Below Cairo the mighty river becomes still mightier and winds with
countless curves and bends this way and that way through rich lowlands
from ten to forty miles wide. On a stretch of three hundred and fifty
miles, twice as far by river, only three large cities, Cairo, Memphis
and Vicksburg, offer large and convenient ports. Very often the great
river does not touch the high land for a hundred miles or more, but
glides along through endless marshes and through forests of oak, elm,
sycamore, walnut, gum, cypress, and other Southern trees, while
numberless bayous, tributaries, and oxbow lakes give variety to the vast
flood-plain of swamp and forest. Where the land is high or protected by
dikes, rich plantations have been cleared, but many hundreds of square
miles are subject to overflow and remain wild to this day.
When the travelers reached Hickman again they met once more their
friend, Dick Banks.
"We just ran up to Cairo," he told them. "Now we are going south to
bring up a load of wounded soldiers. Old Grant is fighting the Johnnies
as hard as he knows how. The Johnnies say he can't take Vicksburg, but I
reckon he will. He's got them in a trap and he'll starve them out, if he
can't drive them out."
"Have you seen Hicks again?" Barker asked.
"Never a hair of him, Sam. I reckon he's gone down to Haynes Bluff or
some place near Vicksburg, where he expects you-uns will show up. The
scoundrel never got a smell of your presence in this river burg.
"When you pass Island No. 10, look out for sunken boats. The Southerners
had a big fort there. And you had better go past New Madrid after dark.
The town is full of soldiers and the river full of boats. The commander
is a pretty cranky sort. He might ask you for papers and if you haven't
got them, he might put you in the pen. You know you're a suspicious
looking outfit with your Indian and birch-bark dugout."
"Great Heavens, Dick, do you call that a dugout!" exclaimed Barker.
"It's a canoe. Haven't you ever seen one before! No dugout for me. We
can portage this ship wherever we wish to go."
"You needn't worry about portages, Sam. The river is high all the way to
Vicksburg. Just see you don't get lost in those endless swamps and
forests.
"You don't have to go by way of Island No. 10. You can go by way of
Bissell's Channel and Wilson's Bayou, and cut off about six miles. The
channel may be dry now, but you say you can carry that bark tub of
your'n."
"Dick," Barker replied, laughing, "if you ever again call our canoe a
dugout or a tub, I'll swat you one. See if I don't!"
"Tatanka, and I made it ourselves and it is the best and safest
birch-bark afloat on all this river."
"May be she is pretty steady," Banks took up his banter again, "but she
is not much of a snagboat, and a mighty poor ram. Better let me stow you
all away on the _Grey Hawk_ and take you safely down to Haynes Bluff,
that is as far as we are going. From there you can walk to Vicksburg, if
the Boys in Blue will let you, but I know they won't."
"No, Dick, thank you for your kind offer. The boys want to see Island
No. 10, and I want to see it myself, but we may meet you at New Madrid."
"All right, Sam. If you are not afraid to show your outfit at New
Madrid. We'll be there day after to-morrow."
Tatanka, although he saw and heard everything about the earthquake and
the sunken lands with close attention, was happy when Barker had said:
"Let's get back to Hickman and the Old Mississippi. I reckon Hicks has
lost our trail by this time, if he really ever found it.
"Boys," he continued, "I must tell you something now. That Cousin Hicks
of yours is a bad case. There may be a fight if we ever run across him.
If there is, you keep out of it. Tatanka and I will handle him.
"Never mind," he cut the boys short when they wanted to know more, "I
tell you he is a bad egg. Now you know enough. I ran across him long ago
in Indiana."
"He is a skunk," Tatanka grunted, with an angry face and with eyes
flashing. "If we catch him, we shall throw him into the river like a
worthless cur.
"I am glad we shall go away," he continued. "I never was afraid to fight
our enemies, the Chippewas, but I am afraid of spook lakes, of
earthquakes, and of big guns. All Indians are afraid of them."
The Mississippi River contains a very large number of islands. Below the
larger islands often lie long low bars grown over with small willows,
and these brush-covered bars are known as tow-heads.
Between Cairo and New Orleans, the Mississippi River Commission has
numbered about one hundred and thirty islands, while many large ones
have names. From time to time old islands disappear and new ones are
made, when the river washes out a short cut across a bend.
The travelers found Bissell's Channel about half-way between Island No.
8 and Island No. 9, as Captain Banks had told them. But it was not a
channel at all; as the boys had expected. It was a road of stumps about
two miles long, and the boys wondered how it was made and what it was
for.
The four travelers arrived on Island No. 10 in good time, for the
distance was only twenty-five miles down stream from Hickman.
They made their camp inside the deserted Confederate works and they
looked with awe upon the big portholes in the logs through which the
cannons had swept the river.
"How did the Union soldiers take the island!" the boys asked.
"I don't know," Barker told them. "I think two of their gunboats ran
past the guns of the island on a very dark night. You had better ask
Captain Banks about it.
"I reckon we'll go to Vicksburg on the _Grey Hawk_. It will take us all
summer to paddle the five hundred miles the way the river runs. You see,
if we get there after Vicksburg falls, your people may not be there any
more and we might not be able to find them. So I think we had better go
with Captain Banks."
