OUR LOSSES AT GALVESTON. 325 on the Harriet Lane, and sent a so. Two coal-barques-the Cavallo truce-boat to the Clifton, demanding and the Elias Pike-were captured" the surrender' of our fleet! Law re- by the Rebel steamboat Carr-one pelled the suggestion, yet accompa- of two or three that came down the nied the Rebel officer to Renshaw on bay some time after the Neptune and the Westfield, who rejected the pro- Bayou City. And Law, considering posal; ordering our vessels afloat to the Owasco his only efficient vessel, get out of harm's way so soon as and she not equal in a fight to the might be, while he, despairing of Harriet Lane, precipitately abangetting the Westfield off, would blow doned the blockade, running off with her up, and escape with his crew on the sad remains of our fleet to New the transports Saxon and Boardman, Orleans; though hourly expecting lying near him. He did blow her transport down from that city, which up, accordingly; but the explosion would almost inevitably run into the must have been premature, since enemy's clutches if not warned of Renshaw himself, with Lt. Zimmer- the changed condition of affairs. man, Engineer Green, and ten or fifteen of his crew, perished with her." An eye-witness states that all had left her but Renshaw himself when she was fired (it was said by a drunkard) and blew up, killing eight or ten officers and men in the captain's gig beside her. Meantime, our soldiers, left to their fate, and wholly without artillery, had been summoned by Gen. W. R. Scurry' to surrender, and had done 'There are all manner of conflicting statements concerning this truce: each party charging the other with violating it by acting while it lasted as if it had no existence. One Union writer says that the Rebels only demanded that our vessels should quit the harbor with in three hours. This would render Renshaw's conduct with regard to his ship less mysterious. The Houston Telegraph of Jan. 5 had an account of the whole affair by an eye-witness, who makes the truce a Rebel trick from its inception. He says: "The propeller Owasco lay in the channe!, about three-fourths of a mile from the Bayou City and Harriet Lane. As the Lane was boarded, the Owasco steamed up to within 200 or 300 yards of them, firing into both. The force of the collision drove the Bayou City's stem so far into and under the wheel and gunwale of the Lane that she could not be got out. The Lane was also so careened that her guns could not be worked, and were consequently useless. They both lay, therefore, at the mercy of the Owas Magruder reports his entire loss in this fight at 26 killed, 117 wounded, and the steamer Neptune-her crew and guns being saved. He says he captured (beside the Harriet Lane, with all her armament, the schooner and barques), "350 prisoners, beside officers;" while our losses include the Westfield also, with her splendid battery of eight heavy rifled guns. He came very near entrapping the steamship Cambria, Co. them. Herculean efforts were made to extricate "The Owasco, evidently fearing the Lane's guns, withdrew to a position about a mile distant. It became plainly evident that, unless the Bayou City and Harriet Lane could be separated, the enemy could escape if they wished. To gain time, therefore, a flag of truce was taken to the Owasco and Clifton, now lying close together, and a demand for a surrender. Time was asked to communicate with Com. Renshaw, who was on the Westfield. A truce of three hours was agreed upon. During the truce with the vessels, the unconditional surrender of these [Mass.] men was demanded and complied with." 8 Magruder, in his official report, unqualifiedly asserts that he had given Renshaw three hours' truce, and that the latter had agreed to surrende-which is so irreconcilable with established facts that I can only credit it on the assumption that they had acted in concert throughout. 9 Formerly representative in Congress from Texas. 10 Magruder says a schooner also. which arrived off the bar on the 3d, containing (he says) " E. J. Davis and many other apostate Texans, beside several hundred troops, and 2,500 saddles for the use of native sympathizers." Her captain, however, was seasonably warned to escape. One Galveston Unionist, named Thomas Smith, who was landed from her yawl, he caught, tried, and shot as a deserter from the Rebel service. And that was the sum of his "spoils”Com. Farragut, soon after, sending vessels to reestablish the blockade, before the Harriet Lane could be got ready to run out and roam the seas as a Rebel corsair. that the chase had ceased to steam and was waiting. Blake, whose guns were short as well as few, ran down to within 75 yards and hailed; when the stranger answered his hail by proclaiming his craft Her Britannic Majesty's ship Vixen. Blake thereupon offered to send a boat aboard; and was proceeding to do so—each of them maneuvering for a better position-when the stranger shouted, "We are the Confederate steamer Alabama," and poured in a broadside; which was promptly returned. The Alabama being every way the superior vessel, Blake had no hope, save in closing with and boarding her; which he attempted to do; but the Alabama had the advantage in speed as well as force, and easily baffled him. Both vessels were firing every gun that could be brought to bear, and as rapidly as possible, at a distance of but 30 yards-the Alabama having received considerable injury-when two of her shells simul But at Sabine Pass, a performance soon after occurred which was scarcely less disgraceful to our arms than this at Galveston. The broad estuary at the mouth of the Sabine was blockaded by the Union gunboat Morning Light, 10 guns, and the schooner Velocity, 3 guns; which were attacked" by two Rebel gunboats-Josiah Bell and Uncle Ben-taneously entered the Hatteras at fitted out in the Sabine for the purpose, under command of Major O. M. Watkins, who chased our vessels out to sea and captured them after a very feeble resistance. Watkins reports his captures at "13 guns, 129 prisoners, and $1,000,000 worth of stores." The blockade of Galveston having barely been reestablished under Com. Bell, of the Brooklyn, a sail was descried" in the south-east; when the gunboat Hatteras, Lt.