e Pittsburg, and engaged the enemy's
batteries, beginning with the lowest. This was silenced in
three-quarters of an hour, and the others made little resistance. The
Carondelet then signalled her success to the general and returned to
cover the crossing of the army, which began at once. The enemy
evacuated their works, pushing down toward Tiptonville, but there were
actually no means for them to escape, caught between the swamps and
the river. Seven thousand men laid down their arms, three of whom were
general officers. At ten o'clock that evening the island and garrison
surrendered to the navy, just three days to an hour after the
Carondelet started on her hazardous voyage. How much of this result
was due to the Carondelet and Pittsburg may be measured by Pope's
words to the flag-officer: "The lives of thousands of men and the
success of our operations hang upon your decision; with two gunboats
all is safe, with one it is uncertain."

The passage of a vessel before the guns of a fortress under cover of
night came to be thought less dangerous in the course of the war. To
do full justice to the great gallantry shown by Commander Walke, it
should be remembered that this was done by a single vessel three
weeks before Farragut passed the forts down the river with a fleet,
among the members of which the enemy's fire was distracted and
divided; and that when Foote asked the opinion of his subordinate
commanders as to the advisability of making the attempt, all, save
one, "believed that it would result in the almost certain destruction
of the boats, passing six forts under the fire of fifty guns." This
was also the opinion of Lieutenant Averett, of the Confederate navy,
who commanded the floating battery at the island--a young officer, but
of clear and calm judgment. "I do not believe it is impossible," he
wrote to Commodore Hollins, "for the enemy to run a part of his
gunboats past in the night; but those that I have seen are slow and
hard to turn, and it is probable that he would lose some, if not all,
in the attempt." Walke alone in the council of captains favored the
trial, though the others would doubtless have undertaken it as
cheerfully as he did. The daring displayed in this deed, which, to use
the flag-officer's words, Walke "so willingly undertook," must be
measured by the then prevalent opinion and not in the light of
subsequent experience. Subsequent experience, indeed, showed that the
danger, if over-estimated, w