St. Louis, Foote's flagship, was struck by a shell that killed the pilot instantly, jamming a spearlike splinter through his chest, then sheared away the wheel and wounded the admiral, breaking his ankle. St. Louis drifted down river, disabled, out of the fight.
In almost the same moment, Pittsburgh's tiller ropes were severed by shore fire. Also out of control, she drifted with the current until she was out of range of the shore batteries. Louisville suffered as well, taking a well-aimed Confederate shot below the waterline, and immediately began to sink in'the middle of the river. Only a few watertight compartments kept her afloat as she struggled to retreat, handicapped by the weight from the river flooding her hull.
At the sight of the fierce, one-sided fight, unarinored Tyler and Conestoga quickly steamed away, leaving Carondelet alone once again to suffer the full effect of the fort's firepower.
"Stay the course," Walke shouted from the gun deck to the pilothouse above.
With smoke from Carondelet's guns fouling the air and cloaking her from eyes on shore, the solitary boat kept up her fire. But soon the wages of war became due again. A shell in the forward port gun misfired, peeling back the end of the muzzle like a banana skin, killing its entire gun crew and pressing the nearby armor outward as if a large boil had fanned on the casemate.
Whistling through the smoke, shells from the Confederate gunners splashed the river all around Carondelet. Eventually a light breeze cleared the air enough for them to walk their fire onto the target.
Projectiles began raining on the boat with great accuracy.
One struck the pilothouse and killed the pilot who had relieved Hoel.
The iron onslaught cut away the Union flag and chipped the armor from the casemate like an axe hacking bark from a tree. After another hodr of seeing his boat battered to pulp a second time without any sign of damage to the enemy, Walke reluctantly gave the order to steam out of range.
Over the past two days, his boat had taken fifty-four direct hits, forty of his crew were either killed or wounded, and the survivors were bleeding from the ears from the constant concussions.
Walke came across a wounded sailor huddled under blankets near a hole smashed in the casemate beside his gun station. "How are you doing, son?" he asked softly.
"I'm a little cold, sir."
"Go down to the boilers and warm up for a spell."
"I can't leave my gun station, sir," the young sailor murmured.
"You can if I order," Walke said, smiling. "Now go."
The sailor needed no further urging. He limped off toward the engine room.
Henry Walke did not look like a tough, hardened naval hero. He was tall, thin, and gaunt, and there was a lost, vacant look in his dark eyes.
His hair was as black as ebony, thick and oddly receding in a straight line back of his forehead. He wore a goatee and could have passed for the twin brother of Benjamin Disraeli, Great Britain's Prime Minister.
Walke finished his damage inspection, climbed into the shattered pilothouse, and spoke to the pilot, William Hoel. "Tie up to the main dock in Caro- I want the wounded on shore and in the hospital as soon as humanly possible. After they've been removed, we will take the boat up the river to the Mound City, Illinois, boatyard."
"She's damaged pretty severely, captain," said Hoel. "Is there enough left for the carpenters to fix?"
"She can be fixed," Walke replied firmly as he stared at his battlewasted gunboat.
He was proud of her and his crew. Carondelet had been the first in and last out of the battle. She was badly scarred, but she would live to fight again.
A few days later, the commander of Fort Donelson surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, who was happy to admit he owed a debt to the gunboat, once he saw how considerably reduced the defenses were from the heroic fire of Carondelet.
Malcolm Chesley worked as a shipwright in the yards at Liverpool, England, before the war. In 1860 he had immigrated to Chicago, seeking work as a cabinetmaker. When the war broke out and it became evident that the Union would need trained carpenters at the Mound City boatyard, he volunteered.
He stood on the dock beside the heavy cherry-wood case containing his precious tools, some nearly a hundred years old and passed down from his grandfather. As he waited for help in carrying them on board, he stared at the odd-looking vessel he had been assigned to repair.
Carondelet was one of seven ironclads built for the river war by a brilliant civil engineer by the name of James BEads, who in 1874 built the first triple-arch steel bridge across the Mississippi River, which is still in use by auto traffic today.
As the clouds of war threatened, Eads proposed building a fleet of ironclad, steam-powered warships to operate against southern opposition on the western rivers. The United States government eventually approved his proposal, and Eads completed the massive project in record time.
Working four thousand men in round-the-clock shifts, he finished the novel vessels in one hundred days, several months before the Monitor and Merrimack duel in Hampton Roads. Carondelet and her six sisters became the first ironclad fleet in the world to enter combat with enemy warships and land fortifications.
Her lyrical name came not from an exotic place but from Baron de Carondelet, the last Spanish governor of Louisiana. His name had been given to the small town where Eads had built her.
Not pretty, but tough and extremely efficient, the Eads ironclads or "Poole Turtles" as they were sometimes called because of their sloped sides, spearheaded General Ulysses Grant's offensive from Fort Donelson to Vicksburg. They fought up and down the Mississippi and on every river from Tennessee to Texas. As if striving for a gold star on an attendance report, Carondelet was present at nearly every engagement from 1862 until late 1864.
