No river in the Americas and few others elsewhere compare in historic interest and indeed in romance with the mighty Mississippi—"Old Man River."
Cavalier and priest alike explored it and ventured far and perilously upon its broad bosom. Man has waged many conflicts both with and upon it. It had known the birch-bark canoe of the Indian, the flatboat of the pioneer settlers, the splendor, speed, and beauty of the packets immortalized by Mark Twain. It was destined soon to know the world's most formidable men-of-war.
To the proper understanding of what is to follow, it is best for the reader to picture for himself the scene in which this story is depicted.
The railroads leading to the south and to the southwest were few, scanty in equipment, and widely scattered. The commercial activities of this wide and fertile region were, necessarily, centered upon the broad Mississippi, with its numerous and important navigable tributaries bringing the commerce of the west, north, and east to the doors of the inhabitants.
Early in the momentous fratricidal struggle between the States, the importance of the control of the Mississippi was recognized alike by Confederate and Federal. Each struggled desperately to secure and hold that control.
As is well known, the Mississippi through much of its length lies above the surface of the adjacent lands, whose rich plantations are protected against the customary seasonal floods by dikes or levees.
On the west bank of the river are but few locations in which the land lies much above the river level, indeed the only one of importance being Helena, Arkansas. On the east bank, however, there are several. From Columbus, Kentucky, about 21 miles below Cairo, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a distance of some 600 miles by river, and along this high river frontage were located the important points of Port Hudson, Grand Gulf, and Vicksburg. Each of these points being on high and commanding ground, the Confederates promptly fortified them, as strongly as their resources permitted.
Immediately in the rear of this line of bluffs on the east bank lay the rich and fertile Yazoo Valley, some 200 miles in length and 30 or more broad. Draining this territory was the Yazoo River, flowing into the Mississippi 8 miles above Vicksburg. This river had its source in the Coldwater, which was itself connected with the Mississippi at a point about opposite Helena, and after a short course under that name was thereafter known as the Tallahatchie, until that river was in turn joined by the Yalobusha, and the two thereafter known as the Yazoo. These rivers constituted practically the sole outlet for the products of that valley. It will be noted that this Yazoo River was directly connected with the Mississippi at two widely separated points, namely, its source and its mouth.
In the early months of 1863 the Federal naval forces were divided by the strong Confederate forts at Grand Gulf, Port Hudson, and Vicksburg, the latter on the point of being beseiged by General Grant whose army was then nearing Vicksburg. The Yazoo Valley being the principal source of supply for the garrison at Vicksburg, it was important that the Federal forces also control the Yazoo, which would hasten the surrender of Vicksburg and insure Federal control of the entire river. That is why the Federal Navy conducted within a few months three campaigns in the Yazoo—one through its mouth, one through its headwaters, and one through Black Bayou and Deer Creek and directed at its middle. The object in each case was the destruction of the navy yard at Yazoo City and the vessels there building, together with the supplies on hand which were very large.
It so happened that no one of these three naval expeditions was directly successful in achieving its objective, though in the end the result of this continued pressure from three directions was successful. They did serve the purpose of enriching naval history by contributing naval battles of the most desperate and gallant nature; battles fought as never before had battles been fought by seamen.
The stake for which these men were fighting was very great. The Mississippi divided the Confederacy in twain. Supplies were received by it alike from the rich lands on both sides of the river, but the lands on the west were the Confederacy’s great granary. From this source her armies in the field were chiefly supplied. Upon these western lands cotton was grown in large volume, and this cotton, when successful in running the Federal blockade and later sold in Europe, became the means of important credits used to supply her armies with the munitions vital to their military existence. Severing this great artery was therefore destined to effect the defeat of the Confederates.
Word having reached Admiral Porter in December, 1862, that the Confederates were erecting three formidable war craft at Yazoo City, he immediately ordered a strong force of gunboats to enter the Yazoo, to destroy the forts and batteries defending it, and, if possible, proceed as far up the river as Yazoo City, there to destroy the vessels under construction together with the large amount of military supplies known to be there.
