There Were Left
There One Regiment And One Colonel, Who Kindly Described To Us The
Battles He Had Fought, And Gave Us Permission To See Everything That
Was To Be Seen.
Four of these gun-boats were still lying in the
Ohio, close under the terminus of the railway, with
Their flat, ugly
noses against the muddy bank; and we were shown over two of them.
They certainly seemed to be formidable weapons for river warfare,
and to have been "got up quite irrespective of expense." So much,
indeed, may be said for the Americans throughout the war. They
cannot be accused of parsimony. The largest of these vessels,
called the "Benton," had cost 36,000l. These boats are made with
sides sloping inward at an angle of forty-five degrees. The iron is
two and a half inches thick, and it has not, I believe, been
calculated that this will resist cannon-shot of great weight, should
it be struck in a direct line. But the angle of the sides of the
boat makes it improbable that any such shot should strike them; and
the iron, bedded as it is upon oak, is supposed to be sufficient to
turn a shot that does not hit it in a direct line. The boats are
also roofed in with iron; and the pilots who steer the vessel stand
incased, as it were, under an iron cupola. I imagine that these
boats are well calculated for the river service, for which they have
been built. Six or seven of them had gone up the Tennessee River
the day before we reached Cairo; and while we were there they
succeeded in knocking down Fort Henry, and in carrying off the
soldiers stationed there and the officer in command. One of the
boats, however, had been penetrated by a shot, which made its way
into the boiler; and the men on deck - six, I think, in number - were
scalded to death by the escaping steam. The two pilots up in the
cupola were destroyed in this terrible manner. As they were
altogether closed in by the iron roof and sides, there was no escape
for the steam. The boats, however, were well made and very
powerfully armed, and will probably succeed in driving the
secessionist armies away from the great river banks. By what
machinery the secessionist armies are to be followed into the
interior is altogether another question.
But there was also another fleet at Cairo, and we were informed that
we were just in time to see the first essay made at testing the
utility of this armada. It consisted of no less than thirty-eight
mortar-boats, each of which had cost 1700l. These mortar-boats were
broad, flat-bottomed rafts, each constructed with a deck raised
three feet above the bottom. They were protected by high iron sides
supposed to be proof against rifle-balls, and, when supplied, had
been furnished each with a little boat, a rope, and four rough
sweeps or oars.
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