Chesley thought the boat unlike any he had ever seen. The hull was rounded on both ends, 175 feet in length and some 50 feet wide.
The displacement was 512 tons, and to maneuver in the shallow waters the boat drew only six feet of water. An oblong casemate sat atop the flat hull. Angled at thirty-five degrees on the sides and forty-five degrees on bow and stern, it was topped out with a flat root Near the front of the boat was an octagonal pilothouse plated with iron and level on the top. Tiny square ports were cut in the iron to see through.
Aft of the pilothouse, twin smokestacks vented the smoke from the six boilers that powered two horizontal, high-pressure engines. Beyond the stacks toward the stern was a rectangular structure with a rounded top that housed the twin interior paddle wheels. Four boats hung from davits, two on each side. Twin rudders were hung for steerageway.
The sloped, armored casemate had gunports with protective shields that could be opened and closed. Through the openings poked thirteen guns, three in the bow, four along each side, and two in the stern.
Chesley studied the heavy damage to the boat by Fort Donelson's guns. It was a bleeding wonder, he thought, she still floated. To his mind, they might as well start over.
A junior carpenter started across the boarding ramp to the forward deck of the boat, and Chesley yelled across to him. "Give me a hand with my tools, will you, mate?"
The man returned and lifted one end of the heavy case. He nodded toward the jagged holes in the armor. "This should keep us busy until next Christmas, don't you think?" "Maybe even Easter," Chesley grunted, lifting his end of the case.
Ten days later, Carondelet rejoined the fleet.
Henry Walke reached into his Pocket and withdrew a worn old pipe.
He filled it from a sealskin pouch containing his favorite Ohio Valley tobacco. Then he began an inspection tour of the engine room.
Finding everything in first-rate order, he turned to his chief engineer.
"Are the repairs to the steam heaters to Your satisfaction?"
"They seem fine, sir. As the other boilers are fired, I'll open the vents and the boat should begin to warm up." The bell in the engine room rang loudly. "That's the pilot," said Walke- "We've cast off from the dock."
The
engineer nodded. "A quarter back," he ordered one of the crew, who immediately gripped a brass lever and notched it downward.
"Inform me if you meet with any problems," said Walke.
"I shall, captain," the engineering Officer said smiling. "You'll be the first I'll complain to."
Walke nodded silently as he lit his pipe.
"May I ask where we're headed?" asked the engineer.
"Island Number Ten," Walke said over his shoulder. "Where we'll stare the devil in the eye."
The Confederate stronghold at Island Ten was the key to the upper Mississippi- The borders between Kentucky and Tennessee were constantly changing, the line on the maps held hostage by the whims of a river that did not recognize state-designated lines. At the time of the battle for river supremacy, Island Ten was inside Tennessee, but just barely.
The island fortress sat almost smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi, barring the Union Navy from unimpeded access around it.
At the Outbreak of the war, the Confederates had wisely constructed a vast complex of forts on the island, eleven in total.
Multiple batteries mounted nearly sixty guns.
In addition, a sixteen-gun man-made floating battery, with pumps to raise and lower its platform, floated above the fortifications.
These powerful batteries, along with a complement of some seven thousand soldiers on the eastern bank, allowed the Confederates to hold deadly control over the upper river.
To win the river war, the taking of Island Ten by Union forces was an absolute necessity.
Below the fortifications, a long line of Union mortar boats had been towed up the river and placed along the bank, hidden by trees along the water's edge. A mortar boat was little more than a floating raft with sloping sides and a huge mortar in the center of the deck.
Piled on all sides were shot and drums of powder. A small hoist lifted the'immense projectile into the stubby barrel.
The men assigned to them would load the massive shells, touch the fuse with fire, and then run out a door and crouch behind a wall on deck. With mouths agape to prevent their eardrums from blowing out and hands cupped over their ears, they would await the blast. Even with such precautions, most of the mortar raft crews went deaf.
At sunrise, the entire Union force opened fire on the island batteries.
Days passed as the assault continued from land and river. The Confederates, who the Union believed would surrender when the gunboats arrived, were comfortably holding out, returning fire whenever they spotted a target.
Union Major General John Pope, in command of an army of twelve thousand men, was encamped on the west side of the river below the island. He thought that if he could transport his troops across river and attack the island from the south, the Confederates would be cut off and have no choice but to fold, placing control of the river in Union hands.
It was a sound plan, but he needed a gunboat to run past the great mass of guns on the island and silence any field artillery that might stop his crossing.
Rear Admiral Foote, in command of the Union gunboat flotilla, was adamantly opposed to the idea. He believed the Confederate guns would tear to pieces any of his boats that made the attempt to run around the island forts.
