latter, who was pilot for the
Yazoo, was seriously felt as the Arkansas came up and the order was
given to ram; for the Carondelet was hugging the left bank, and as
the enemy was drawing thirteen feet, the water was dangerously shoal.
She accordingly abandoned the attempt and sheered off, passing so
close that, from the decks of the Tyler, the two seemed to touch. Both
fired their broadsides in passing.

After this moment the accounts are not to be reconciled. Captain
Walke, of the Carondelet, says that he continued the action broadside
to broadside for some minutes, till the Arkansas drew ahead, and then
followed her with his bow guns until, his wheel-ropes being cut, he
ran into the bank, while the ram continued down the river with her
colors shot away. The colors of the Carondelet, he says, waved
undisturbed throughout the fight. On the other hand, Captain Brown, of
the Arkansas, states explicitly that there were no colors flying on
board the Carondelet, that all opposition to his fire had ceased, and
was not resumed as the ram pursued the other vessels; the Arkansas'
flag-staff was shot away. The loss of the Carondelet was 4 killed and
6 wounded; that of the Arkansas cannot well be separated from her
casualties during the same day, but seems to have been confined to the
pilot and one other man killed.

The ram now followed the Tyler, which had kept up her fire and
remained within range, losing many of her people killed and wounded.
The enemy was seen to be pumping a heavy stream of water both in the
Yazoo and the Mississippi, and her smoke-stack had been so pierced by
shot as to reduce her speed to a little over a knot an hour, at which
rate, aided by a favoring current, she passed through the two fleets.
Having no faith in her coming down, the vessels were found wholly
unprepared to attack; only one, the ram General Bragg, had steam, and
her commander unfortunately waited for orders to act in such an
emergency. "Every man has one chance," Farragut is reported to have
said; "he has had his and lost it." The chance was unique, for a
successful thrust would have spared two admirals the necessity of
admitting a disaster caused by over-security. The retreating Tyler was
sighted first, and gave definite information of what the firing that
had been heard meant, and the Arkansas soon followed. She fought her
way boldly through, passing between the vessels of war and the
transports, firing and receiving the fire of each a