“We did some great work. We had four steamboats, six coal-barges and four cannons. You see, we were ready to fight as well as work. Besides the Engineer Regiment, we had about 600 fighting men ready for battle.
“But things moved faster than we expected. On the night of April 4th Commander Henry Walke of the _Carondelet_ ran the guns of Island No. 10.
“It was a very dark night and a storm was passing over the river. The _Carondelet_ had been protected in vulnerable parts with coils of hawsers and chains, and a coal barge, loaded with hay, had been lashed to its port side.
“The pipes for the exhaust steam had been led into the wheel-house at the stern, so the puffing of the steam could not be heard.
“About ten o’clock, Commander Walke gave the order to cast off. By the time the _Carondelet_ came opposite the Confederate shore batteries, the flashes of lightning were so vivid that the boat was discovered and the roar of the batteries and the crack and scream of the balls soon mixed with the roar of thunder. But during the pitch-dark moments, between flashes of lightning and in the rain, the Confederate gunners had not time and could not see to aim their guns. They had to fire almost at random.
“So close ran the _Carondelet_ to the island that the men on board could hear an officer shout, ‘Elevate your guns.’
“Away the _Carondelet_ steamed down the black river. No lights on board, except the roaring fire under her boilers, which twice set the soot in her smokestack on fire. She raced past the shore batteries, past the formidable island batteries, past the floating battery below the island. Dozens of cannon-balls were fired at her. One struck the coal-barge and one was found in a bale of hay.
“About midnight, Commander Walke arrived at New Madrid with every man on board safe. What hundreds of men had believed impossible, he and his volunteers had done.
“On the 7th of April, Commander Thompson, of the _Pittsburgh_, also ran the island in safety.
“About the same time we finished our channel and ran boats through it to New Madrid.”
“But, Captain Banks,” the lads asked eagerly, “what happened to the men on Island No. 10?”
“Well, you see,” the captain explained, “they were cut off and had to surrender. Only a few of them got away in dugouts and boats through the swamps on the Tennessee shore.”
