fastenings. The Monongahela
remained aground for twenty-five minutes, when the Kineo succeeded in
getting her off. She then attempted again to run the batteries, but when
near the turn a crank-pin became heated and the engines stopped. Being
now unmanageable, she drifted down stream and out of action, having lost
six killed and twenty-one wounded. The Mississippi also struck on the
shoal, close to the bend, when she was going very fast, and defied every
effort to get her off. After working for thirty-five minutes, finding
that the other ships had passed off the scene leaving her unsupported,
while three batteries had her range and were hulling her constantly, the
commanding officer ordered her to be set on fire. The three boats that
alone were left capable of floating were used to land the crew on the
west bank; the sick and wounded being first taken, the captain and first
lieutenant leaving the ship last. She remained aground and in flames
until three in the morning, when she floated and drifted down stream,
fortunately going clear of the vessels below. At half-past five she blew
up. Out of a ship's company of two hundred and ninety-seven, sixty-four
were found missing, of whom twenty-five were believed to be killed.

In his dispatch to the Navy Department, written the second day after
this affair, the admiral lamented that he had again to report disaster
to a part of his command. A disaster indeed it was, but not of the kind
which he had lately had to communicate, and to which the word "again"
seems to refer; for there was no discredit attending it. The stern
resolution with which the Hartford herself was handled, and the
steadiness with which she and her companion were wrenched out of the
very jaws of destruction, offer a consummate example of professional
conduct; while the fate of the Mississippi, deplorable as the loss of so
fine a vessel was, gave rise to a display of that coolness and
efficiency in the face of imminent danger which illustrate the annals of
a navy as nobly as do the most successful deeds of heroism.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the failure to pass the
batteries, by nearly three fourths of the force which the admiral had
thought necessary to take with him, constituted a very serious check to
the operations he had projected. From Port Hudson to Vicksburg is over
two hundred miles; and while the two ships he still had were sufficient
to blockade the mouth of the Red River--the chief line