land No. 10, with its frowning bastions and rows of
heavy siege-guns, prepared to beat back all advances of the Union
troops.

[Illustration: Mortar Boats at Island No. 10.]

In planning for the attack of this stronghold, the first difficulty
found by Commodore Foote lay in the fact that his gunboats were above
the batteries. In fighting down stream in that manner, the ships must
be kept at long range: for, should a shot from the enemy injure the
engine or boiler of a gunboat, the vessel is doomed; for the rapid
current will rush her down under the enemy's guns, and her capture is
certain. But the peril of running the batteries so as to carry on the
fight from below seemed too great to be ventured upon; and besides,
even with Island No. 10 passed, there would still be the batteries of
New Madrid to cope with, and the gunboats of the Confederates to
take the ships in the rear. So it was determined that the navy should
begin a bombardment of the Confederate works, while the army under
Gen. Pope should attend to New Madrid. Accordingly, on March 15, the
whiz of a rifled shell from the flagship "Benton" announced to the
Confederates that the North wanted the Mississippi opened for travel.

In this engagement use was made for the first time of a new style of
vessel known as mortar-boats, which in later conflicts on the rivers
did great service. These boats were simple floats, heavily built, and
calculated to stand the most terrible shocks. On the float was raised
a sort of sheet-iron fort or wall, about five feet high; and in the
centre stood one thirteen-inch mortar. The mortar is the earliest of
all forms of cannon, and was in use in Europe in 1435. Its name is
derived from its resemblance to an ordinary druggist's mortar. The
great thirteen-inch mortars used in the civil war weighed seventeen
thousand pounds, and threw a shell thirteen inches in diameter. These
shells were so heavy that it took two men to bring them up to the
cannon's mouth. In the river-service, the mortar-boats were moored to
the bank, and a derrick was set up in such a position that the shells
could be hoisted up, and let fall into the yawning iron pot below.
Foote had fourteen of these monsters pounding away at the
Confederates, and the roar was deafening.

A correspondent of the "Chicago Times," who was with the fleet at the
time of the bombardment, thus describes the manner of using these
immense cannon: "The operation of firing the mortars, whi