Really great men often create the opportunities by which they subsequently rise to fame. In the main the sons of the South were neither mechanically minded nor trained, yet, under the spur of the necessity of war, they rose to the emergency, attacked and solved the difficult and highly technical problems of ship building. Without proper equipment and even the necessary tools, at points far remote from the sea, they created warships whose excellence has been glowingly recorded in the history of the marine warfare of that day.
The first of the operations directed against Yazoo City was undertaken by the two light-draft gunboats Signal and Marmora. These two small vessels proceeded up the Yazoo about 20 miles until they had determined that the river was filled with torpedoes. When this was reported to the commander of the squadron blockading the mouth of that river, two heavy ironclads were ordered to join them. These were the Cairo and Pittsburgh, whose purpose was to cover or protect the Signal and Marmora while the latter were removing the torpedoes.
The four gunboats then re-entered the river, the two smaller in the lead. The ram Queen of the West, having been added to the force, followed the Signal and Marmora, the ironclads bringing up the rear.
While engaged in removing the torpedoes, the Marmora opened a heavy musketry fire on some floating object that was later found to be an exploded torpedo. The Cairo had advanced to the support of the Marmora and the two proceeded slowly up the river, the Marmora leading. The Cairo had scarcely moved her own length when two sharp explosions were felt. They were almost simultaneous; that under her bow was so violent as to lift the heavy guns from her deck; that under her stern was less violent but sufficient to open wide under-water gaps in her stern. The ship was sinking rapidly and though she was run on shore and heavy lines were made fast to trees, in an effort to save her, she sank in twelve minutes, only the tops of her stacks being above water.
The torpedoes that had just accomplished such deadly work were made from demijohns. Demijohns are little known to the present generation, but they were large glass bottles covered with wickerwork ordinarily used to contain whisky intended for shipment. The South was long on whiskey and its containers but woefully short on copper and iron from which torpedoes ordinarily are made. These demijohns were filled with powder which was ignited by an ordinary friction primer, a wire led to this powder through a waterproof cork made of plaster of Paris and gutta percha. When first used, this lead wire was connected with a long wire running to a point on shore where there was concealed a man whose duty it was to fire the mine when an enemy vessel was exactly over it. This plan not working very well, the priming wires of two mines were connected and the mines anchored 20 or more feet apart in the river channel. The effect of this was to explode one torpedo against or under the bow of the vessel, the other one exploding under her stern. Thus was the Cairo sunk.
At the time this expedition against Yazoo City by way of the mouth of the Yazoo was undertaken, a similar expedition was directed against it via the headwaters. To understand the difficulties and dangers peculiar to this second expedition, it will be necessary for the reader to have a mental picture of the Mississippi and its many tributaries.
From Cairo to the mouth of the river by water is about 1,000 miles; as the crow flies, the distance is about 480. If you will picture to yourself a giant, patriarchal, live oak tree, thick and twisted of trunk, with many branches as gnarled and sinuous in course as the trunk, you will have formed an excellent idea of the Mississippi and its tributaries. So tortuous are its windings that often two points distant 9 or 10 miles by water will be separated by less than 1 mile over land. Difficult as was the navigation of the Mississippi, that of her tributaries was worse.
The crooked courses of these smaller rivers are often interspersed with bayous which, in many instances, are little better than heavily wooded swamps through which the narrow winding channel of the stream creeps in most puzzling fashion, these channels being, in most cases, less than 80 feet wide. In Civil War times the bayous were lined with cottonwoods, cypress, and sycamores whose heavy wide branches were covered with wild grape vines, forming a leafy roof that often completely covered the channel. This made vision by day impossible for more than a scant hundred yards, and navigation by night out of the question.
The Mississippi and her tributaries were subject to seasonal, sudden, and tremendous floods. These overflowed alike the swamps and the adjacent lands, driving into the trees and onto such land as remained above water, the wild life of these little wildernesses. Thus the trees lining the narrow channels of these streams were literally infested with snakes of the most venomous types.
