When he returned to the deck and reported, the captain was satisfied, and then the two officers left in the last boat and passed down to the Richmond under the fire of the batteries.
When the flames had sufficiently lightened the Mississippi she floated off, swung round into the current, and drifted down stream, bow foremost.
The port battery, which had been loaded but not fired, now went off, sending its shot toward the enemy, as if the old craft knew herself and wanted to do her duty to the last. At half past five o'clock in the morning the fire reached her magazine, and the terrific explosion that followed not only blew the vessel to fragments, but was heard and felt at a distance of several miles. She had lost sixty-four of her crew, some of whom were killed by shot, some drowned, and some made prisoners when they swam ashore.
| Removing the wounded. |
CHAPTER IX.
THE CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER.
The port of Wilmington, North Carolina, on Cape Fear River, about twenty miles from its mouth, was one of the most difficult to blockade, and when the other ports of the Southern States had been closed one after another, this became the Confederacy's main reliance for such supplies as had to be imported. Hence the desire of the national administration and military authorities to seal it up. This could be done only by capturing its defenses, and the principal of these was Fort Fisher, the strongest earthwork then in existence. This fortification, with its outworks, occupied the end of the narrow peninsula between Cape Fear River and the ocean. It mounted thirty-eight heavy guns; the parapets were twenty-five feet thick and twenty feet high; there were heavy traverses, bombproofed; ditches and palisades surrounded it; and outside of these were buried torpedoes connected with electric batteries in the casemates. The garrison consisted of about two thousand men.
In December, 1864, it was proposed to capture this work by a combined land and naval force. The troops sent for the purpose were commanded by General Butler. The fleet was the largest that ever had been gathered under the American flag, and was commanded by Rear-Admiral David D. Porter. It consisted of fifty-six wooden vessels and four ironclads. The Colorado, commanded by Captain Henry K. Thatcher, was one of the largest wooden ships; she was the one that could not be taken over the bar to participate in the attack on the forts below New Orleans. Her place in this battle was second ship in second division.