438
THE IVES TERN FLOTILLA.
up-stream, which proved a laughable failure. She would sheer from one sideof the river to the other, and with two anchors astern she could not be heldsteady enough to fight her bow-guns down-stream. She dragged both anchorsalternately, until they came together, and the experiment failed completely.
On the morning of the 23d the flag-officer made a recounoissance to Colum-bus, Kentucky , with four gun-boats and two mortar-boats, accompanied by
the wooden gun-boat Cones-ports. The fortificationsthan ever. The enemysent up a transportwas said, of effect-ing an exchange
toga , convoying five trans-looked more formidable
- —
the pretext,
-0th i
THE MORTAR-BOATS AT ISLANDNUMBER TEN.
of prisoners. | But -
at that time, as welearned afterward froma credible source, the evac- ■;uation of the fort (whichGeneral Grant’s successes atForts Henry and Donelson had made necessary) was going on, and the lastraft and barge loads of all the movable munitions of war were descendingthe river, which, with a large quantity previously taken away, could andwould have been captured by our fleet if we had received this informationin time. On the 4th of March another reconnoissanee in force w r as madewith all the gun-boats and four mortar-boats, and the fortress had still a for-midable, life-like appearance, though it had been evacuated two days before. J)
J. The ostensible object was a request to permitthe families of officers captured at Fort Donelsonto pass through the Union lines. The request wasgranted on the following day, but G-eneral George W.Cullum (General Halleck’s chief of staff) and Flag-Officer Foote remonstrated with General Polk forthe use made of the flag of truce.— Editors.
]> On the 3d of March the evacuated works hadbeen occupied by a scouting party of the 2d Dli-nois Cavalry, sent from Paducah by Brigadier-General W, T. Sherman, who had succeeded Briga-
dier-General Grant in command of the District ofCairo (February 14, 1862) on the assignment ofGeneral Grant to the command of the District ofWest Tennessee. The fact of the occupation wasnot known at the time of the gun-boat reconnois-sance, which included a land force accompaniedby General Sherman and by Brigadier-GeneralCullum . This detachment landed and took formalpossession. In his report of the occupation, Gen-eral Cullum speaks of Columbus as “the Gibraltar of the West.” See also note, p. 367.— Editors.