Had the Paraguayans carried grappling irons, and gone straight alongside at first, it is altogether probable that they would have captured the whole Brazilian fleet. But the screw steamers, having been allowed time to get up steam, slipped away from their opponents, who were inexperienced as watermen, and who were baffled by the high sides and boarding-nettings of their man-of-war-built enemies.
It is a curious fact that not one of the Brazilian 120 and 150-pounder Whitworth shot hit a Paraguayan vessel; and the Paraguayans only knew that they had them by afterwards finding the shot, some of them five miles inland.
A large picture of the Amazonas at the battle of Riachuelo was exhibited in the Brazilian department of the Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia.
THE BATTLE OF THE BANK.
When the land forces of the Allies at last invaded Paraguay, they reached the Parana, after some preliminary skirmishing; and, with 50,000 men, and 100 guns, prepared to cross that river, to effect a lodgment on Paraguayan soil. Lopez had a force of two or three thousand men in observation at Encarnacion, and seeing these ready to oppose a crossing, the Allies altered their plans, and marched down the Parana, intending to cross at Paso la Patria.
On March 21st, 1866, the Allied fleet came up to Corrientes, and anchored, in line-of-battle, extending from Corrales to the mouth of the Paraguay.
Their fleet was now an imposing one for river warfare. They had eighteen steam gun-boats, carrying from six to eight guns each, four iron-clad vessels, three with casemates, and one, the Bahia, a monitor, with revolving turret, and two 150-pounder Whitworth guns, in all one hundred and twenty-five guns.
Two of the steamers and the ironclad Tamandaré were sent up the Parana, to reconnoitre, but soon returned, after getting on shore and being in some jeopardy. There was a work on the right or Paraguayan bank, some distance from the confluence, called Itapirú. In the Allied reports it is designated as a fortress. It was really a dilapidated battery, of about thirty yards internal diameter; and at that time armed with one rifled, 12-pounder field gun.
The Parana is here quite deep, except in one place, where there was only twelve feet of water in the northern channel, and here some scows, loaded with stones, had been sunk, which closed that channel. The Paraguayans had, at this point, the steamer Gualeguay, armed with two 12-pounders, and two flat-bottomed boats, with an 8-inch gun mounted in each.
On the 22d the Gualeguay towed one of these boats down half a mile below Itapirú, and moored her close in under the right bank. The scow at once opened upon the Brazilian fleet, and, in a short time, had put four eight-inch shot into the Admiral’s ship.