est, romantic and powerful, is blending with the majesty of its natural features. New Orleans, Vicksburg, Island No. Ten, have fastened the charm of valor, faith, and patient endurance, for the sake of great principles and the interests of humanity, upon its shores.

Henceforth-to return to our narrative-the short remaining active career of Commodore Foote is confined to his unremitting efforts to clear away the forts and barriers that the enemy had placed upon this pathway of the nation, which the West had decreed should be free, and had consecrated to freedom forever. He expected to do this with his own fleet. He declared more than once that he intended to descend the Mississippi to its mouth; and this accounts for the deliberateness of all his preparations for a task that he knew, better than others, was so great. He fairly began this work, which was finished by Farragut, together with the blows of Grant at Vicksburg, so that the names of the two naval heroes must hereafter be associated with the mighty stream which they were instrumental in opening anew to freedom, sweeping away every obstruction upon its broad waters. He was not permit ted to do all he wished to do, but what he did was genuine work, and was what gave the impulse to final complete success.

After Columbus was made untenable by the breaking up of the first line of the Southern defense, or, in view of this anticipated event, the rebel leaders had pitched upon a position some forty miles below, on the river, at the now famous Island No. Ten, which they fortified with every device of military engineering skill, under the immediate personal supervision of General Beauregard, who had been then recently appointed to the command of the Department of Mississippi.

Island No. Ten* is situated at the turn of a long bend in the

* Below the mouth of the Ohio River the islands in the Mississippi are designated by successive numbers.

river fifty-five miles below Cairo, and by nature and art was perhaps the strongest position on the river. It could not readily be reached by land forces; and field batteries were placed along the shores approaching it for ten or twelve miles commanding the channel, where the current of the Mississippi was so swift and strong that it was with the utmost difficulty that cumbrous iron-clads like those commanded by Commodore Foote, with deficient steam-power, could hold their own; and they had to be managed with the greatest caution, lest, becoming unmanageable, they should drift down under the enemy's batteries. This fighting down stream, with their sterns up stream, or "bow on, and with only the forward guns," in the uncontrollable and sea-like Mississippi, with clumsy arks of boats that were really little more than huge floating batteries, was a very different duty from fighting up stream in the smaller Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, where the boats could be brought into close range, and, if disabled, would of themselves float away from the enemy's reach. Some seventy heavy guns upon the island and its opposite shores were so trained that, though set in batteries wide apart, which necessitated their being assailed separately, they were still enabled to direct their fire simultaneously upon one spot. The whole side of the island fronting the Missouri shore bristled with cannon, and the stream itself narrowed at this point. At Island No. Ten the river, after making a sudden bend, runs to the northwest several miles, and at the turn of the northern bend, where it begins to take once more a southerly direction, at the junction of a large bayou and the Mississippi, is situated New Madrid, on the Missouri shore. In order to prevent the island's being attacked by land forces from the Missouri side, the rebels had strongly fortified at New Madrid, and stationed there a large number of troops, drawn partially from the now abandoned stronghold of Columbus; and they had also fortified a few miles below New Madrid, upon the Tennessee side.

Between New Madrid and Island No. Ten, on both sides of the Mississippi, extend immense swamps or bayous, which forbade military operations, and which also hemmed in the rebel forces themselves, and prevented their escape in case the island should be captured.* It was, in fact, a huge and compli cated system of water-locked defenses, at the centre of which, and guarding the channel of the Mississippi, lay the strong and almost unassailable fort of Island No. Ten, like a dragon of fable, coiled in the heart of its swampy fastnesses; and, to carry out the illustration, belching forth sulphureous flames. In order to completely invest this fortification, it was necessary first to obtain possession of New Madrid, and thus cut it off from below, as the river ran, though really above, geographically speaking. This task was assigned to General John Pope, who proved himself an able and energetic commander, with great resources and perseverance. As early as the 22d of February, General Pope was dispatched by General Halleck from St. Louis, with a considerable body of Ohio and Illinois troops, to attack New Madrid. His transports landed at Commerce, in Missouri; and his main column, toiling through miry swamps, on the same day that Columbus was evacuated (March 3d), appeared before New Madrid, where Pope found to oppose him, in addition to a large rebel force, Hollins's flotilla of gun-boats on the river. He retired out of reach of their cannon, and sent to Cairo for heavy siegeguns. He also planted successfully a battery twelve miles. down the river, at Point Pleasant, in the rear of Island No. Ten. As soon as his heavy artillery arrived, being laboriously dragged through the swamps, after "a quick, sharp siege," in which the Confederates suffered greatly, they fled precipitately, leaving New Madrid in Pope's possession.

