order to cast off. By the time the Carondelet came opposite the Confederate shore batteries, the flashes of lightning were so vivid that the boat was discovered and the roar of the batteries and the crack and scream of the balls soon mixed with the roar of thunder. But during the pitch-dark moments, between flashes of lightning and in the rain, the Confederate gunners had not time and could not see to aim their guns. They had to fire almost at random.
“So close ran the Carondelet to the island that the men on board could hear an officer shout, ‘Elevate your guns.’
“Away the Carondelet steamed down the black river. No lights on board, except the roaring fire under her boilers, which twice set the soot in her smokestack on fire. She raced past the shore batteries, past the formidable island batteries, past the floating battery below the island. Dozens of cannon-balls were fired at her. One struck the coal-barge and one was found in a bale of hay.
“About midnight, Commander Walke arrived at New Madrid with every man on board safe. What hundreds of men had believed impossible, he and his volunteers had done.