Fiske. About six
miles above the Yazoo the Union gunboats encountered the _Arkansas_.
The unarmed ram _Queen of the West_ promptly fled. After a hard
fight the _Carondelet_ was disabled and run ashore, and the _Tyler_
was forced to retire, with the _Arkansas_ in pursuit. The
sharpshooters of the 4th Wisconsin suffered more severely than if
they had been engaged in an ordinary pitched battle, Captain Lynn
and six of his men being killed and six others wounded.

The _Queen of the West_, flying out of the mouth of the Yazoo under
a full head of steam, gave to the fleet at anchor the first
intimation, though perhaps a feeble one, of what was to follow.
Not one vessel of either squadron had steam. The ram _Bragg_,
which might have been expected to do something, did nothing. The
_Arkansas_, so seriously injured by the guns of the _Carondelet_
and _Tyler_ that the steam pressure had gone from 120 pounds to
the square inch down to 20 pounds, kept on her course, and proceeded
to run the gauntlet of the Union fleet, giving and taking blows as
she went. Battered, but safe, she soon lay under the guns of
Vicksburg.

This decided the fate of the campaign, and extinguished in the
breast of Farragut the last vestige of the ardent hope he had
expressed to the government a few days earlier that he might soon
have the pleasure of recording the combined attack of the army and
navy, for which all so ardently longed. The river was falling;
the canal was a failure. Of the officers and men of the army, two
fifths, and of the effective force of the army nearly three fourths,
were on the sick-list. There was no longer any thing to hope for
or to wait on. The night that followed the exploit of the _Arkansas_
saw Farragut's fleet descending the river and once more running
the gauntlet of the batteries of Vicksburg. A flying attempt was
made by each vessel in succession, but by all unsuccessfully, to
destroy the offending _Arkansas_.

On the 24th of July, Williams, with his small force, under convoy
of Farragut's fleet, sailed down the river. So ended the second
attempt on Vicksburg, usually called the first, when remembered.
Its sudden collapse gave the Confederates the river for another
year.

CHAPTER III.
BATON ROUGE.

On the 26th of July, the troops landed at Baton Rouge. In the five
weeks that had elapsed since their departure their effective strength
had been diminished, by privations, by severe labor, and by the
eff