the advance of the army through Tennessee.
Under these circumstances, it cannot be doubted that Foote was
justified in not exposing his vessels to the risks of a closer action;
but to a man of his temperament the meagre results of long-range
firing must have been peculiarly trying.

The bombardment continued throughout the month. Meanwhile the army
under Pope was cutting a canal through the swamps on the Missouri
side, by which, when completed on the 4th of April, light transport
steamers were able to go from the Mississippi above, to New Madrid
below, Island No. 10 without passing under the batteries.

On the night of the 1st of April an armed boat expedition, under the
command of Master J.V. Johnson, carrying, besides the boat's crew,
fifty soldiers under the command of Colonel Roberts of the
Forty-second Illinois Regiment, landed at the upper battery on the
Tennessee shore. No resistance was experienced, and, after the guns
had been spiked by the troops, the expedition returned without loss to
the ships. In a despatch dated March 20th the flag-officer had
written: "When the object of running the blockade becomes adequate to
the risk I shall not hesitate to do it." With the passage of the
transports through the canal, enabling the troops to cross if properly
protected, the time had come. The exploit of Colonel Roberts was
believed to have disabled one battery, and on the 4th of the month,
the floating battery before the island, after a severe cannonade by
the gunboats and mortars, cut loose from her moorings and drifted down
the river. It is improbable that she was prepared, in her new
position, for the events of the night.

At ten o'clock that evening the gunboat Carondelet, Commander Henry
Walke, left her anchorage, during a heavy thunder-storm, and
successfully ran the batteries, reaching New Madrid at 1 A.M. The
orders to execute this daring move were delivered to Captain Walke on
the 30th of March. The vessel was immediately prepared. Her decks were
covered with extra thicknesses of planking; the chain cables were
brought up from below and ranged as an additional protection. Lumber
and cord-wood were piled thickly round the boilers, and arrangements
made for letting the steam escape through the wheel-houses, to avoid
the puffing noise ordinarily issuing from the pipes. The pilot-house,
for additional security, was wrapped to a thickness of eighteen
inches in the coils of a large hawser. A barge, loaded with ba