It was obviously impossible to use in such waters the heavy ships of the regular navy. It was necessary, therefore, to improvise a shallow-draft navy, vessels drawing from 3 to 9 feet when fully loaded. This was accomplished by purchasing numerous river boats, hastily arming them with such guns as were then available. The boilers and engines were always above water and were lightly protected by heavy planking, occasionally covered with half-inch iron plates, and, quite as often, depending upon pressed cotton bales as their sole protection. Even the guns were unreliable, many of them bursting after the first few firings.
The river boats of that day, as now, were tall, towering structures, constructed of the lightest possible wood and veritable tinder boxes.
From 3 to 6 feet in the water, the wooden superstructure rose above the water some 40 or more feet, and, forced draft being then unknown, the two stacks often reached a height of 150 feet above the water. So little of them being in the water and so very much of them above it, they were exceedingly hard to manage in a high wind, which had to be faced to avoid overturning.
These boats were all flat-bottomed, and to distribute the weights carried without thereby opening up the seams of the hull, there were several heavy iron rods secured to the hull at the bow and stern, and supported between those points by heavy wooden braces. These rods were called “hog chains,” and being carried high above the water, were easily damaged or destroyed by the shot of the enemy or from contact with the heavy over-hanging branches of the trees that lined the channels.
It was with such poor tools, and under such trying conditions, that the men of the Navy were about to perform some of the most brilliant and daring acts recorded in history.
Thus it came to pass that in 1863, in waters more than 1,000 miles from the open sea, the shrill piping of the boatswain’s whistle, the striking of ship’s bells as they methodically, and often musically, tolled off for the seaman the routine watches of his always busy day, were heard in unfamiliar places.
Cut off from the Mississippi at a point about opposite Helena by a recently constructed levee lay Moon Lake whose waters fed Yazoo Pass whose waters in turn flowed into the Coldwater and thence into the Tallahatchie, the latter being the Yazoo’s principal tributary.
The Army engineers had cut the levee and caused the flood waters of the Mississippi to discharge into Moon Lake and to inundate the surrounding country for many miles. An attack by an expediting of this type profits much by surprising the enemy. The detachment from the Army sent ahead to clear the channel through Yazoo Pass has met such unexpected difficulties, intensified by the flooding of that region, that on February 20, when the combined expedition moved forward, the pass had only been partially cleared.
The vessels of the flotilla entered the pass in the following order: the two iron clads Chillicothe and Baron de Kalb, the light gunboats Rattler, Marmora, Forest Rose, Romeo, and Signal in single line but so disposed as to protect the 13 Army transports conveying 4,500 troops, the towboat S. Bayard, with coal for the expedition, bringing up the rear.
The news of the advance of this expedition had early reached the Confederates, and their advance parties, occupying both sides of the narrow stream, chopped down heavy trees so that they fell across the channel and effectually blocked it. This largely nullified the fine work that had been done by the Federal engineers in preparing the channel. So crooked and winding was this channel that it was impossible for the boats to round many of the sharp curves under their own steam. These turns were made by landing men with heavy cables, which were attached to trees and the boats warped around the curves by man power, assisted by the steam winches of the vessels. Often these men were up to their waists in the muck and snake-infested waters of the pass and frequently exposed to the sniping musketry fire of the enemy.
Aloft the overhanging branches of the trees swept away the small boats, hatch railings, hog-chain timbers, paddle wheels, and especially the tall stacks. Pretty much everything above the 12-foot defensive casemates was wrecked, but still the boats could and did fight.
The speed was disappointingly slow. In one especially difficult part of the pass seven hours were needed to advance the flotilla a distance of less than one mile. The average speed made was little over one-half mile an hour, from which it is evident that all hope of surprising the Confederates had to be abandoned.
