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Two hours after midnight his adjutant-general took to General Paine General Mackall's unconditional surrender. Stanley's division followed Paine's, and was followed by Hamilton's. These were overtaken by night and went into bivouac about half way between the crossing and Tiptonville, and learned of the surrender next morning while on the way to join Paine.
But, to avoid the harassing fire from the rifle-pits, they kept, after the first few attacks, near the opposite shore of the river. The steamboats used as transports did not venture to pass up or down the river in face of Plummer's batteries, and the enemy was restricted to the landing at Tiptonville and boats below for all communication.
His eyes turned to the banks, swept the sandbars, gazed into the coiling waters alongside, and he whispered names of places as he passed them landings, bars, crossings, bends, and even the plantations and log cuttings. He named the three cotton gins in Tiptonville, and stared at the ferry below town with a sidelong leer.
Dawn, following false dawn, saw him passing New Madrid, still rowing impatiently, his eyes staring down the wild current, past a graveyard poised ready to plunge on the left bank, and then down the baffling crossing at Point Pleasant and through the sunny breadths up to Tiptonville, half sunk in the river, only to fall away toward Little Cypress and still no sight of the lost cabin-boat.
Ever since the 12th of February he has been waiting on the Yankees' pleasure, in the Mississippi, at all places below Columbus, and having been under fire for thirteen days at Tiptonville, Island No. 10 having surrendered Monday night; and Commodore Hollins thinking it high time to take possession of the ironclad ram at New Orleans, and give them a small party below the forts, he carried off his little aide from the McRae Tuesday morning, and left him here Thursday evening, to our infinite delight, for we felt as though we would never again see our dear little Jimmy.
The river flowing almost due south for some miles to Madrid Bend, curves there to the west of north to New Madrid, and there making another bend, sweeps to the southeast and then nearly east, till, reaching Tiptonville, a point nearly due south of Madrid Bend, it turns again to the south. Island No. Ten begins at Madrid Bend and looks up the straight stretch of the river. From Island No.
At the very time that we were fighting the bloody battle on the Tennessee River, General Pope and Admiral Foote were bombarding the batteries on Island Number Ten, and the Kentucky shore abreast of it; and General Pope having crossed over by steamers a part of his army to the east bank, captured a large part of this rebel army, at and near Tiptonville. General Halleck still remained at St.
Captain Gray, engineer, in a report or memorandum, dated March 29th, spoke of "the canal being cut by the enemy," and of heavy guns planted to be used against any boat that might issue from the bayou, as well as batteries erected along the shore, from about a mile and a half below New Madrid down to Tiptonville.
He heard a quavering whine that grew louder until it became a shriek, and then fell away into silence, but his senses were slow in connecting it with one of the Tiptonville cotton gins. He heard a voice, curiously human, and having forgotten the old hay-burner river ferry, worried to think that he should imagine someone was driving a mule team on the Mississippi.
Without delay, batteries were at night sunk at points along the river just back of the river-bank, and the captured siege-guns, hauled laboriously by hand down the the strip of more solid ground between the river and swamp, were placed in position in them. The lowest battery was below Point Pleasant, and opposite and a little below Tiptonville.
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