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These were avoided by taking shelter among a bunch of willows that overhung the bank and served to hide the boat from view. The gunboats well past, Fontain took to the current again, soon reaching Snyder's Bluff, which was lighted up and a scene of animation. Whites and blacks mingled on the bank, and it looked like a midnight ball between the Yankee soldiers and belles of sable hue.
I assume they saved the situation, for the Camel Corps were hard pressed, and lost eighty men before they got to the river and into a safe position under the shelter of the gunboats and Macdonald's brigade, which was at the north end of the zereba. The myth of a Camel Corps as a useful fighting unit had been exploded.
The Peiho was again entered, the town of Pehtang was occupied and the Taku Forts again attacked from the sea and land. Though the army lost a good many men in the operations, not one on board the gunboats was killed.
At a given signal the whole party got out of the vehicles. "But what are those gunboats for, Mr. Frôler?" asked Louis, as the company were looking at them. "If there should happen to be a riot, or a disturbance of any kind, up the river, which the police could not handle, they would be used for transporting troops; for we have the telegraph here, and could be notified at once.
"My men," he wrote to Washington on the morning of the battle, "are completely exhausted, and I dread the result if we are attacked to-day by fresh troops. If possible, I shall retire to-night to Harrison's Landing, where the gunboats can render more aid in covering our position. Permit me to urge that not an hour should be lost in sending me fresh troops.
Admiral Porter, in his report to the Secretary of the Navy, gives a graphic account of the passage of the falls, and under date of May 19th, says: "In my report in relation to the release of the gunboats from their unpleasant position above the falls, I did not think it prudent to mention that I was obliged to destroy eleven thirty-two-pounders, not having time to haul them from above the falls to Alexandria, the army having moved and drawn in all their pickets.
The news of the capture of Abu Hamed was carried swiftly by camel and wire to all whom it might concern. The Sirdar, anticipating the result, had already ordered the gunboats to commence the passage of the Fourth Cataract. The camp at Railhead sprang to life after an unaccustomed rest, and the line began again to grow rapidly.
Soon after this good service of the gunboats on the Western rivers, the salt-water navy came in for its share of glory. On March 8 the ram Virginia, late Merrimac, which had been taking on her mysterious iron raiment at the Norfolk navy yard, issued from her concealment, an ugly and clumsy, but also a novel and terrible monster.
A covering Union battery of much heavier guns opened fire from a hill beyond the river, but it was unable either to protect the gunboats or to demolish Stuart's horse artillery, which was sheltered well by the ridge. The men in gray began to cheer. It soon became obvious that they would win. Gradually all of the gunboats, having suffered much loss, dropped down the stream and passed out of range.
The ships carried off included eighteen ships-of-the-line, twenty-one frigates, six brigs and twenty-five gunboats, with a large amount of naval stores of all kinds. The act was no more warrantable than were the viking descents upon England centuries before. The latter were the acts of barbarian freebooters, and England, in an age of boasted civilization, put herself in the same position.
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