ct laborers, wheelbarrows, shovels, axes, carts, and scrapers,
and "to make a real canal," to use his own words, "to the depth of
the greatest fall of the river at this point, say some thirty-five
to forty feet." But this was not to be.

Until toward the end of June, the _Polk_ and _Livingston_, the last
vestiges of the Confederate navy on the Mississippi spared from
the general wreck at Memphis, lay far up the Yazoo River, with a
barrier above them, designed to cover the building of the ram
_Arkansas_. This formidable craft was approaching completion at
Yazoo City. The Ellets, uncle and nephew, with the _Monarch_ and
_Lancaster_, steamed up the Yazoo River to reconnoitre. The rams
carried no armament whatever, but this the Confederate naval
commander in the Yazoo did not know; so, unable to pass the barrier,
he set fire to his three gunboats immediately on perceiving Ellet's
approach. On the 14th of July, Flag-Officers Farragut and Davis
sent the gunboats _Carondelet_ and _Tyler_, and the ram _Queen of
the West_, on a second expedition up the Yazoo to gain information
of the _Arkansas_. This object was greatly facilitated by the fact
that the _Arkansas_ had at this very moment just got under way for
the first time, and was coming down the Yazoo to gather information
of the Federal fleet. The _Arkansas_, which had been constructed
and was now commanded by Captain Isaac N. Brown, formerly of the
United States Navy, was, for defensive purposes, probably the most
effective of all the gunboats ever set afloat by the Confederacy
upon the western waters. Her deck was covered by a single casemate
protected by three inches of railroad iron, set aslant like a gable
roof, and heavily backed up with timber and cotton bales. Her
whole bow formed a powerful ram; the shield, flat on the top, was
pierced for ten guns of heavy calibre, three in each broadside,
two forward, and two aft. Had her means of propulsion proved equal
to her power of attack and defence, it is doubtful if the whole
Union navy on the Mississippi could have stood against her
single-handed. The situation thus strangely recalls that presented by
the _Merrimac_, or _Virginia_, in Hampton Roads before the opportune
arrival of the _Monitor_. On board the _Tyler_ was a detachment
of twenty sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin regiment, under Captain
J. W. Lynn, and on the _Carondelet_ were twenty men of the 30th
Massachusetts regiment, under Lieutenant E. A.