-Com'g R. G. Blake, was signaled by Bell to overhaul her. The stranger affected to fly; but Blake soon observed that he did not seem in any great hurry. Clearing his decks for action, he stood on; and, when four miles distant, he saw "Jan. 21, 1863. the water-line, exploding and setting her on fire; and a third pierced her cylinder, filling her with scalding steam, crippling her walking-beam, and disabling her engine; while water poured in profusely from the rift in her side, threatening her with speedy destruction. The Alabama now working ahead, beyond the range of the Hatteras's guns, Blake ordered his magazine to be flooded, and fired a lee gun; when the enemy afforded assistance in saving our men-the Hatteras going down ten minutes afterward. Her crew-(118, including six wounded)-were transferred to the conqueror; she having had two killed. The Alabama, 12 Jan. 11, 3 P. M. GEN. BANKS'S POSITION AND FORCE. 327 though considerably cut up, so as to | jumble of grand canal, river, sound, be compelled to run into Kingston, Jamaica, for repairs, had but one man wounded. And no wonder; since the Hatteras's heaviest guns were 32s, while of the Alabama's (9 to our 8), one was an 150-pounder on a pivot, another a 68; and she threw 324 pounds of metal at a broadside to the Hatteras's 94. With such a disparity of force, the result was inevitable. Gen. N. P. Banks, having assumed" command of the Department of the Gulf, found himself at the head of a force about 30,000 strong, which had been officially designated the Nineteenth Army Corps.' With this, he was expected, in cöoperation with Grant's efforts up the river, to reopen the Mississippi, expel the Rebels in arms from Louisiana, and take military possession of the Red River country, with a view to the speedy recovery of Texas, whose provisional Governor, Gen. Andrew J. Hamilton, surrounded by hundreds more of Union refugees, was with him at New Orleans, and naturally anxious for an immediate movement upon their State; which they believed ripe for restoration. Their hopes of such a demonstration, however, were soon blasted, as we have seen, by our needless and shameful disasters at Galveston and Sabine Pass. Meantime, Gen. Banks had dispatched "Gen. Cuvier Grover, with 10,000 men, to reoccupy Baton Rouge, which had been relinquished to the enemy, and which was now recovered without a struggle. From New Orleans, a single railroad reaches westward to Brashear City on the Atchafalaya, where that "Dec. 11, 1862. and lagoon, receives the waters of the Bayou Teche-each of them heading near, and at high water having navigable connection with, Red river. South of the railroad and east of the Atchafalaya, the country had already been in good part overrun by our forces; but our possession of it was imperfect and debated. Beyond and above, all was Rebel; while fortifications at Butte à la Rose, well up the Atchafalaya, and Fort Bisland, at Pattersonville, on the Teche, were intended to bar ingress by our gunboats from Red river or by our land forces from New Orleans. Fort Bisland was flanked by Grand Lake on the right, and by impassable swamps on the left; a Rebel force, estimated [too high] by Gen. Banks at over 12,000 men, held these strong works and the adjacent country; while to hold New Orleans securely, with its many protecting forts and approaches, Key West, Pensacola, Ship Island, &c., with all Texas backing the zealous and active Rebel partisans in Louisiana, who were promptly apprised by their spies of any weak spot in our defenses to say nothing of the danger of hostile attacks from the side of Alabama and Mississippi required the larger part of his corps; so that Banks found his disposable force reduced by inevitable details to less than 14,000 men; while the Rebel array in and around Port Hudson was reported by his spies at 18,000; rendering a siege without large rëenforcements impossible. He, therefore, turned his attention first to the line of the Atchafalaya. An attempt to open the Bayou 14 Dec. 18, 1862. the more deadly fire of sharp-shooters from rifle-pits; when, at 10 A. M., a bullet through his head struck him dead on the instant. By this time, the 8th Vermont had gained the Rebel rear, and was making a rapid clearance of their riflepits; while the batteries of the 1st Maine, the 4th and 6th Massachusetts, supported by sharp-shooters from the 75th and 160th New York, had flanked the defenses on the other side, and were sweeping the decks of the Cotton, whose crew beat a retreat, as did most of the Rebels on land, whereof but 40 were taken prisoners. The Cotton was fired during the ensuing night, and utterly destroyed. The force here beaten consisted of the 28th Louisiana, with Simms's and the Pelican battery, under Col. Gray Plaquemine, connecting with the Atchafalaya near Butte