. The lieutenant stood his
ground for one day; but then finding himself deserted by his own
fleet, which by this time was up Red River, and the gunboat still
lying, terrible though inert, just above him, he, the next evening,
laid the two XI-inch guns muzzle to muzzle, and so fired them. One
was burst, the other apparently only kicked over. He next threw
overboard two field pieces he had with him, made an attempt to blow up
the vessel, which resulted in destroying the forward casemate and
burning most of the wreck above water, and then fled with his command.

The gunboat which caused all this consternation with such happy
results to the Union fleet was a mock monitor, built upon the hull of
an old coal barge, with pork barrels piled to resemble smoke-stacks,
through which poured volumes of smoke from mud furnaces. She went down
swiftly with the current, passing the Vicksburg batteries just before
daylight, and drawing from them a furious cannonade. As day broke she
drifted into the lower end of the canal, and was again sent down
stream by the amused Union soldiers, who as little as the admiral
dreamed of the good service the dummy was to do. Such was the end of
the Indianola, a striking instance of the moral power of the gunboats.
The Queen of the West was subsequently sent through the Bayou
Atchafalaya to Grand Lake, and there destroyed two months later by the
gunboats of the Gulf Squadron.

When the news of these reverses reached New Orleans, Admiral Farragut,
who had for some time contemplated a movement up the river, felt that
the time was come. On the 12th of March he was at Baton Rouge, where
he inspected the ships of the squadron the next day; and then moved up
to near Profit's Island, seven miles below the bend on which Port
Hudson is situated. On the 14th, early, the vessels again weighed and
anchored at the head of the island, where the admiral communicated
with Commander Caldwell, of the Essex, who for some time had occupied
this station with a half dozen mortar-schooners.

As one ascends the river to Port Hudson, the course pursued is nearly
due north; then it takes a sharp turn to the west-southwest for a
distance of one or two miles. The little town of Port Hudson is on the
east bank just below the bend. The bluffs on which the batteries were
placed begin at the bend, extending for a mile and a half down the
river, and are from eighty to one hundred feet high. From the opposite
bank, at and just below t