n; Pittsburg, thirteen guns, Lieutenant W.R.
Hoel; Carondelet, eleven guns, Lieutenant J. McLeod Murphy; Tuscumbia,
five guns, Lieutenant-Commander James W. Shirk. The Lafayette carried
with her, lashed to the other side of her coal barge, the ram General
Price, Lieutenant S.E. Woodworth, which had continued in the service
after being taken from the Confederates at Memphis. After the
Carondelet, between her and the Tuscumbia, came three army transports,
the Silver Wave, Henry Clay, and Forest Queen, unprotected except by
bales of hay and cotton round the boilers. They carried stores, but no
troops.

A month later, and probably at this time also, the river batteries
before which the fleet was to pass contained thirty-one pieces of
heavy artillery and thirteen of light.[18] Among them were eight
X-inch, one IX-inch, and one VIII-inch columbiad, smooth-bore guns;
and eleven rifled guns of a calibre of 6.5 inches and upward.

At 11.10 P.M., the fleet then moving at a speed scarcely exceeding the
drift of the current, a musketry fire began from the upper batteries
of the enemy. At 11.16 the great guns began, slowly at first, but soon
more rapidly. A few moments later a large fire was lit on the point,
bringing the vessels, as they passed before it, into bold relief, and
serving to confuse, to some extent, the pilots of the fleet. Each ship
as she brought her guns to bear on rounding the point, opened her
fire, first from the bow and then from the port battery. The
engagement thus soon became general and animated. The confusion of the
scene was increased by the eddying currents of the river, which,
catching the slowly moving steamers, now on the bow, now on the
quarter, swung them round with their broadside to the stream, or even
threw the bow up river again. Unable to see through the smoke and
perplexed by the light of the fire, the majority of the vessels, thus
cut around, made a full turn in the stream under the guns of the
enemy, and one, at least, went round twice. The flag-ship Benton,
though heavily struck, passed through without special adventure
escaping this involuntary wheel. The Lafayette, in the smoke, found
her nose nearly on shore on the enemy's side, and her coal barge
received a shell in the bow which reduced it to a sinking condition.
The Louisville, next astern, coming up, fouled the Lafayette's
consort, the General Price; which, being already badly cut up by shot
and shell, cast off her fasts and made th