On arrival at the Coldwater the expedition was joined by the light gunboat Petrel and the rams Lioness and Fulton together with a mortar and ammunition. These vessel likewise had been much knocked about in getting through Yazoo Pass; therefore when the broader waters of the Coldwater were reached, though the enemy interference and attacks were heavier, all vessels were repaired as rapidly as possible under the circumstances and with the very limited material available. These repairs were made at night to save every possible daylight hour for further advance towards the desired goal, Yazoo City.
Baled cotton was gathered in quantities from the plantations along the river and used to supplement the defenses of the vessels, much as Jackson had used them a half-century before at the Battle of New Orleans.
The Coldwater being found deeper of channel and more easily navigable than the pass, the heavy gunboats, which were in the lead, gained distance rapidly upon the Army transports and their light protecting gunboats.
At a point about 10 miles below the junction of the Coldwater and Tallahatchie rivers, the smoke from burning cotton evidenced the presence of the Confederates in numbers. When within about 20 miles of a great bend in the river, a quarter mile across by land and 7 miles by river, the commanding officer was notified by friendly negroes that the Confederates had erected a powerful fort upon a point in the bend.
The next morning the Chillicothe, one of the two powerfully armed and lightly armored vessels of the expedition, was dispatched ahead as a scout to learn the strength and position of the enemy. A turn in the river brought the fort into view and with it a tremendous fire from heavy guns directed against the Chillicothe at close range. The guns of Fort Pemberton had the exact range of the ship, and one of their guns was a heavy 6.5-inch rifle. The fire from this rifle was very accurate, the Chillicothe receiving several shots seriously damaging the iron plates and bolts and driving back the flinch white pine backing.
The Chillicothe then temporarily withdrew but returned in a few hours accompanied by the De Kalb. Both vessels were exposed to the fire from every gun in the fort, at a distance little greater than two city blocks. The stream was so narrow that it was with the greatest difficulty that the two were enabled to advance abreast. To hold their positions against the stiff current, men were landed and heavy ship’s cables made fast to the large trees that lined both shores. These trees indirectly aided the Confederates in that their heavy leafed branches held the smoke so close to the water that the Federals could sight their guns only with the greatest difficulty.
In this second action between the fort and the gunboats, lasting one hour and thirty-eight minutes and continuing until the latter had almost exhausted their ammunition, the Chillicothe alone was struck by 44 heavy projectiles. Two of these struck her forward gun ports simultaneously, putting the guns out of action; soon thereafter occurred one of war’s most unusual incidents. The guns then used were the old muzzle loaders. To load a gun it was necessary to open the gun port and thrust the rammer handle out of the port. The gunners on the Chillicothe had just cut the fuse of an 11-inch shell and had the shell poised on the muzzle ready to be driven home, when a Confederate shell entered the open gun port. Both shells immediately burst, killing and wounding fourteen of the gun crew and filling the eyes of the others with powder, though strange to say the gun itself was uninjured, despite the fact that it was hit squarely on its muzzle.
Let the official report of her gallant commander tell us what happened in this hour to his miniature man-of-war 1,000 miles from the high seas.
When the ammunition of the Chillicothe was exhausted, and after being on fire three times during the action, and at the time on fire, and after being struck 38 times, 10 shot striking her in a space of 10 feet on the port side of her turret forward, 7 through her wheel house, the remaining shots striking her in and about her bow, on starboard side of her turret forward, and on her port quarter and hurricane deck, and with her forward port slide carried away, and with her side port slide gone, and with the cotton bales that had been put up as additional protection thrown out of place and on fire, and upon your orders, the Chillicothe withdrew from action to repair damages and to fill the remaining empty shell on board. The Chillicothe is now in condition to engage the enemy; she is, however, badly battered and shattered.
