FROM FORT PILLOW TO MEMPHIS.
On the 6th of May, 1861, the Legislature of Tennessee, in secret
session, voted that the State should secede from the Union. The next
day, Governor Harris appointed three Commissioners to meet Mr. Hilliard,
of Alabama, who had been sent by Jefferson Davis to make a league with
the State. These Commissioners agreed that all the troops of the State
should be under the control of the President of the Confederacy. All of
the public property and naval stores and munitions of war were also
turned over to the Confederacy. The people had nothing to do about it.
The conspirators did not dare to trust the matter to them, for a great
many persons in East Tennessee were ardently attached to the Union. In
Western Tennessee, along the Mississippi, nearly all of the people, on
the other hand, were in favor of secession.
At Memphis they were very wild and fierce. Union men were mobbed, tarred
and feathered, ridden on rails, had their heads shaved, were robbed,
knocked down, and warned to leave the place or be hung. One man was
headed up in a hogshead, and rolled into the river, because he stood up
for the Union! Memphis was a hotbed of secessionists; it was almost as
bad as Charleston.
A Memphis newspaper, of the 6th of May, said:--
"Tennessee is disenthralled at last. Freedom has again
crowned her with a fresh and fadeless wreath. She will do her
entire duty. Great sacrifices are demanded of her, and they
will be cheerfully made. Her blood and treasure are offered
without stint at the shrine of Southern freedom. She counts
not the cost at which independence may be bought. The gallant
volunteer State of the South, her brave sons, now rushing to
the standard of the Southern Confederacy, will sustain, by
their unflinching valor and deathless devotion, her ancient
renown achieved on so many battle-fields.
"In fact, our entire people--men, women, and children--have
engaged in this fight, and are animated by the single heroic
and indomitable resolve to perish rather than submit to the
despicable invader now threatening us with subjugation. They
will ratify the ordinance of secession amid the smoke and
carnage of battle; they will write out their indorsement of
it with the blood of their foe; they will enforce it at the
point of the bayonet and sword.
"Welcome, thrice welcome, glorious Tennessee, to the thriving
family of Southern Confederate States!"[27]
[Footnote 27: Memphis Avalanche.]
On the same day the citizens of Memphis tore down the Stars and Stripes
from its staff upon the Court-House, formed a procession, and with a
band of music bore the flag, like a corpse, to a pit, and buried it in
mock solemnity. They went into the public square, where stands the
statue of General Jackson, and chiselled from its pedestal his memorable
words: "The Federal Union,--it must be preserved." They went to the
river-bank, and seized all the steamboats they could lay their hands
upon belonging to Northern men.
They resolved to build a fleet of gunboats, which would ascend the river
to St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg, and compel the people of those
cities to pay tribute, for the privilege of navigating the river to the
Gulf.
The entire population engaged in the enterprise. The ladies held fairs
and gave their jewelry. The citizens organized themselves into a gunboat
association. When the boats were launched, the ladies, with appropriate
ceremonies, dedicated them to the Confederacy. They urged their
husbands, brothers, sons, and friends to enlist in the service, and the
young man who hesitated received presents of hoop-skirts, petticoats,
and other articles of female wearing apparel.
Eight gunboats were built. Commodore Hollins, as you have seen,
commanded them. He attempted to drive back General Pope at New Madrid,
but failed. He went to New Orleans, and Captain Montgomery was placed in
command.
When Commodore Foote and General Pope took Island No. 10, those that
escaped of the Rebels fell back to Fort Pillow, about forty miles above
Memphis. It was a strong position, and Commodore Foote made but little
effort to take it, but waited for the advance of General Halleck's army
upon Corinth. While thus waiting, one foggy morning, several of the
Rebel gunboats made a sudden attack upon the Cincinnati, and nearly
disabled her before they were beaten back. Meanwhile, Commodore Foote,
finding that his wound, received at Donelson, was growing worse, was
recalled by the Secretary of the Navy, and Commodore Charles Henry
Davis, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was placed in command.
Besides the gunboats on the Mississippi, was Colonel Ellet's fleet of
rams,--nine in all. They were old steamboats, with oaken bulwarks three
feet thick, to protect the boilers and engines. Their bows had been
strengthened with stout timbers and iron bolts, and they had iron prows
projecting under water. They carried no cannon, but were manned by
sharpshooters. There were loop-holes through the timbers for the
riflemen. The pilot-house was protected by iron plates. They joined the
fleet at Fort Pillow.
The river is very narrow in front of the fort,--not more than a third of
its usual width. It makes a sharp bend. The channel is deep, and the
current rushes by like a mill-race. The Tennessee shore was lined with
batteries on the bluff, which made it a place much stronger than
Columbus or Island No. 10. But when General Beauregard was forced to
evacuate Corinth, the Rebels were also compelled to leave Fort Pillow.
For two or three days before the evacuation, they kept up a heavy fire
upon the fleet.
On the 3d of June,--a hot, sultry day,--just before night, a huge bank
of clouds rolled up from the south. There had been hardly a breath of
air through the day, but now the wind blew a hurricane. The air was
filled with dust, whirled up from the sand-bars. When the storm was at
its height, I was surprised to see two of the rams run down past the
point of land which screened them from the batteries, vanishing from
sight in the distant cloud. They went to ascertain what the Rebels were
doing. There was a sudden waking up of heavy guns. The batteries were in
a blaze. The cloud was thick and heavy, and the rams returned, but the
Rebel cannon still thundered, throwing random shots into the river, two
or three at a time, firing as if the Confederacy had tons of ammunition
to spare.
