ed along the
shore, from about a mile and a half below New Madrid down to
Tiptonville. But General McCown, when turning over the command to
General W.W. Mackall, who relieved him on March 31st, said to him that
the National troops were endeavoring to cut a canal across the
peninsula, but they would fail, and that Mackall would find the position
safe until the river fell, but no longer.

The task which General Pope had proposed to himself--to cross a wide,
deep, rapid river, in the face of an enemy holding the farther shore in
force, was sufficiently arduous at first. Now that Captain Gray's
industry had lined the river-shore with batteries armed with
twenty-four, thirty-two, and sixty-four pound guns, and eight-inch
howitzers and columbiads, sufficient to blow out of the water any
unarmed steamer that should venture to cross, the task was impracticable
with his present resources. He applied to Commodore Foote, and urgently
repeated the application, for two gunboats, or even one, to be sent down
the river some dark night to engage these batteries below New Madrid.
But the Commodore was not willing to risk his boats in a voyage along
the front of miles of batteries, and declined. On March 28th Halleck
telegraphed: "I have telegraphed to Commodore Foote to give you all the
aid in his power. You have a difficult problem to solve. I will not
embarrass you with instructions. I leave you to act as your judgment may
deem best."

Pope set to work to make floating-batteries, to be manned by his troops.
Each battery consisted of three heavy barges, lashed together and bolted
with iron. The middle barge was bulkheaded all around, so as to have
four feet of thickness of solid timber at both the ends and the sides.
Three heavy guns were mounted on it and protected by traverses of
sand-bags. It also carried eighty sharpshooters. The barges outside of
it had a first layer, in the bottom, of empty water-tight barrels,
securely lashed, then layers of dry cotton-wood rails and cotton-bales
packed close. These were floored over at the top to keep everything in
place, so that a shot penetrating the outer barges would have to pass
through twenty feet of rails and cotton before reaching the middle one,
which carried the men and guns. The outer barges, thus bulkheaded with
water-tight barrels and buoyant cotton-bales, could not sink. These
barges, when all was ready, were to be towed by steamers to a point
directly opposite New Madrid. This