A tribute to American valor is this brief further quotation: “The port gun’s crew, although never drilled until the morning of the action, and who never were under fire before, behaved remarkably well.” Though they did not know it, the fire of the Chillicothe and De Kalb had practically put Fort Pemberton out of action. Serious damage to the guns and ramparts, as well as the explosion of the magazine, had been effected, and besides the fort had exhausted all its ammunition. The troops, however, being unable to advance on account on the flooded land around the fort, the expedition, after lingering in the vicinity for ten days longer, finally retired. As the Confederates had not completely erected the fort when the Federals appeared before it, had the gunboats not awaited the bringing up of the Army but proceeded directly down the river as soon as the waters of the Tallahatchie were entered, such preliminary work as the Confederates had accomplished on the fort could have easily been destroyed and the whole expedition could have proceeded to Yazoo City, with little effective opposition. While this force was battering away at Fort Pemberton, a similar expedition, under the personal command of Admiral Porter, was in preparation at the mouth of the Yazoo. This expedition embraced General Sherman's troops, and as the General and Admiral Porter were close friends, the two arms of the service co-ordinated perfectly.
An excellent idea of the waters through which this expedition expected to pass may be had by imagining that a pug- nosed man with protruding chin and beetling brow and wearing a tall coonskin cap is facing the Mississippi at a point 10 miles above Vicksburg. His throat will represent Cypress Bayou; from chin to top of forehead will represent Steele’s Bayou, the stub nose being the point at which Sherman's forces landed to march across land to join the gunboats; the coonskin cap will represent, front and back, Deer Creek, Rolling Fork, and the Big Sunflower River, the latter joining the Yazoo at a point above the Confederate forts at Haynes' Bluff and Drumgould's Bluff. The beetling forehead represents Black Bayou, about 4 miles long.
In the expedition were the gunboats Louisville, Cincinnati, Carondelet, Mound City, and Pittsburgh. These were the armored gunboats commonly called "turtles." Drawing from 7 to 9 feet of water, they carried batteries heavy for their size but, like all the river gunboats, were intended to fight bows on, their sides and stern being weak and their heaviest guns and armor on their bows.
Though Steele's Bayou was little better than a ditch in the dry season, the flotilla found ample water in the narrow channel and traveled the thirty miles to Black Bayou easily.
Things were different in Black Bayou. "Here the crews of the vessels had to go to work to clear the way, pulling up trees by the roots or pushing them over with the ironclads, and cutting away the branches above." It was terrible work but in 24 hours the 4-mile passage was effected and the vessels entered Deer Creek.
As the Army had to march but 12 miles to Rolling Fork, by water the distance being 32 miles, the Admiral determined to push on. The channel was found to be much narrower than had been expected, and, worse yet, was filled with small willows, through which the heavy vessels could scarcely force their way. These lithe willows had to be pulled up by the roots or cut under water, both unpleasant and difficult tasks, but necessary, as the gunboats were frequently stuck in their clinging branches for hours at a time and the speed of the squadron kept down to about a half mile an hour.
This was a beautiful plantation country but, nothing larger than a rowboat having ever penetrated their waters before, the inhabitants flocked in undisguised amazement to witness the passage of the vessels. This they did without fear, as the vessels had molested no one in their course, and the negroes flocked by hundreds to see the novel sight.
Up to this time the progress of the flotilla had been a complete surprise. Now that it could no longer be concealed the necessity for haste was doubled, for the Confederate government agent in charge immediately began to apply the torch to everything, and far as the eye could see the air was dark with the smoke from burning cotton and the dwellings of the planters. Only those who disobeyed the order to burn saved their homes and their cotton.
Learning that the Confederates had dispatched a force of artillery, cavalry, and infantry to oppose their further passage, the Admiral detached the tug Thistle, armed with a boat howitzer, and sent it ahead as rapidly as possible in an effort to prevent the advancing Confederates from further blocking the channel by cutting down the heavy trees which lined it. It was a close race. The Thistle arrived in time to prevent the felling of the first tree, driving the Confederates off with her gun, but this did not prevent their effectually barring the further passage of the Thistle by cutting down heavy trees several hundred feet distant, out of view on account of the sharp bends in the stream.
