m setting fire to
the ship by the impossibility of removing the wounded officer.

The Queen and the De Soto each had but one boat, and in the panic that
followed the explosion a party took possession of the Queen's and made
off with it to the De Soto, under the pretext of hurrying that vessel
up to the assistance of her consort; so the remainder of the ship's
company, including her commander, made their escape to the other
steamer on cotton bales. The De Soto sent up her yawl, which took off
one load, getting away just before the Confederates boarded their
prize.

The De Soto now started on a hurried retreat down the river, but
running into the bank she lost her rudder. Deprived of the power of
directing her motions, she was allowed to drift with the stream,
picking up, from time to time, a fugitive on a bale, and was rejoined
by her yawl about ten miles lower down. Shortly after this the parties
fell in with the prize of the morning, when the De Soto was burned and
the hasty flight continued in the Era. The following morning the
Mississippi was reached, and the day after, the 16th, they met the
Indianola eight miles below Natchez.

The Queen of the West had thus passed practically unhurt into
Confederate hands, the manner of her loss giving another instance of
how lack of heed in going into action is apt to be followed by a
precipitate withdrawal from it and unnecessary disaster. Colonel
Ellet's only reason for not burning the Queen was that he could not
remove one of her officers, who had been wounded the day before. If he
had transferred him to the De Soto before going under the battery with
the Queen, the fighting ship, this difficulty would not have existed.
No one seems to have been hurt, by the Union and Confederate reports,
and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Ellet's rashness in
exposing his vessel, though he knew the Indianola was to be sent down,
was not atoned for by sticking to her until he had destroyed her. The
accidents were of a kind most likely to happen, and very simple
appliances that might have been all ready would have ensured her
burning. It is to be remembered, however, that Colonel Ellet was at
this time not twenty years old.

On receiving the news of the disaster, Lieutenant-Commander Brown
decided to go down as far as the mouth of the Red River. The same day
was met off Ellis's Cliff the Confederate gunboat Webb, which had been
lying at Alexandria and had started in hot pursuit of