especially by seamen, and the officer who laid these, and was looking
on when the Cairo went down, describes himself as feeling much as a
schoolboy might whose practical joke had taken a more serious shape
than he expected.

The work of removing the torpedoes was continued by the boats under
Lieutenant-Commander John G. Walker, of the Baron de Kalb, formerly
the St. Louis. Two landing-places were at the same time secured. After
the arrival of the admiral the work went on still more vigorously from
the 23d to the 26th of December. A bend in the river was then reached,
which brought the vessels under fire of the forts on Drumgoold's
Bluff. Every step of the ground so far gained had been won under a
constant fire of musketry, which the armored portion of the
light-draught gunboats resisted, but their upper works were badly cut
up. The batteries of the enemy being now only twelve hundred yards
off, the flag-ship Benton took position to cover the lighter vessels,
having to tie up to the bank because the wind blowing up stream
checked the current and threw her across it. She remained in this
position for two hours, receiving the enemy's fire and being struck
thirty times, but without serious injury. Unfortunately her captain,
Lieutenant-Commander William Gwin, a valuable officer, who had
distinguished himself at Shiloh and in the fight with the Arkansas,
was mortally wounded; having, in his anxiety to see how effective was
the fire of the vessels, left the armored pilot-house, saying, with a
noble rashness, that the captain's place was on his quarterdeck.

The army, 32,000 strong, under General W.T. Sherman, had arrived on
the 26th, and landed on the low ground above the old mouth of the
Yazoo, the gunboats occupying the sweep of river around them for a
length of eight miles. Heavy rains had set in, making the ground
almost impassable and causing the water to rise. After various
preliminary operations the troops assaulted the works on the hills in
front on the 29th, but the attack failed entirely. Sherman considered
the works too strong to justify its renewal at the same point, but
determined to hold his ground and make a night assault with 10,000 men
higher up the river, upon the right of the Confederate works at
Haines's Bluff, where the navy could get near enough to try and
silence the batteries. Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet,[14] of the ram
fleet, volunteered to go ahead with the ram Lioness and attempt to
blow up a ra