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The Gray Eagle started from Dubuque at 9 o'clock in the morning and the Itasca started from Prairie du Chien, about 100 miles farther up the river, at noon of the same day. When the boats reached the bend below the river they were abreast of each other, and as they reached the levee it was hardly possible to tell which was ahead.
There was the battered old "Brooklyn," scarred with the wounds of a dozen fights; the "Richmond" and the "Itasca," that received their baptism of fire at the fight below New Orleans. In all there were fourteen wooden vessels and four iron-clad monitors assembled in front of the strongest combination of harbor defences that warships ever yet dared attack.
When the subject is artfully and artistically developed the effect upon the child is much the same as that of unrolling a great and beautiful picture. The Mississippi River can be taught as a great drama, from its rise in Lake Itasca to its triumphal entry into the Gulf. As it takes its way southward pine forests wave their salutes, then wheat fields, then corn fields, and, later, cotton fields.
The Mississippi rises in the highlands of Minnesota at Lake Itasca, more than one hundred miles west of Lake Superior, and gathers in its course all the rivers of its valley. Still loftier mountains separate the sources of the Hudson and Connecticut, and the other rivers of the Atlantic slope.
Meanwhile, under cover of the night and the fire of the fleet, Fleet-Captain Bell, and Lieutenants-Commanding Crosby and Caldwell of the gunboats Pinola and Itasca, had succeeded in forcing a channel through the obstructions, a piece of duty that had required the most robust and dauntless courage, and in which Caldwell a son of Massachusetts shone pre-eminent by the coolness of his methods and thoroughness of his work.
We had bargained by post with Beaulieu, a shrewd, wiry, reckless French half-breed, for transportation of ourselves, canoes, equipment and provisions to Itasca Lake, or to a point upon the Mississippi five miles below the lake, as we might elect. His assurance was that four days and forty-one dollars would carry us to our first objective point.
He claims that his was the first wooden boat that ever pushed up to Itasca. This is something that I don't know anything about: several parties have been there since 1832. What will he do with the claimant of the first sheet-iron boat? Mr. Siegfried's allegation that I made frequent portages is grossly and maliciously false. That honor belongs to him, as a few facts will show.
Farragut's fleet captain, Henry H. Bell, taking two gunboats, Itasca and Pinola, under Lieutenants Caldwell and Crosby, slipped the chains of one schooner; whereupon this schooner and the Itasca swung back and grounded under fire of the forts. The Pinola gallantly stood by, helping Itasca clear.
Lewis, Clark, and Pike had been the pioneers in the exploration of the far West. The wandering trappers and traders were quick to follow in their tracks, and to roam hither and thither exploring on their own accord. In 1807 one of these restless adventurers reached Yellowstone Lake, and another Lake Itasca; and their little trading stations were built far up the Missouri and the Platte.
Under Commander McKean Buchanan they were then sent by the gulf to Berwick Bay. When he was ready, Weitzel took transports, under convoy of the Kineo, Sciota, Katahdin, and Itasca, landed below Donaldsonville, entered the town, and on the 27th of October moved on Thibodeaux, the heart of the district.
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