The dust-cloud, with its fine, misty rain, rolled away. The sun shone
once more, and bridged the river with a gorgeous arch of green and gold,
which appeared a moment, and then faded away, as the sun went down
behind the western woods. While we stood admiring the scene, a Rebel
steamer came round the point to see what we were about. It was a black
craft, bearing the flag of the Confederacy at her bow. She turned
leisurely, stopped her wheels, and looked at us audaciously. The
gunboats opened fire. The Rebel steamer took her own time, unmindful of
the shot and shell falling and bursting all around her, then slowly
disappeared beyond the headland. It was a challenge for a fight. It was
not accepted, for Commodore Davis was not disposed to be cut up by the
shore-batteries.
The next day there were lively times at the fort. A cannonade was kept
up on Commodore Davis's fleet, which was vigorously answered. We little
thought that this was to blind us to what was going on. At sunset the
Rebels set fire to their barracks. There were great pillars of flame and
smoke in and around the fort. The southern sky was all aglow.
Occasionally there were flashes and explosions, sudden puffs of smoke,
spreading out like flakes of cotton or fleeces of white and crimson
wool. It was a gorgeous sight.
In the morning we found that the Rebels had gone, spiking their cannon
and burning their supplies. That which had cost them months of hard
labor was abandoned, and the river was open to Memphis.
On the 5th of June, Commodore Davis's fleet left Fort Pillow for
Memphis. I was sitting at dinner with the Commodore and Captain Phelps,
on board the Benton, when an orderly thrust his head into the cabin, and
said, "Sir, there is a fine large steamer ahead of us."
We are on deck in an instant. The boatswain is piping all hands to
quarters. There is great commotion.
"Out with that gun! Quick!" shouted Lieutenant Bishop. The brave tars
seize the ropes, the trucks creak, and the great eleven-inch gun,
already loaded, is out in a twinkling. Men are bringing up shot and
shell. The deck is clearing of all superfluous furniture.
There she is, a mile distant, a beautiful steamer, head up-stream. She
sees us, and turns her bow. Her broadside comes round, and we read
"Sovereign" upon her wheelhouse. We are on the upper deck, and the
muzzle of the eleven-inch gun is immediately beneath us. A great flash
comes in our faces. We are in a cloud, stifled, stunned, gasping for
breath, our ears ringing; but the cloud is blown away, and we see the
shot throw up the water a mile beyond the Sovereign. Glorious! We will
have her. Another, not so good. Another, still worse.
The Louisville, Carondelet, and Cairo open fire. But the Sovereign is a
fast sailer, and is increasing the distance.
"The Spitfire will catch her!" says the pilot. A wave of the hand, and
the Spitfire is alongside, running up like a dog to its master.
Lieutenant Bishop, Pilot Bixby, and a gun crew jump on board the tug,
which carries a boat howitzer. Away they go, the tug puffing and
wheezing, as if it had the asthma.
"Through the _chute_!" shouts Captain Phelps. _Chute_ is a French word,
meaning a narrow passage, not the main channel of the river. The
Sovereign is in the main channel, but the Spitfire has the shortest
distance. The tug cuts the water like a knife. She comes out just astern
of the steamer.
Bang! goes the howitzer. The shot falls short. Bang! again in a
twinkling. Better. Bang! It goes over the Sovereign.
"Hurrah! Bishop will get her!" The crews of the gunboats dance with
delight, and swing their caps. Bang! Right through her cabin. The
Sovereign turns towards the shore, and runs plump against the bank. The
crew, all but the cook, take to the woods, and the steamer is ours.
It would astonish you to see how fast a well-drilled boat's-crew can
load and fire a howitzer. Commodore Foote informed me that, when he was
in the China Sea, he was attacked by the natives, and his boat's-crew
fired four times a minute!
The chase for the Sovereign was very exciting,--more so than any
horse-race I ever saw.
The crew on board the Sovereign had been stopping at all the farm-houses
along the river, setting fire to the cotton on the plantations. They did
it in the name of the Confederate government, that it might not fall
into the hands of the Yankees. In a great many places they had rolled it
into the river, and the stream was covered with white flakes. The bushes
were lined with it.
As soon as the people along the banks saw the Federal steamboats, they
went to work to save their property. Some of them professed to be Union
men. I conversed with an old man, who was lame, and could hardly hobble
round. He spoke bitterly against Jeff Davis for burning his cotton and
stealing all his property.
While descending the river, we saw a canoe, containing two men, push out
from a thick canebrake. They came up to the Benton. We thought they were
Rebels, at first, but soon saw they were two pilots belonging to the
fleet, who had started the day before for Vicksburg, to pilot Commodore
Farragut's fleet to Memphis. They had been concealed during the day, not
daring to move. The evacuation of Fort Pillow rendered it unnecessary
for them to continue the voyage. They said that eight Rebel gunboats
were a short distance below us.
We moved on slowly, and came to anchor about nine o'clock, near a place
called by all the rivermen Paddy's Hen and Chickens, about two miles
above Memphis.