Chapter XXVIII

We were all sea-swallowed, though some cast again, And by
that destined to perform an act, Whereof what's past is
prologue.--TEMPEST.

On Sunday evening, May 3d, accompanied by Mr. Richard T. Colburn, of _The New York World_, I reached Milliken's Bend, on the Mississippi River, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg. Grant's head-quarters were at Grand Gulf, fifty-five miles below Vicksburg. Fighting had already begun.

[Sidenote: RUNNING THE VICKSBURG BATTERIES.]

We joined my associate, Mr. Junius H. Browne, of _The Tribune_, who for several days had been awaiting us. The insatiate hunger of the people for news, and the strong competition between different journals, made one day of battle worth a year of camp or siege to the war correspondent. Duty to the paper we represented required that we should join the army with the least possible delay.

We could go over land, down the Louisiana shore, and, if we safely ran the gauntlet of Rebel guerrillas, reach Grand Gulf in three days. But a little expedition was about to run the Vicksburg batteries. If it survived the fiery ordeal, it would arrive at Grant's head-quarters in eight hours. Thus far, three-fourths of the boats attempting to run the batteries had escaped destruction; and yielding to the seductive doctrine of probabilities, we determined to try the short, or water route. It proved a very long one.

[Sidenote: EXPEDITION BADLY FITTED OUT.]

At ten o'clock our expedition started. It consisted of two great barges of forage and provisions, propelled by a little tug between them. For some days, Grant had been receiving supplies in this manner, cheaper and easier than by transportation over rough Louisiana roads.

The lives of the men who fitted out the squadron being as valuable to them as mine to me, I supposed that all needful precautions for safety had been adopted. But, when under way, we learned that they were altogether inadequate. Indeed, we were hardly on board when we discovered that the expedition was so carelessly organized as almost to invite capture.

The night was one of the lightest of the year. We had only two buckets, and not a single skiff. Two tugs were requisite to steer the unwieldy craft, and enable us to run twelve or fifteen miles an hour. With one we could accomplish only seven miles, aided by the strong Mississippi current.

There were thirty-five persons on board--all volunteers. They consisted of the tug's crew, Captain Ward and Surgeon Davidson of the Forty-Seventh Ohio Infantry, with fourteen enlisted men, designed to repel possible boarders, and other officers and citizens, _en route_ for the army.

For two or three hours, we glided silently along the glassy waters between banks festooned with heavy, drooping foliage. It was a scene of quiet, surpassing beauty. Captain Ward suddenly remembered that he had some still Catawba in his valise. He was instructed to behead the bottle with his sword, that the wine might not in any event be wasted. From a soldier's cup of gutta-percha we drank to the success of the expedition.

[Sidenote: INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.]

At one o'clock in the morning, on the Mississippi shore, a rocket shot up and pierced the sky, signaling the Rebels of our approach. Ten minutes later, we saw the flash and heard the boom of their first gun. Much practice on similar expeditions had given them excellent range. The shell struck one of our barges, and exploded upon it.

We were soon under a heavy fire. The range of the batteries covered the river for nearly seven miles. The Mississippi here is very crooked, resembling the letter S, and at some points we passed within two hundred yards of ten-inch guns, with point-blank range upon us. As we moved around the bends, the shots came toward us at once from right and left, front and rear.

Inclination had joined with duty in impelling us to accompany the expedition. We wanted to learn how one would feel looking into the craters of those volcanoes as they poured forth sheets of flame and volleys of shells. I ascertained to my fullest satisfaction, as we lay among the hay-bales, slowly gliding past them. I thought it might be a good thing to do once, but that, if we survived it, I should never feel the least desire to repeat the experiment.

We embraced the bales in Bottom's belief that "good hay, sweet hay hath no fellow."

Discretion was largely the better part of my valor, and I cowered close in our partial shelter. But two or three times I could not resist the momentary temptation to rise and look about me. How the great sheets of flame leaped up and spread out from the mouths of the guns! How the shells came screaming and shrieking through the air! How they rattled and crashed, penetrating the sides of the barges, or exploding on board in great fountains of fire!

[Sidenote: A MOMENT OF SUSPENSE.]

The moment hardly awakened serene meditations or sentimental memories; but every time I glanced at that picture, Tennyson's lines rang in my ears:--

"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at by shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred!"

