was given up to the Union forces. Then the
gunboats went farther down the river, and had two hard fights with
Confederate boats, one at Fort Pillow and one at Memphis. Both these
places were captured, and in that way the river was opened all the way
from St. Louis to Vicksburg.

The City of Vicksburg is in the State of Mississippi, about two hundred
miles above New Orleans. Here are high river banks; and these were
covered thick with forts, so that Vicksburg was the strongest place
along the whole stream.

There were also strong forts at Port Hudson, about seventy-five miles
below Vicksburg; and these seventy-five miles were all the Confederates
now held of the great stream. But they held these with a very strong
hand and were not to let go easily.

There were some great events at Vicksburg; and I must tell about a few
of these next.

After New Orleans was taken Farragut took his ships up the river,
running past the forts. He could easily have taken Vicksburg then, if
he had had any soldiers. But he had none, and it took a great army of
soldiers, under General Grant, to capture it a year afterward.

David D. Porter, who had helped Farragut so well in his great fight, was
put in command of the Mississippi fleet. He had a number of iron-clad
boats under him, some of them having iron so thin that they were called
tin-clads.

Commodore Porter had plenty to do. Now he sent his boats up through the
Yazoo swamps, then they had a fight on the Arkansas River; and in this
way he was kept busy.

In February, 1863, he sent two of his boats, the _Queen of the West_ and
the _Indianola_, down past the Vicksburg forts. That was an easy run.
There was plenty of firing, but nobody was hurt. But after they got
below they found trouble enough.

First, the _Queen of the West_ ran aground and could not be got off.
Then the _Indianola_ had a hole rammed in her side by a Confederate boat
and went to the bottom. So there wasn't much gained by sending these two
boats down stream.

But a curious thing took place. The Confederates got the _Queen of the
West_ off the mud, and tried to raise the _Indianola_ and stop its
leaks.

While they were hard at work at this they heard a frightful roar from
the Vicksburg batteries. Looking up stream they saw a big boat coming
down upon them at full speed. When they saw this they put the two big
guns of the _Indianola_ mouth to mouth, fired them into each other to
ruin them, and then ran away. Bu