Fort after fort took it up as the Carondelet slid swiftly past. The lightning and the blazing smoke-stack showed her plainly to the gunners. But the bright flashes blinded their eyes so that they could not half aim their guns. And thus it was that the brave little Carondelet went under the fire of fifty guns without being harmed.
Soon after that Island No. 10 was given up to the Union forces. Then the gunboats went farther down the river, and had two hard fights with Confederate boats, one at Fort Pillow and one at Memphis. Both these places were captured, and in that way the river was opened all the way from St. Louis to Vicksburg.
The City of Vicksburg is in the State of Mississippi, about two hundred miles above New Orleans. Here are high river banks; and these were covered thick with forts, so that Vicksburg was the strongest place along the whole stream.
There were also strong forts at Port Hudson, about seventy-five miles below Vicksburg; and these seventy-five miles were all the Confederates now held of the great stream. But they held these with a very strong hand and were not to let go easily.
There were some great events at Vicksburg; and I must tell about a few of these next.
After New Orleans was taken Farragut took his ships up the river, running past the forts. He could easily have taken Vicksburg then, if he had had any soldiers. But he had none, and it took a great army of soldiers, under General Grant, to capture it a year afterward.
David D. Porter, who had helped Farragut so well in his great fight, was put in command of the Mississippi fleet. He had a number of iron-clad boats under him, some of them having iron so thin that they were called tin-clads.
Commodore Porter had plenty to do. Now he sent his boats up through the Yazoo swamps, then they had a fight on the Arkansas River; and in this way he was kept busy.
In February, 1863, he sent two of his boats, the Queen of the West and the Indianola, down past the Vicksburg forts. That was an easy run. There was plenty of firing, but nobody was hurt. But after they got below they found trouble enough.
First, the Queen of the West ran aground and could not be got off. Then the Indianola had a hole rammed in her side by a Confederate boat and went to the bottom. So there wasn't much gained by sending these two boats down stream.