"Junius" persisted in standing, all exposed, to watch the coming shots. Once, as a shell exploded near at hand, he fell heavily down among the hay-bales. Until that moment I never knew what suspense was. I could find no voice in which to ask if he lived. I dared not put forth my hand in the darkness, lest it should rest on his mutilated form. At last he spoke, and relieved my anxiety. He had only slipped and fallen.

Each time, after being struck, we listened for the reassuring puff! puff! puff! of our little engine; and hearing it, said: "Thus far, at least, we are all right!"

Now we were below the town, having run five miles of batteries. Ten minutes more meant safety. Already we began to felicitate each other upon our good fortune, when the scene suddenly changed.

A terrific report, like the explosion of some vast magazine, left us breathless, and seemed to shake the earth to its very center. It was accompanied by a shriek which I shall never forget, though it seemed to occupy less than a quarter of the time consumed by one tick of the watch. It was the death-cry wrung from our captain, killed as he stood at the wheel. For his heedlessness in fitting out the expedition, his life was the penalty.

[Sidenote: DISABLED AND DRIFTING HELPLESSLY.]

We listened, but the friendly voice from the tug was hushed. We were disabled, and drifting helplessly in front of the enemy's guns!

For a moment all was silent. Then there rose from the shore the shrill, sharp, ragged yell so familiar to the ears of every man who has been in the front, and clearly distinguishable from the deep, full, chest-tones in which our own men were wont to give their cheers. Many times had I heard that Rebel yell, but never when it was vociferous and exultant as now.

Seeing fire among the hay-bales about us, Colburn and myself carefully extinguished it with our gloved hands, lest the barge should be burnt. Then, creeping out of our refuge, we discovered the uselessness of our care.

That shot had done wonderful execution. It had killed the captain, exploded the boiler, then passed into the furnace, where the shell itself exploded, throwing up great sheets of glowing coals upon both barges. At some stage of its progress, it had cut in twain the tug, which went down like a plummet. We looked for it, but it had disappeared altogether. There was some _débris_--chairs, stools, and parts of machinery, buoyed up by timbers, floating upon the surface; but there was no tug.

The barges, covered with bales of dry hay, had caught like tinder, and now, at the stern of each, a great sheet of flame rose far toward the sky, filling the night with a more than noonday glare.

Upon the very highest bale, where the flames threw out his pale face and dark clothing in very sharp relief, stood "Junius," in a careless attitude, looking upon the situation with the utmost serenity. My first thought was that the one thing he required to complete the picture was an opera-glass. To my earnest injunction to leave that exposed position, he replied that, so far as safety was concerned, there now was little choice of places.

Meanwhile, we were under hotter fire than at any previous moment. In the confusion caused by our evolutions in the eddies, I had quite lost the points the of compass, and asked:--

"In which direction is Vicksburg?"

"There," replied "Junius," pointing out into the lurid smoke.

"I think it must be on the other shore."

"Oh, no! wait here a moment, and you will see the flash of the guns."

Just then I did see the flash of more guns than I coveted, and four or five shots came shrieking toward us.

Colburn and myself instinctively dropped behind the nearest hay-bales. A moment after, we were amused to observe that we had sought shelter on the wrong side of the bales--the side facing the Rebel guns. Our barge was so constantly changing position that our geographical ideas had become very confused.

[Sidenote: BOMBARDING, SCALDING, BURNING, DROWNING.]

It does not often happen to men, in one quarter of an hour, to see death in as many forms as confronted us--by bombarding, scalding, burning, and drowning. It was uncomfortable, but less exciting than one might suppose. The memory impresses me far more deeply than did the experience. I remember listening, during a little cessation of the din, for the sound of my own voice, wondering whether its tones were calm and equable. There was hurrying to and fro, and groans rent the air.

"I suppose we can surrender," cried a poor, scalded fellow.

"Surrender--the devil!" replied Colburn. "I suppose we will fight them!"

It was very creditable to the determination of our _confrère_; but, to put it mildly, our fighting facilities just then were somewhat limited.

[Sidenote: TAKING TO A HAY-BALE.]

My comrades assisted nearly all wounded and scalded men down the sides of the barge to the water's edge, and placed them carefully upon hay-bales. Remaining there, we had every thing to lose and nothing to gain, and I urged--

"Let us take to the water."

