the control of the
river. The island, which has its name (if it can be called a name)
from its position in the numerical series of islands below Cairo, is
just abreast the line dividing Kentucky from Tennessee. The position
was singularly strong against attacks from above, and for some time
before the evacuation of Columbus the enemy, in anticipation of that
event, had been fortifying both the island and the Tennessee and
Missouri shores. It will be necessary to describe the natural features
and the defences somewhat in detail.

From a point about four miles above Island No. 10 the river flows
south three miles, then sweeps round to the west and north, forming a
horse-shoe bend of which the two ends are east and west from each
other. Where the first horse-shoe ends a second begins; the river
continuing to flow north, then west and south to Point Pleasant on the
Missouri shore. The two bends taken together form an inverted S
[inverted S]. In making this detour, the river, as far as Point
Pleasant, a distance of twelve miles, gains but three miles to the
south. Island No. 10 lay at the bottom of the first bend, near the
left bank. It was about two miles long by one-third that distance
wide, and its general direction was nearly east and west. New Madrid,
on the Missouri bank, is in the second bend, where the course of the
river is changing from west to south. The right bank of the stream is
in Missouri, the left bank partly in Kentucky and partly in Tennessee.
From Point Pleasant the river runs southeast to Tiptonville, in
Tennessee, the extreme point of the ensuing operations.

When Columbus fell the whole of this position was in the hands of the
Confederates, who had fortified themselves at New Madrid, and thrown
up batteries on the island as well as on the Tennessee shore above it.
On the island itself were four batteries mounting twenty-three guns,
on the Tennessee shore six batteries mounting thirty-two guns. There
was also a floating battery, which, at the beginning of operations,
was moored abreast the middle of the island, and is variously reported
as carrying nine or ten IX-inch guns. New Madrid, with its works, was
taken by General Pope before the arrival of the flotilla.

The position of the enemy, though thus powerful against attack, was
one of great isolation. From Hickman a great swamp, which afterward
becomes Reelfoot Lake, extends along the left bank of the Mississippi,
discharging its waters into the r