Only one gunboat captain disagreed with Foote's prediction of doom.
Under a canvas army tent beside the river, the discussion was heated.
"We have to find another way," Admiral Foote argued.
"The mortar barrage is having little or no effect, admiral", General Pope stated truthfully. He sat on a camp stool and rubbed the soles of his black leather boots against each other, flaking off the dark mud, while he stroked his thick beard and sipped from a tin cup containing his favorite tea. "We need suppOrt from the navy. Only then can my troops take the island."
"If I lose any of my boats by their failure to run past sixty guns, then what help have you received?" Foote's fractured ankle from the battle at Fort Donelson was giving him great pain, and his overall health was fading fast from the pressures of command.
Several of his gunboat captains listened carefully without commenting.
Walke also sat listening, staring at the ground, deep in thought.
Then suddenly he looked up and spoke slowly with purpose. "I'm certain I can get Carondelet around Island Ten, admiral. My crew is the most experienced in the fleet. They're no strangers to enemy fire.
If we pass in the dead of night, we stand a good chance of success."
"At least someone in the navy has some spirit," Pope said acidly.
Rear Admiral Foote ignored the remark and stared at Walke. Foote was a kindly-looking man with soft brown eyes. He had worked his way up the ladder to flag officer through experience and wise decisions.
He was well respected by his fellow Officers and superiors. His hair remained dark and natural, but his bristling beard had turned gray.
He was weary from the war that was scarcely a year old.
He leaned forward and clasped his hands. "Your fellow officers do not believe it can be done. Why should I risk the chance of losing you and your crew?"
"Carondelet is a lucky boat, admiral. She's fought in every river battle from here to Belmont and survived. If any boat can do it she can.
I Predict that when this war is won she'll still be afloat. I swear to you that if you allow me to make the passage I will get through.
Foote stared at Walke long and hard, then said quietly, "If I've learned anything during my many years in the navy, it's not to secondguess my commanders. If you feel your boat can make it when every other officer here believes it is madness, then it is a madness I share.
But I have faith in your fervor, Henry, and your dedication. You get Your boat safely past that damned island. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. You can rely on me."
"Good," Foote grunted. "Give them hell."
" General Pope sighed. "Amen."
"Amen, By the fourth of April, preparations were complete In addition to the reinforced casemate, a huge protective shield lashed along the Port side as and cotton bales was let, already homely by design, now from the island's guns. Caronde owherelooked like a floating derelict barhe on a journey to n Walke "Issue the men pistols, rifles, and cutlasses to repel boarders, ordered his first officer, Charles Murphy. "And check to see if the hoses from the boilers are in place."
Walke had ordered the shipwrights to rig lines directly from the steam boilers to the upper decks. If the ship became disabled and the Confederates tried to board and take the boat by hand-to-hand fighting, they would be sprayed with streams of boiling water. Satisfied that he could do no more, Walke gave the order to cast off the mooring lines attached to trees along the riverbank- and the river was At ten o'clock that night, the moon had already set massive spring pitch black, the stars blanketed by thick clouds. A er shower, with drops as large as a baby's fist, splattered onto the thund she pulled from shore. decks of the boat as an nse lightning storm tore the sky. Bolts As if it were an Omen, 'nte jagged shafts, first blue, then yellow, flew from the black heavens in ers on shores Carondelet appeared and then white. To the Union observers arition without substance or body. disappeared like some ghostly appar th ai e On the open top deck, the crew ga ered ound their capt n as h stood with Bible in hand, leading them in prayer. He too took on the look of a wraith as he was briefly illuminated by the lightning. "There she goes," Foote shouted excitedly through his speaking trumpet to the boats moored beside his flagship- oose a curtain through the fleet, the mortar rafts let I As word passed e sound of Carondelet's steam engines. The only of shells to cover the 2athered speed on the dark river was a light inside the gunboat as she - Th the boat was as single lantern deep inside the engine room. e rest Of she steamed toward what many thought was certain black as a crypt as destruction.
6 6 close," Walke said to First Master Pilot Hoel, who We're getting using every bit of his experience to keep the boat in stood at the wheels ay from shoals. It was a nearly impossible job in
the deep water and aw aden with coal dead of night, and the pilot was thankful for the occasional flashes of lightning that showed him the riverbanks.
"We'll be coming alongside the north end of the island about now," said Hoel.
The steam vent that kept the dust in the stacks moist had been diverted into the paddle-wheel housings to silence the loud hiss. As Carondelet passed the Confederates' floating battery, the dry stacks suddenly flared with flame and sparks.
"Man the pumps and extinguish the fire!" Walke shouted down from the pilothouse.
With fire blazing from her twin smokestacks like an erupting volcano gone mad and lit by the flashes of lightning, the boat steamed within range of the mighty Confederate gun batteries. And yet there was no sign that Carondelet had been discovered. No flash of cannon fire cut the night.