, and we soon came to some
large cotton-fields and could see our gunboats in Deer Creek,
occasionally firing a heavy eight-inch gun across the cotton field
into the swamp behind. About that time Major Kirby, of the Eighth
Missouri, galloped down the road on a horse he had picked up the
night before, and met me. He explained the situation of affairs,
and offered me his horse. I got on bareback, and rode up the
levee, the sailors coming out of their iron-clads and cheering most
vociferously as I rode by, and as our men swept forward across the
cotton-field in full view. I soon found Admiral Porter, who was on
the deck of one of his iron-clads, with a shield made of the
section of a smoke-stack, and I doubt if he was ever more glad to
meet a friend than he was to see me. He explained that he had
almost reached the Rolling Fork, when the woods became full of
sharp-shooters, who, taking advantage of trees, stumps, and the
levee, would shoot down every man that poked his nose outside the
protection of their armor; so that he could not handle his clumsy
boats in the narrow channel. The rebels had evidently dispatched a
force from Haines's Bluff up the Sunflower to the Rolling Fork, had
anticipated the movement of Admiral Porter's fleet, and had
completely obstructed the channel of the upper part of Deer Creek
by felling trees into it, so that further progress in that
direction was simply impossible. It also happened that, at the
instant of my arrival, a party of about four hundred rebels, armed
and supplied with axes, had passed around the fleet and had got
below it, intending in like manner to block up the channel by the
felling of trees, so as to cut off retreat. This was the force we
had struck so opportunely at the time before described. I inquired
of Admiral Porter what he proposed to do, and he said he wanted to
get out of that scrape as quickly as possible. He was actually
working back when I met him, and, as we then had a sufficient force
to cover his movement completely, he continued to back down Deer
Creek. He informed me at one time things looked so critical that
he had made up his mind to blow up the gunboats, and to escape with
his men through the swamp to the Mississippi River. There being no
longer any sharp-shooters to bother the sailors, they made good
progress; still, it took three full days for the fleet to back out
of Deer Creek into Black Bayou, at Hill's plantation, whence
Admiral Porter proc