's artillery wasted no ammunition in useless
fire upon the iron-plated boats, and his guns were so shielded by their
position in sunken batteries, back from the edge of the bank, that the
fire of the gunboats passed harmless overhead. The deliberate fire of
sharpshooters from the rifle-pits, however, searching every opened
porthole, pilot-house, and every exposed point, was so annoying that the
fleet withdrew. Every day the gunboats opened upon the position, either
in stationary attack or while passing up and down the river. But, to
avoid the harassing fire from the rifle-pits, they kept, after the first
few attacks, near the opposite shore of the river. The steamboats used
as transports did not venture to pass up or down the river in face of
Plummer's batteries, and the enemy was restricted to the landing at
Tiptonville and boats below for all communication.

[Illustration: New Madrid and Island Number Ten.]

On the 6th, General Pope telegraphed that Colonel Plummer had not yet
been able to effect his lodgement at Point Pleasant, but that the
sharpshooters were trying to drive the artillerymen of the gunboats from
their pieces. Next day, the 7th, General Halleck telegraphed to Pope:
"After securing the roads so as to prevent the enemy's advance north,
you will withdraw your remaining forces to Sikeston, and thence to
Bird's Point or Commerce for embarkation. They will proceed up the
Tennessee to reinforce General C. F. Smith. Good luck." On the same day,
the 7th, General Pope reported by telegraph Plummer's success in
establishing himself, and nothing more was heard about abandoning the
expedition.

General Pope had asked for rifled thirty-twos. General Cullum, Halleck's
chief of staff, who was stationed at Cairo and had immediate charge and
supervision of sending reinforcements and supplies to the armies in
Halleck's department, not finding rifled thirty-twos, obtained three
twenty-four-pounders and one eight-inch howitzer. Colonel Bissell, of
the engineer regiment, who was in Cairo waiting for them, received these
four pieces on March 11th. They were shipped across the river to Bird's
Point, and sent by rail to Sikeston. At Sikeston a detachment from the
company of regular artillery, with horses, as well as the regiment of
engineers, were waiting. The pieces were quickly unshipped and mounted
on carriages. The engineers had such success in repairing the road, and
the artillery in conducting the pieces, that all arr