The Admiral followed the Thistle in the Carondelet, arriving when the action was still under way. He immediately sent forward 300 men and 2 small boat guns from the vessels to resist the advance of the enemy. This detachment was under the command of the captain of the Carondelet, who immediately pushed forward to seize and hold Rolling Fork until the vessels could come to his support. This he did, occupying an Indian mound some 60 feet high, which commanded the surrounding country.
To nature’s obstacles had been added the effective work of the Confederates, so that while Lieutenant Murphy and his sailors were valiantly battling with a numerically superior enemy at Rolling Fork, the vessels, so anxious to come to his aid, were having their own difficulties. In the Admiral’s own words:
The labor of clearing out these obstructions was very great, but there is nothing that cannot be overcome by perseverance. The character of the American sailors for endurance was particularly manifested on this occasion, as they worked night and day, without eating or sleeping, until the labor was accomplished. ... We had only two or three large trees to remove, and one apparently short and easy lane of willows to work through. The men being exhausted, we rested at sunset. In the morning we commenced with renewed vigor to work ahead through the willows, but our progress was very slow. In the meantime the Confederates had collected and landed about 800 men and 7 pieces of artillery, from 20 to 30 pounders which were firing on our field pieces from time to time, the latter not having range enough to reach them. I was also informed that the enemy were cutting down trees in our rear to prevent communication by water, and also prevent our escape. This looked unpleasant.
The Confederates had a large number of river steamers in the Yazoo, and it was known that a force of 5,000 men had immediately embarked for Rolling Fork when the advance of Porter’s flotilla became known. The situation for Porter thus became serious. The army had been delayed by difficulty in securing transports and though its advance parties were within a few miles of Porter the latter did not know it. With a constant fire being kept up upon his working parties, and the enemy in his rear obstructing his communications, there was but one thing to do and that was to retire. To quote the Admiral again: “I hesitated no longer what to do. We dropped down again, unshipped our rudders, and let the vessels rebound from tree to tree.”
This move was decided upon none too soon. A party of 300 men from the ships had already been sent out to keep the channel clear in their rear. Sharpshooters concealed behind the trees made this work most difficult as well as dangerous. At this time about 1,000 men from the Army met them, and gave most opportune and welcome aid. In one place the Confederates had felled forty large trees and in another cut down a number so entwined as to make their removal almost impossible.
When in the midst of this Herculean task, the presence of a body of 3,000 Confederates with artillery was discovered in their rear; the guns of the vessels quickly opened upon the artillery such a fire that the latter scarcely waited to hitch up their horses, retiring precipitately.
The Army forces under Colonel Smith then made a vigorous attack upon the Confederate infantry, and General Sherman, always on the job when most needed, arrived with ample re-enforcements as soon as he heard the heavy firing. So timely was the arrival of General Sherman that Admiral Porter in his office report says:
I do not know when I felt more pleased to see that gallant officer, for without the assistance of the troops we could not, without great loss, have performed the arduous work of clearing out the obstructions. . . . we were all worn out; the officers and men had for six days and nights beep constantly at work, or sleeping at the guns.
On March 24 the expedition arrived at Hill's plantation, from which it had started just ten days before. It had been what one might well call a successful unsuccessful venture. It failed in that it did not reach its objective, Yazoo City; it succeeded in that it destroyed a tremendous amount of supplies for the Confederate Army and captured large numbers of horses, mules, and cattle. It succeeded in diverting to other and distant points men essential to the defense of Vicksburg and in breaking the line of supplies of that beleaguered city. It succeeded in that the novel sight of ironclads appearing in waters that had never before known the keel of a flatboat exerted a most demoralizing effect alike upon the defenders and the residents of that region.
These three expeditions were unique. They tested in an unusual way the metal of the men of the Navy, tested it under circumstances so widely unlike the customary hazards of the high seas as to establish beyond question the adaptability, courage, and fortitude of the American seaman in times of emergency.