* Boynton's "History of the Navy during the Rebellion," vol. i., p. 535. + Lossing's "Civil War in America," vol. ii., p. 239.

The morning that the National troops under General Pope entered New Madrid (March 14), Commodore Foote left Cairo with his fleet, to co-operate with him at Island No. Ten; but before giving an account of his operations at that point, there are a few matters of previous occurrence and some correspondence to be taken notice of.

We mentioned the spirited services of the gun-boats Taylor and Lexington on the Tennessee River, undertaken to prevent the rebels from refortifying at Pittsburg and Chickasaw. This gallant conduct drew forth the lively praise of the flagofficer, who, beyond almost any commander in the war, was generous to render his subordinates their full honor, but it also called forth this sailor-like order:

"CAIRO, March 4, 1862.

"SIR,-I have received your report, and have forwarded it to the Secretary of the Navy, with commendatory remarks. But I give a general order that no commander will land men to make an attack ashore. Our gun-boats have no more men than are necessary to man the guns; and as the army must do the shore work, and as the enemy want nothing better than to entice our men ashore and overpower them with superior numhers, the commanders must not operate ashore, but confine themselves to their vessels. In haste, respectfully, A. H. FOOTE.

"Lieutenant-Commanding Gwin.

"P. S.--Be cautious, as it is an element equally necessary to bravery, and life must not be risked without a prospect of success."

It is but right to presume that if Foote had lived long enough he would have organized the Navy Department of the West into a more homogeneous body, doing its own work more exclusively but effectively, and having its own position and rights more clearly understood, so that the Army would have looked upon it in the light of an ally and equal, not of a mere auxiliary, and that something of the high and united spirit of the American Navy would have been breathed into it. We are perhaps even now inclined to think of the Navy

as confined wholly to the ocean coast, and to forget the immense extent of inland waters over which a well-regulated naval organization should extend; although it is the desire of every patriotic heart that civil war will never again require the services of fighting vessels so far within our own borders. It is to be fervently hoped that the broad realms of North and South, united by the Mississippi River, by nature, by origin, by kinship, by liberty, shall be evermore one happy nation.

The two following letters at this time relating to things immediately past and present betoken much anxiety and despondency of mind, and we insert them for the reason that this is not intended to be a eulogy, but a real life, with its lights and shadows. Yet some of the statements in these letters are important, as coming from a man of strict truth and honesty. The first is addressed to a relative of his family:

"CAIRO, March 9, 1862.

"MY DEAR SIR,-I place a high value on your letter, independently of the source from which it comes, as it is an effort for you to write. I wish I had the time, if I have the ability, to respond by one as good.

"I send Augusta the certificate of the best surgeon here, who is at the head of the Sanitary Committee, relative to my wounded foot, or, perhaps, I might more properly call it a diagnosis. I have pain in my foot; but you will see from the certificate that there is no danger to be apprehended, unless it is to the government from my not being able to give personal attention to my varied duties. Still every moment of my time from seven A.M. till eleven P.M. is occupied with office duties. I am on crutches, and should be happy at the idea of being able to lay them aside.

"I have to work against a good deal of opposition. Not even a Navy officer at home can conceive of the magnitude of my work-navy-yard and fleet duties; and I would not again pass through the mental agony and bodily effort, certainly for all the credit I do or can receive from the public. It is a bitter cup, and I can hardly drink it. It has added ten years to my age, and it is quite enough to break any man down. I do not like the course that has been pursued in regard to me. On the 28th of January I suggested the attack on Fort Henry, and gave my orders