ank
to be as far as possible out of the enemy's range, and about ten
minutes before she went down sheered in, ran out a hawser, and a plank
by which the wounded were landed. Unfortunately the men who went
ashore with the hawser did not secure it properly, the boat began
drifting out into the stream, and the officers and crew had to swim
for their lives. She sank in three fathoms of water within range of
the enemy's batteries, the second to go down of the seven first built.
The loss was 5 killed, 14 wounded, and 15 missing; supposed to have
been drowned.

The detached expedition to Yazoo City, under Lieutenant-Commander
Walker, had returned on the evening of the 23d. On the approach of the
vessels, the Confederates had set fire to the navy yard and three
steamers on the stocks building for ships of war, one a very large
vessel, 310 feet long by 70 feet beam and intended to carry 41/2-inch
plating. All that had not been destroyed or removed by the enemy the
gunboats finished, the loss being estimated at two million dollars. An
attack was made upon the gunboats at a bend of the river by a small
force of riflemen with three field pieces, but was repelled without
trouble, one man only being killed and eight slightly wounded. The
morning after their return the same vessels were again sent up. One of
the light-draughts, the Signal, met with the curious accident of
knocking down her smoke-stacks, an incident which again illustrates
the peculiar character of this bayou warfare. Sending her back, and
leaving his own vessel, the De Kalb, to follow as rapidly as possible,
Walker pushed on with the Forest Rose, Linden, and Petrel to within
fifteen miles of Fort Pemberton, by which the Yazoo Pass expedition
had been baffled. Here four fine steamers had been sunk on a bar,
stopping farther progress. Having no means of raising them, they were
fired and burned to the water's edge. The vessels then passed down the
Yazoo, burning a large saw-mill twenty-five miles above Yazoo City,
till they came to the Big Sunflower River. They ascended this stream
one hundred and eighty miles, branch expeditions being sent into the
bayous that enter it, destroying or causing the destruction of four
more steamers. Transportation on the Yazoo by the Confederates was now
broken up below Fort Pemberton, while above it a few steamers only
remained.

From this time until the surrender of Vicksburg little occurred to
vary the routine siege operations. Thirt