THE UNITED STATES STEAMER “MISSISSIPPI” ATTEMPTING TO RUN DOWN THE CONFEDERATE RAM “MANASSAS.”
MAJOR-GENERAL MANSFIELD LOVELL, C. S. A.
clear, steamed about four miles up the river, and was beached on the opposite bank, fired, and deserted. Her wreck is there now. Having but one gun, and that mounted aft, she did not fire it. Soon after the Stonewall Jackson struck the Varuna the latter finished sinking, leaving her topgallant forecastle out of the water, and upon it her crew took refuge.
The United States ships Oneida, Iroquois, Pensacola, Finóla, and Cayuga were now rapidly approaching and near at hand. I started down-stream to meet and try to ram one of them. On passing abreast the Varuna some thoughtless man, knowing her forecastle rifle was loaded, fired it and killed and wounded five of our men, one officer included. Had I returned the fire with our after gun, which was loaded with canister, at the crowd of people closely packed upon and near that little shelf, the damage to life and limb would have been fearful. But not a shot did we fire at her after she was disabled.
We had proceeded down-stream but a short distance when Mr. Duke, the first lieutenant, then at conn, where, though wounded, he had remained throughout the fight doing his duty like a brave man, exclaimed, “Why do this? We have no men
left; I '11 be-if I stand here to be murdered,”
so he slapped the helm hard-a-starboard. As we came round, the enemy’s ships, being near, fired a shower of heavy projectiles which struck the vessel in every part. One gun was dismounted. The boats had already been destroyed. The wheel-ropes, the head of the rudder, the slide of the engine, and a large piece of the walking-beam were shot away; the latter fell on the cylinder-head and cracked it, and filled the engine-room with steam, driving every man out of it. The head of the jib was now hoisted, and with a strong current on the port bow, assisted by the headway left on the vessel, we succeeded in reaching the river-bank just above the Varuna’s wreck, where the anchor was let go to prevent drifting into deep water to sink, the last heavy firing having struck the vessel on and under her water-line. At this place she was
striking the Varuna’s pivot-gun, where it broke or burst, and killed and wounded several men. Until we had finished reloading, the Varuna was undecided what to do, when suddenly and to my surprise she ported her helm.
Not wishing to avoid her fire any longer, being quite near to her, we put our helm to port and received the fire from her pivot-gun and rifles in our port bow, but as her shot struck us, under the cover of the smoke our helm was put hard to starboard,— she not righting hers quickly enough,— and before she could recover herself, we rammed her near the starboard gangway, receiving her starboard broadside and delivering our one shot as we struck her. Her engines stopped suddenly. We backed clear, gathered headway again, and rammed her a second time as near the same place as possible. Before separating, the two vessels dropped alongside each other for a couple of minutes and exchanged musket and pistol shots to some injury to their respective crews, but neither vessel fired a large gun. I expected to be boarded at this time and had had the after gun loaded with a light charge and three stand of eanister, and pointed fore and aft ready for either gangway. It was an opportunity for the Varuna’s two hundred men to make a second Paul Jones of their commander, but it was not embraced. As for ourselves, we had neither the men to board nor to repel boarders. The vessels soon parted, hostilities between them ceased, and the Varuna was beached to prevent her sinking in deep water. Then, and not until then, did the Varuna’s people know that any other Confederate vessel than mine was within several miles of her. Suddenly the ram Stonewall Jackson, having to pass the Varuna to reach New Orleans, rammed deep into the latter’s port gangway. When close upon her, the Varuna delivered such of her port broadside guns as could be brought to bear. The Stonewall Jackson backed
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Commander oi Confederate Department No. 1, with headquarters at New Orleans.
to a lower figure than that of our two guns, for we, having assumed the offensive, had the advantage, and maintained it until she sank.
Our hoped-for and expected aid never came from any source. So far from it, the gun-boat Jackson, lying at quarantine, slipped her cable when the fight commenced, firing two shots at both of us, believing us both enemies (one striking our foremast), and started with all haste for the head-waters of the Mississippi, delaying at New Orleans long enough for her people with their baggage to be landed, when Lieutenant F. B. Renshaw, her commander, burnt her at the levee! The infantry at Chalmette camp could not help us, and the “ram” Stonewall Jackson, as it then seemed to us, would not!
Then I saw that we had to fight the Varuna alone. On finding our bow-gun useless because it was mounted too far abaft the knight-heads to admit of sufficient depression to hull the enemy, then close under our bows, and noting that every shell from the enemy struck us fair, raking the decks, killing former wounded and well men, and wounding others, I realized that something had to be done and that quickly. I then depressed the bow-gun to a point inside our bow and fired it, hoping to throw its shell into the engine-room or boiler of the chase. It went through our deck all right, but struck the hawse-pipe, was deflected, and passed through the Varuna’s smoke-stack. It was soon fired again through this hole in our bows, the shell
destroyed by fire, her colors burning at her peak. The	MELANCTON SMITH,
vessel was	REAR-ADMIRAL, U. 8. N.
not disabled	In command of the “ ]Mississippi.”
until	this	Drawn from a photograph.
last attack upon her, although much cut up. By it no one on the Governor Moore outside the cotton bulkhead protection to the engine, except those in the magazine- and shell-room, escaped being struck by shot, bullets, or splinters. Additional men were killed, several more of the wounded were killed, and others wounded. It should be remembered that my vessel had been under a terrific fire for 3 hours, in a narrow river with unruffled surface, and at close quarters, from vessels [the Oneida, Cayuga, Pensacola, and Varuna'] mounting in the aggregate over 30 of the heaviest guns afloat. Out of 93 all told we lost 57 killed and 17 wounded, of whom 4 died in the hospital.
NEW ORLEANS BEFORE THE CAPTURE.
BY GEORGE W. CABLE.
The famous novelist, author of “ Old Creole Days,” etc., was a lad in New Orleans at the time of the capture, and later served in Company I, 4tli Mississippi Cavalry (Confederate).
. . . There had come a great silence upon trade. Long ago the custom-warehouses had begun to show first a growing roominess, then emptiness, and then had remained shut, and the iron bolts and cross-bars of their doors were gray with cobwebs. One of them, in which I had earned my first wages as a self-supporting lad, had been turned into a sword-bayonet factory, and I had been turned out. For some time later the Levee had kept busy; but its stir and noise had gradually declined, faltered, turned into the commerce of war and the clatter of calkers and ship-carpenters, and faded out. Both receipts and orders from the interior country had shrunk and shrunk, and the