les of
hay, was made fast on the port quarter of the vessel, to protect the
magazine.

The moon set at ten o'clock, and then too was felt the first breath of
a thunder-storm, which had been for some time gathering. The
Carondelet swung from her moorings and started down the stream. The
guns were run in and ports closed. No light was allowed about the
decks. Within the darkened casemate or the pilot-house all her crew,
save two, stood in silence, fully armed to repel boarding, should
boarding be attempted. The storm burst in full violence as soon as her
head was fairly down stream. The flashes of lightning showed her
presence to the Confederates who rapidly manned their guns, and whose
excited shouts and commands were plainly heard on board as the boat
passed close under the batteries. On deck, exposed alike to the storm
and to the enemy's fire, were two men; one, Charles Wilson, a seaman,
heaving the lead, standing sometimes knee-deep in the water that
boiled over the forecastle; the other, an officer, Theodore Gilmore,
on the upper deck forward, repeating to the pilot the leadsman's
muttered "No bottom." The storm spread its sheltering wing over the
gallant vessel, baffling the excited efforts of the enemy, before
whose eyes she floated like a phantom ship; now wrapped in
impenetrable darkness, now standing forth in the full blaze of the
lightning close under their guns. The friendly flashes enabled her
pilot, William E. Hoel, who had volunteered from another gunboat to
share the fortunes of the night, to keep her in the channel; once
only, in a longer interval between them, did the vessel get a
dangerous sheer toward a shoal, but the peril was revealed in time to
avoid it. Not till the firing had ceased did the squall abate.

The passage of the Carondelet was not only one of the most daring and
dramatic events of the war; it was also the death-blow to the
Confederate defence of this position. The concluding events followed
in rapid succession. Having passed the island, as related, on the
night of the 4th, the Carondelet on the 6th made a reconnoissance down
the river as far as Tiptonville, with General Granger on board,
exchanging shots with the Confederate batteries, at one of which a
landing was made and the guns spiked. That night the Pittsburg also
passed the island, and at 6.30 A.M. of the 7th the Carondelet got
under way, in concert with Pope's operations, went down the river,
followed after an interval by th