He rained shot and shell all day long upon
Colonel Plummer's batteries, but could not drive him from the position
he had selected. He had made holes in the ground for his artillery, and
the Rebel shot did him no injury. Hollins began at long range, then
steamed up nearer to the batteries, but Plummer's artillerymen, by their
excellent aim, compelled him to withdraw. The next day Hollins tried it
again, but with no better success. The river was effectually blockaded.
No Rebel transport could get up, and those which were at Island No. 10
and New Madrid could not get down, without being subjected to a heavy
fire.

General Mackall determined to hold New Madrid, and reinforced the
place from Island No. 10, till he had about nine thousand troops. On
the 11th of March four siege-guns were sent to General Pope. He
received them at sunset. Colonel Morgan's brigade was furnished with
spades and intrenching tools. General Stanley's division was ordered
under arms, to support Morgan. The force advanced towards the town at
dark, drove in the Rebel pickets, secured a favorable position within
eight hundred yards of the fort. The men worked all night, and in
the morning had two breastworks thrown up, each eighteen feet thick,
and five feet high, with a smaller breastwork, called a curtain,
connecting the two. This curtain was nine hundred feet long, nine feet
thick, and three feet high. On each side of the breastworks, thrown
out like wings was a line of rifle-pits. Wooden platforms were placed
behind the breastworks, and the guns all mounted by daylight. Colonel
Bissell, of the engineers, managed it all. In thirty-four hours from
the time he received the guns at Cairo, he had shipped them across
the Mississippi River, loaded them on railroad cars, taken them to
Sykestown, twenty miles, mounted them on carriages, then dragged them
twenty miles farther, through almost impassable mud, and had them in
position within eight hundred yards of the river! The work was done
so quietly that the Rebel pickets did not mistrust what was going on.
At daybreak they opened fire upon what they supposed was a Union
rifle-pit, and were answered by a shell from a rifled thirty-two
pounder.

It was a foggy morning. The air was still, and the deep thunder rolled
far away along the wooded stream. It woke up the slumbering garrison.
Commodore Hollins heard it, and immediately there was commotion among
the Rebel gunboats. They came to New Madrid. Hollins p