g. Away they go, picking up one here, another there,--ten or
twelve in all. A few reach the shore and are helped up the bank by
lookers-on; but fifty or sixty sink to rise no more. How noble the act!
How glorious! Bright amid all the distress, all the horror, all the
infamous conduct of men who have forsworn themselves, will shine
forever, like a star of heaven, this act of humanity!

The General Price, General Beauregard, Little Rebel, and General
Lovell--one half of the Rebel fleet--were disposed of. The other vessels
attempted to flee. The Union fleet had swept steadily on in an unbroken
line. Amid all the appalling scenes of the hour there was no lull in the
cannonade. While saving those who had lost all power of resistance,
there was no cessation of effort to crush those who still resisted.

A short distance below the Little Rebel, the Jeff Thompson, riddled by
shot, and in flames, was run ashore. A little farther down-stream the
General Bragg was abandoned, also in flames from the explosion of a
nine-inch shell, thrown by the St. Louis. The crews leaped on shore, and
fled to the woods. The Sumter went ashore, near the Little Rebel. The
Van Dorn alone escaped. She was a swift steamer, and was soon beyond
reach of the guns of the fleet.

The fight is over. The thunder of the morning dies away, and the birds
renew their singing. The abandoned boats are picked up. The Jeff
Thompson cannot be saved. The flames leap around the chimneys. The
boilers are heated to redness. A pillar of fire springs upward, in long
lances of light. The interior of the boat--boilers, beams of iron,
burning planks, flaming timbers, cannon-shot, shells--is lifted five
hundred feet in air, in an expanding, unfolding cloud, filled with loud
explosions. The scattered fragments rain upon forest, field, and river,
as if meteors of vast proportions had fallen from heaven to earth,
taking fire in their descent. There is a shock which shakes all Memphis,
and announces to the disappointed, terror-stricken, weeping, humiliated
multitude that the drama which they have played so madly for a
twelvemonth is over, that retribution for crime has come at last!

Thus in an hour's time the Rebel fleet was annihilated. Commodore
Montgomery was to have sent the Union boats to the bottom; but his
expectations were not realized, his promises not fulfilled. It is not
known how many men were lost on the Rebel side, but probably from eighty
to a hundred. Colonel Ell