our smooth-bore light
pieces on the platform of the fort, and six similar pieces in a line
of rifle-pits exterior to and above it. Some trenches had been dug a
mile and a half below the fort, but they were untenable in presence of
the gunboats, which enfiladed and shelled them out.

While the army was moving round to the rear of the fort the admiral
sent up the ironclads to try the range, and afterward the light-draught
Rattler to clear out the rifle-pits, which was done at 5.30 P.M.
Hearing from General McClernand that the troops were ready, the
Louisville, Lieutenant-Commander Owen; De Kalb, Lieutenant-Commander
Walker, and Cincinnati, Lieutenant Bache, advanced to within four
hundred yards of the work and opened fire; the Louisville in the
centre, the De Kalb on the right and the Cincinnati on the left, each
having one of the enemy's casemate guns assigned to it. The vessels
fought bows on, three guns each; the odds being thus three guns afloat
to one in casemate on shore, leaving the advantage by the old
calculation, four to one, rather with the fort, without counting the
light pieces in the latter. When the ironclads were hotly engaged the
admiral brought up the light-draught vessels, with the Black Hawk and
Lexington, to throw in shrapnel and light rifled shell. Later, when the
battery was pretty well silenced, the Rattler, Lieutenant-Commander
Watson Smith, was ordered to pass the fort and enfilade it, which he
did in handsome style, suffering a good deal from the enemy's fire;
when above, however, he became entangled in snags and was obliged to
return. No assault was made this day by the army.

The following day, at 1.30 P.M., the army again being reported ready,
the attack was renewed in the same order by the navy, the artillery on
shore in rear of the fort opening at the same time. The guns opposed
to the fleet were silenced by 4 P.M., when the Rattler and Glide,
with the ram Monarch, Colonel Ellet, pushed by the fort and went up
the river, destroying a ferry ten miles above, so that not over thirty
or forty of the enemy escaped by it. At 4.30 P.M., when the army had
worked its way close to the intrenchments and orders had been issued
for a general assault, but before it could be made, white flags were
displayed on the face of the works. The commanding officer of the
fort, Colonel Dunnington, formerly an officer in the United States
Navy, surrendered to Admiral Porter; General Churchill, commanding the
troop