boilers let out all the water; the
ammunition gave out and several guns were disabled, one officer and
several men being killed. Lord set the vessel on fire and escaped with
the crew to the banks. On mustering, 9 officers and 23 men were found
out of a crew of 76. Most of those who reached the banks escaped
through the woods to Alexandria. The Covington was riddled, having
received some fifty shots. The disabled Signal was fought with equal
obstinacy by her commander, Lieutenant Morgan, but after the
destruction of the Covington was surrendered, not burned; it being
found impossible to remove the wounded under the fire of the enemy.

The army marched out of Alexandria on the 14th toward Simmesport,
which they reached on the 16th. Having no regular pontoon train, the
Atchafalaya, which is here about six hundred yards wide, was crossed
by a bridge of transport steamers moored side by side; an idea of
Colonel Bailey's. The crossing was made on the 20th, and on that same
day General Banks was relieved by General Canby, who had been ordered
to command the Department of the West Mississippi, with headquarters
at New Orleans. A.J. Smith's corps embarked and went up the river, and
the expedition was over. The disastrous ending and the lateness of the
season made it impracticable to carry out Grant's previous plan of
moving on Mobile with force sufficient to insure its capture.

After the Red River expedition little is left to say, in a work of
this scope, of the operations of the Mississippi Squadron during the
rest of the war. Admiral Porter was relieved during the summer,
leaving Captain Pennock in temporary charge. Acting Rear-Admiral S.P.
Lee took the command on the 1st of November. The task and actions of
the squadron were of the same general character as those described in
Chapter VI. Guerillas and light detached bodies of the enemy continued
to hover on the banks of the Mississippi, White, Arkansas, Tennessee,
and Cumberland Rivers. The Red River was simply blockaded, not
occupied, and much of the Yazoo Valley, having no present importance,
had been abandoned to the enemy. The gunboats scattered throughout
those waters were constantly patrolling and convoying, and often in
action. The main operations of the army being now far east of the
Mississippi, the work and exposure of the boats became greater. Masked
batteries of field pieces were frequently sprung upon them, or upon
unarmed steamers passing up and down; in eith