To the impatient sailors this seemed a misfortune, but after a time they saw they were enjoying the greatest good luck, for there were full-sized trees in the flood, and these swept the torpedoes clear of their moorings and brought them floating down. Small boats were sent out to gather them in, and very ugly things they were—cylinders of sheet iron big enough to hold seventy-five pounds of powder, with a lock and trigger that should catch on a boat’s bottom and explode the powder.
However, on the 6th the water was low enough to permit an advance. Flag Officer Foote went to the ships to inspect the crews, and told the gunners that every shot cost the government eight dollars, so none must be wasted. They were to aim at the guns of the fort—aim, and not merely point in the direction.
Finally, the soldiers on shore waded away through the mud, and the gunboats steamed slowly up the river.
The fort they were to attack was a well-planned earthwork mounting twenty guns, but of these only eleven or twelve (accounts differ) could be brought to bear on the approaching fleet. The best of these was a sixty-pounder rifle, but a ten-inch medium-weight shell gun and two forty-two-pounders supported it, and the rest were thirty-twos. As the gunboats were to fight bows on, they could bring to bear twelve guns, of which two were nine-inch Dahlgrens, and the rest sixty-four-pounders, or better. The weight of metal afloat was superior, but until the days of armored ships one gun in a fort was counted equal to from three to five afloat.
Battle of Belmont: U. S. Gunboats Repulsing the Enemy during the Debarkation.
From a painting by Admiral Walke.
Interior of the Taylor during the Battle of Belmont.
From a painting by Admiral Walke.