à la Rose, having failed—the bayou being found so choked by three years' accumulation of snags and drift as to be impassable by boats-Gen. Weitzel's force on Berwick's Bay was increased to 4,500 men, with a view to an advance to and operations in the Teche region. Starting" from Thibodeaux, Gen. Weitzel embarked his infantry next day at Brashear, on the gunboats Calhoun, Diana, Kinsman, and Estrella, Com. McKean Buchanan, who moved slowly up the bayou to Pattersonville; the artillery and cavalry going by land. Encountering formidable obstructions at a place known as Carney's Bridge, a few miles above, Com. Buchanan, after reconnoitering, dropped down a short distance for the night; returning-in all, but 1,100 men, beside the next morning" to attack; while the 8th Vermont was sent around to flank the defenses on the north. The obstructions were found vexatious rather than formidable: consisting of a steamboat filled with brick and sunk across the channel, with the great iron-clad gunboat Cotton behind it; a battery on either flank, and some torpedoes in the bayou below. One of these was exploded under the Kinsman; lifting her stern into the air, but not crippling her; when she fell back to avoid another just ahead, whereof a negro fugitive from the Cotton gave timely warning. Com. Buchanan, on the Calhoun, either not hearing or despising the caution, at once took the advance, standing on the bow of his vessel, spy-glass in hand, in the midst of a furious cannonade from the Cotton and Rebel batteries, and crew of the Cotton. Our loss was 7 killed and 27 wounded. Gen. Banks being still intent on opening the Atchafalaya by the meditated advance through the Bayou Plaquemine to the capture of Butte à la Rose, the next month was wasted on this enterprise; and the success at Carney's Bridge was not otherwise improved. Meantime, some 200 Western boys defeated" a like number of the 3d Louisiana cavalry at Old River; losing 12 men, killing 4, wounding 7, and taking 26 prisoners. Admiral Farragut, having heard of our loss of the Queen of the West and De Soto" below Vicksburg, decided that it was his duty to run the Rebel batteries at Port Hudson, in order to recover the command of the river above; so he called on Gen. Banks for cooperation. Hereupon, "See page 298. 17 Feb. 10. FARRAGUT PASSES PORT HUDSON. 329 our forces were hastily recalled from | thick with sulphurous smoke that great care was needfully exercised by our commanders to avoid firing into each other; our aim being now directed by the flashes of the enemy's guns; which, changing from shell to grape as our vessels came within musket and pistol-shot, swept our decks by murderous discharges; some of their batteries being placed on bluffs so high that they could not be harmed by our shots; while the crescent shape of the defenses, fol the Atchafalaya and concentrated at Baton Rouge; where they crossed and advanced," about 12,000 strong, driving in the Rebel pickets, to the rear of the Port; Farragut having intended, under cover of a land attack on that side, to run the batteries early next morning. He judged best, however, to anticipate Gen. Banks's attack, the night being intensely dark; so, in his stout flag-ship Hartford, lashed side to side with the Albatross, he led the perilous adven-lowing the curve of the channel, enature; arriving abreast of the Rebel batteries a little before midnight. bled them to rake each vessel as it approached, and again as it receded. The greatest care was requisite to avoid grounding or colliding in the dense darkness which followed the burning out of the Rebel bonfire; and there were several narrow escapes from these ever imminent disasters. It was 11 P. M. when the first gun spoke and by 1 the fight was virtually over-the Hartford and the Albatross having passed; while most of their consorts had failed, and dropped down to their anchorage below-when a fresh blaze told of a heavy loss. The Mississippi had run aground directly abreast of the heaviest and most central battery; where she was soon discovered and became a target for them all. Here Capt. Melancthon Smith fought her nearly half an hour, till she was completely riddled; when he ordered her set on fire and abandoned; and she was; burning aground till she was so lightened that she floated; when she drifted down the river a blazing ruin, exploding, several miles below, when the fire had reached her magazine. Of her 233 officers and men, but 29 SO were missing at roll-call next day. If he had counted on passing unobserved, or shrouded in darkness, he was much mistaken. Hardly was he within range of the nearest Rebel guns, when signal-lights were seen flashing from every direction, including the opposite shore; and, directly, the flames of a vast bonfire in front of the heaviest batteries shot up into the sky, lighting the entire breadth of the river as though it were midday. Rockets were soon streaming in the air; now a gun from the west bank saluted the Hartford, which instantly returned the compliment; and the next moment the earth trembled to the roar of all the Rebel batteries; whereupon our mortar-boats below began firing 13-inch shell at the enemy; and the frigates Hartford, Mississippi, Richmond, and Monongahela, and gunboats Albatross, Genesee, Kineo, Essex, and Sachem, as they severally came within range, fired broadside after broadside; the brass howitzers in their tops and the heavy pivot guns at the bow and stern being industriously worked; while the atmosphere was soon 10 March 13-14. |