Next morning early they carried their canoe out from under the big
sycamore and cottonwoods on Island No. 10 and started north on a big
bend of the river.
At noon they reached New Madrid, at that time a lively, hustling town,
as Captain Banks had told them.
The _Grey Hawk_ had already arrived and as Captain Banks vouched for his
four friends, the commander was willing to let them go along to
Vicksburg.
After supper, as they all sat on deck chatting with the captain, the
lads begged the old river captain to tell them about Bissell's Channel
and about the fight at Island No. 10.
"That channel," the captain began, "was cut by the Engineer Regiment of
the West, and it was a great piece of work. It was done more than a year
ago in March and April, 1862.
"You see, the Confederates held a strong fort with big guns on Island
No. 10, and they had also planted guns on the left bank of the river
above and below New Madrid, but we held New Madrid.
"Colonel Bissell's men built large rafts for men to work on, for the
water was very high at the time. At first they cut the trees about eight
feet above the water. Then they rigged a frame and a long saw to the
stump and four men, two at each end, pulled the saw and cut the stump
about four feet and a half under water.
"The small trees were easy, but we had an awful time with some of the
big elms that grow a kind of braces near the ground. On some of those we
worked two hours, but Captain Tweedale, who was saw-boss, always figured
out what was wrong when the saws began to pinch."
"What did you want the channel for!" asked Bill, not a little puzzled by
the whole strange plan.
"Well, General Pope," the captain explained, "wanted gunboats and
transports to attack Island No. 10 and cut off the Confederates below
the island, but Commander Foote of the river fleet did not think that
his boats could run the island. So Colonel Bissell was ordered to dig a
canal above the island and thus cut off the bend of Island No. 10 on
which you came. If that could be done we could place guns, boats, and
men and transports above and below Island No. 10, and the Confederates
would have to get out.
"We did some great work. We had four steamboats, six coal-barges and
four cannons. You see, we were ready to fight as well as work. Besides
the Engineer Regiment, we had about 600 fighting men ready for battle.
"But things moved faster than we expected. On the night of April 4th
Commander Henry Walke of the _Carondelet_ ran the guns of Island No. 10.
"It was a very dark night and a storm was passing over the river. The
_Carondelet_ had been protected in vulnerable parts with coils of
hawsers and chains, and a coal barge, loaded with hay, had been lashed
to its port side.
"The pipes for the exhaust steam had been led into the wheel-house at
the stern, so the puffing of the steam could not be heard.
"About ten o'clock, Commander Walke gave the order to cast off. By the
time the _Carondelet_ came opposite the Confederate shore batteries, the
flashes of lightning were so vivid that the boat was discovered and the
roar of the batteries and the crack and scream of the balls soon mixed
with the roar of thunder. But during the pitch-dark moments, between
flashes of lightning and in the rain, the Confederate gunners had not
time and could not see to aim their guns. They had to fire almost at
random.
"So close ran the _Carondelet_ to the island that the men on board could
hear an officer shout, 'Elevate your guns.'
"Away the _Carondelet_ steamed down the black river. No lights on board,
except the roaring fire under her boilers, which twice set the soot in
her smokestack on fire. She raced past the shore batteries, past the
formidable island batteries, past the floating battery below the island.
Dozens of cannon-balls were fired at her. One struck the coal-barge and
one was found in a bale of hay.
"About midnight, Commander Walke arrived at New Madrid with every man on
board safe. What hundreds of men had believed impossible, he and his
volunteers had done.
"On the 7th of April, Commander Thompson, of the _Pittsburgh_, also ran
the island in safety.
"About the same time we finished our channel and ran boats through it to
New Madrid."
"But, Captain Banks," the lads asked eagerly, "what happened to the men
on Island No. 10?"
"Well, you see," the captain explained, "they were cut off and had to
surrender. Only a few of them got away in dugouts and boats through the
swamps on the Tennessee shore."
"Why didn't they all march away into Tennessee!" Tim asked.
"Boys, they couldn't," Barker explained to them. "Only a little way east
of Island No. 10 lies Reelfoot Lake, so they couldn't march away in that
direction. They held the island just as long as they could."
"Time to go to bed for you lads," the captain took the word again. "I
have told you all I know about Bissell's Channel and the fight at Island
No. 10."
The lads were soon fast asleep in their cabin, dreaming of Spook Lake,
of monster battle-ships, and of their home in Vicksburg.
The men continued talking for some time, Captain Banks telling his
friends about the dramatic river battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862.
"Captain, I want to ask you one thing," Barker said. "Why can't the
Union gun-boats do any good fighting down-stream, why do they have to do
all their heavy fighting headed up-stream?"
"Because," explained the captain promptly, "they are just a pick-up lot
of boats, all, I think, stern-wheelers. Only their bow is protected with
plates and railroad-iron. Their engines are weak, and if maneuvered
down-stream they will drag their anchors in the muddy bottom and are
hard to control. They are real fighting-ships only when they point their
noses up-stream."
When at last Barker invited Tatanka into a cabin, the Indian smiled.
"No," he said, "Indian cannot sleep in a box. I sleep in my blankets
outside, with plenty of air around me."