"to
kingdum kum for half a dollar." After sharply cross-questioning the
volunteer, Porter wrote on a scrap of paper, "DEAR SHERMAN,--Hurry up,
for Heaven's sake. I never knew how helpless an iron-clad could be,
steaming around through the woods without an army to back her."

"Where will you carry this?" asked Porter, handing the despatch to the
negro.

[Illustration: Porter's Flotilla on the Red River.]

"In my calabash kiver, massa," responded the messenger with a grin;
and, stowing the paper away in his woolly hair, he darted away.

The telegram being thus despatched, Porter again turned his attention
to the willows; and, a fortunate rise in the water having occurred, he
was able to extricate his vessels and begin his retreat down the
bayou. He was somewhat perplexed by the silence of the Confederates,
from whom he had heard nothing since his mortars silenced their masked
batteries. The conundrum was solved by the sound of wood-chopping in
the forests ahead, and the discovery shortly after of two heavy logs
lying athwart the bayou, and stopping the progress of the vessels. An
hour's hard work with axe and saw removed this obstruction; and the
tug, slipping through first, shot ahead to prevent any more
tree-felling. The loud reports of her howitzer soon carried back to
the fleet the news that she had come up with the enemy, and was
disputing with them the right to the bayou.

The difficulties of the retreat were no less great than those of the
advance, with the intermittent attacks of the enemy added. The work of
removing heavy, soggy logs, half submerged beneath the black waters of
the bayou, clearing away standing trees, and breaking up and removing
Red-river rafts, wearied the sailors, and left them little spirit to
meet the enemy's attacks. The faint sounds of wood-chopping in the
distance told too well of the additional impediments yet in store for
the adventurous mariners. Scouts sent out reported that the enemy had
impressed great gangs of negroes, and were forcing them to do the work
of felling the trees that were to hem in Uncle Sam's gunboats, for the
benefit of the C.S.A. But the plans of the Confederates to this end
were easily defeated. Porter had not only many willing arms at his
command, but the powerful aid of steam. When the gunboats came to a
tree lying across the bayou, a landing party went ashore and fastened
large pulleys to a tree on the bank. Then a rope was passed through
the block; and on