as still sufficiently great.

Justly, then, did it fall to Walke's lot to bear the most conspicuous
part in the following events, ending with the surrender. No less
praise, however, is due to the flag-officer for the part he bore in
this, the closing success of his career. There bore upon him the
responsibility of safe-guarding all the Upper Mississippi, with its
tributary waters, while at the same time the pressure of public
opinion, and the avowed impatience of the army officer with whom he
was co-operating, were stinging him to action. He had borne for months
the strain of overwork with inadequate tools; his health was
impaired, and his whole system disordered from the effects of his
unhealed wound. Farragut had not then entered the mouth of the
Mississippi, and the result of his enterprise was yet in the unknown
future. Reports, now known to be exaggerated, but then accepted,
magnified the power of the Confederate fleet in the lower waters.
Against these nothing stood, nor was soon likely, as it then seemed,
to stand except Foote's ironclads. He was right, then, in his refusal
to risk his vessels. He showed judgment and decision in resisting the
pressure, amounting almost to a taunt, brought upon him. Then, when it
became evident that the transports could be brought through the canal,
he took what he believed to be a desperate risk, showing that no lack
of power to assume responsibility had deterred him before.

In the years since 1862, Island No. 10, the scene of so much interest
and energy, has disappeared. The river, constantly wearing at its
upper end, has little by little swept away the whole, and the deep
current now runs over the place where the Confederate guns stood, as
well as through the channel by which the Carondelet passed. On the
other shore a new No. 10 has risen, not standing as the old one, in
the stream with a channel on either side, but near a point and
surrounded by shoal water. It has perhaps gathered around a steamer,
which was sunk by the Confederates to block the passage through a
chute then existing across the opposite point.

While Walke was protecting Pope's crossing, two other gunboats were
rendering valuable service to another army a hundred miles away, on
the Tennessee River. The United States forces at Pittsburg Landing,
under General Grant, were attacked by the Confederates in force in the
early morning of April 6th. The battle continued with fury all day,
the enemy driving the ce