"Oh, yes," my friends replied, "we will after awhile."

Soon, I repeated the suggestion, and they repeated the answer. It was no time to stand upon forms. I jumped into the river--twelve or fifteen feet below the top of our barge. They rolled over a hay-bale for me. I climbed upon it, and found it a surprisingly comfortable means of navigation. At last, free from the instinctive dread of mutilation by splinters, which had constantly haunted me, I now felt that if wounded at all it must, at least, be by a clean shot. The thought was a great relief.

With a dim suspicion--not the ripe and perfect knowledge afterward obtained--that clothing was scarce in the Southern Confederacy, I removed my boots, tied them together with my watch-guard, and fastened them to one of the hoops of the bale. Taking off my coat, I secured it in the same manner.

[Sidenote: OVERTURNED BY A SHOT.]

I was about swimming away in a vague, blundering determination not to be captured, when, for the first time in my life, I saw a shot coming toward me. I had always been sceptical on this point. Many persons had averred to me that they could see shots approaching; but remembering that such a missile flying toward a man with a scream and a rush would not quicken his vision, and judging from my own experience, I supposed they must be deceived.

Now, far up the river I saw a shot coming with vivid distinctness. How round, smooth, shining, and black it looked, ricochetting along, plunging into the water, throwing up great jets of spray, bounding like a schoolboy's ball, and then skimming the river again! It struck about four feet from my hay-bale, which was now a few yards from the burning barge.

The great sheet of water which dashed up quite obscured me from Colburn and "Junius," who, upon the bows of the barge, were just bidding me adieu. At first they thought the shot an extinguisher. But it did me no greater harm than partially to overturn my hay-bale and dip me into the river. A little more or less dampness just then was not of much consequence. It was the last shot which I saw or heard. The Rebels now ceased firing, and shouted--

"Have you no boats?"

Learning that we had none, they sent out a yawl. I looked about for a plank, but could find none adapted to a long voyage. Rebel pickets were on both sides of the river, and Rebel batteries lined it ten or twelve miles below, at a point which, by floating, one could reach at daylight. Surrender seemed the only alternative.

At Memphis, two days before, I had received a package of letters, including two or three from the _Tribune_ office, and some which treated of public men, and military strength, movements, and prospects, with great freedom. One of them, from Admiral Foote, containing some very kind words, I sorely regretted to lose; but the package was quite too valuable to be submitted to the scrutiny of the enemy. I kept it until the last moment, but when the Rebel yawl approached within twenty feet, tore the letters in pieces and threw them into the Mississippi.

[Sidenote: RESCUED FROM THE RIVER.]

The boat was nearly full. After picking me up, it received on board two scalded men who were floating near, and whose groans were heart-rending.

We were deposited on the Mississippi shore, under guard of four or five soldiers in gray, and the yawl went back to receive the remainder. Among the saved I found Surgeon Davidson. He was unable to swim, but some one had carefully placed him upon a hay-bale. On reaching the shore, he sat down upon a stool, which he had rescued from the river, spread his overcoat upon his knee, and deposited his carpet-sack beside him. It was the first case I ever knew of a man so hopelessly shipwrecked, who saved all his baggage, and did not even wet his feet.

The boat soon returned. To my infinite relief, the first persons who sprang to the shore were "Junius" and Colburn. Sartorially they had been less fortunate than I. One had lost his coat, and the other was without shoes, stockings, coat, vest, or hat.

There, in the moonlight, guarded by Rebel bayonets, we counted the rescued, and found that just sixteen--less than half our number--were alive and unharmed. All the rest were killed, scalded, or wounded.

Some of the scalded were piteous spectacles. The raw flesh seemed almost ready to drop from their faces; and they ran hither and thither, half wild from excruciating pain.

None of the wounded were unable to walk, though one or two had broken arms. The most had received slight contusions, which a few days would heal.

[Sidenote: THE KILLED, WOUNDED, AND MISSING.]

The missing numbered eight or ten, not one of whom was ever heard of afterward. It was impossible to obtain any correct list of their names, as several of them were strangers to us and to each other; and no record had been made of the persons starting upon the expedition.

We were two miles below the city, whither the lieutenant of our guard now marched us.