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Updated: June 29, 2025
A shell indented her steam-pipe, and passed among the machinery, without doing any damage. Had the pipe been cut, the steam would have filled every part of the boat. I was not disturbed by artillery on the occasion of my journey, but received a compliment from small-arms. On the morning after leaving Natchez, I was awakened by a volley of musketry from the river-bank.
The small-arms of the enemy were far superior to the bulk of ours. Up to this time our troops at the West had been limited to the old United States flint-lock muskets changed into percussion, or the Belgian musket imported early in the war almost as dangerous to the person firing it as to the one aimed at and a few new and improved arms.
These timbers, which rested firmly and securely on the bottom of the river, and projected a considerable height above it, being covered with planks, afforded a commodious roadway. It was wide enough to allow eight men to cross abreast, and a balustrade that ran along it on both sides, protected them from the fire of small-arms from the enemy's vessels.
The one big gun being now useless, and the Su-chen herself in a very parlous condition, it was obviously out of the question to think of attempting to conclude the fight by means of the light guns and small-arms alone; the ship would not float long enough for that. Some other plan of action must therefore be adopted, and Frobisher gave his attention to the idea for a few minutes.
Captain Collyer also did his best to prepare his crew for an encounter whenever it might come, and the men were kept constantly exercising at the great guns and small-arms, and, for a change, at shortening and making sail, till they had all learned to work well together.
Rifles and carbines were also used by some of our people to try to pick off the 'Merrimac's' crew when her ports were opened to fire, but of course the effect of the small-arms was not apparent to us. "It is useless to attempt to describe the condition of our decks by this time. No one who has not seen it can appreciate the effect of such a fire in a confined space.
Here we found a fair-sized commando under a general whose name I forget, as that was the only time I ever heard it. He was expecting an attack, the waggons were already retreating. We halted long enough to prepare breakfast, during which time the President shot a few bush doves. Hardly had we finished the meal when the rat-tat, rat-tat of small-arms showed that the British were approaching.
Into the doorway which led from the waist, the two lads dived and scurried through the main cabin now clear of pirates. Locked doors they smashed with a broadaxe found in the small-arms chest and so entered all the rooms. The women passengers were almost dead with suffering, what with the turbulence of the storm and the wild riot on deck. The lads pitied them but had no time to console.
The value of the capture of Vicksburg, however, was not measured by the list of prisoners, guns, and small-arms, but by the fact that its possession secured the navigation of the great central river of the continent, bisected fatally the Southern Confederacy, and set the armies which had been used in its conquest free for other purposes; and it so happened that the event coincided as to time with another great victory which crowned our arms far away, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
The rebel forces at Fort de Russy, thinking to defeat him, left the fort on the 14th to give him battle in the open field; but, while occupying the enemy with skirmishing and demonstrations, Smith pushed forward to Fort de Russy, which had been left with a weak garrison, and captured it with its garrison about three hundred and fifty men, eleven pieces of artillery, and many small-arms.
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