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But there was also another fleet at Cairo, and we were informed that we were just in time to see the first essay made at testing the utility of this armada. It consisted of no less than thirty-eight mortar-boats, each of which had cost 1700l. These mortar-boats were broad, flat-bottomed rafts, each constructed with a deck raised three feet above the bottom.
But his days grew to weeks, and still the flag of the Confederacy floated above Island No. 10. The men on the mortar-boats were giving way under the tremendous shocks of the explosions. Many were rendered deaf for days at a time. The jar of the explosions brought to the surface of the river hundreds of old logs and roots that had lain rotting in the soft ooze of the bottom.
But before this fire had any effect, the hostile fleet changed its course to the North and the four mortar-boats began their attack. They approached to within two nautical miles and opened fire at once. What was the use of our gunners aiming at the flat, gray arches of these uncanny ocean-tortoises?
All these waterways are of about the same nature so far as navigation is concerned, until the Sunflower is reached; this affords free navigation. Admiral Porter explored this waterway as far as Deer Creek on the 14th of March, and reported it navigable. On the next day he started with five gunboats and four mortar-boats. I went with him for some distance.
This slight service was the only form of active co-operation by the army that the circumstances admitted; yet all the troops stood to arms, ready to do any thing that might be required. On the 1st of July Davis joined Farragut with four gunboats and six mortar-boats of the Mississippi fleet.
Back from Washington came still more urgent orders to join the Mississippi flotilla which was coming down to Vicksburg from the north under Flag Officer Charles H. Davis. So once more the fleet worked its laboriously wasteful way up to Vicksburg, where it passed the forts with the help of Porter's flotilla of mortar-boats on the twenty-eighth of June and joined Davis on the first of July.
Four such vessels had also been constructed for use at San Francisco, but the quick capture of the forts had rendered the mortar-boats unnecessary. We were constantly being attacked in places where no thought had been given to the defense, and the fortifications we did possess were never shot at from the direction they faced.
Farragut's ships and mortar-boats, which had been harassing the garrison at intervals, day and night, for more than ten days, joined hotly in the bombardment, but ceased firing, by arrangement, as soon as the land batteries slackened. The fire of the fleet, especially that of the mortars, was very annoying to the garrison, especially at first, yet the actual casualties were not great.
In two days every loop-hole of escape for the Confederates is closed, gunboats above and below them, batteries peering down from every bluff, and regiments of infantry, all prepared to move upon the works. They made one or two ineffectual but plucky attempts to ward off capture. One private soldier swam ashore, skulked past the Union pickets, and made his way to one of the Union mortar-boats.
Accordingly the Thunder bomb, covered by the boats of the squadron, made the first attempt; but her mortar was discovered to have been injured in retreating: she was assailed by the Spaniards, when after a desperate struggle she was rescued, and the Spanish commanding-officer, Don Miguel Tyrason, was eventually made prisoner by Nelson, who also captured a number of men and two mortar-boats.
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