batteries the
Fawn received a shot through her pilot-house, killing the pilot and
carrying away the bell gear, at the same time ringing the engine-room
bell, causing the engineers to stop the boat under fire. Some little
delay ensued in fixing the bells, the paymaster took the wheel, and
the Fawn, having another shot in the pilot-house, passed on. As soon
as the Tyler and Naumkeag were below they turned and steamed up again,
delivering a deliberate fire as they passed, in the midst of which the
enemy ran off, leaving behind them most of their captures, including a
light gun taken from the Queen City. The boats were struck twenty-five
times, and lost 3 killed and 15 wounded. The Queen City had been taken
by surprise, and her engines disabled at the first fire. She lost 2
killed and 8 wounded, including her commander; and, while many of her
crew escaped to the opposite bank, many were taken prisoners.

The main course of the war in the West having now drifted away from
the Mississippi Valley to the region south and southeast of Nashville,
embracing Southern and Eastern Tennessee and the northern parts of
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the convoy and gunboat service on
the Tennessee and Cumberland assumed new importance. An eleventh
division was formed on the upper waters of the Tennessee, above Muscle
Shoals, under the command of Lieutenant Moreau Forrest;
Lieutenant-Commander Shirk had the lower river, and Fitch still
controlled the Cumberland. When Hood, after the fall of Atlanta, began
his movement toward Tennessee in the latter part of October, General
Forrest, the active Confederate cavalry leader, who had been stationed
at Corinth with his outposts at Eastport and on the Tennessee River,
moved north along the west bank, and with seventeen regiments of
cavalry and nine pieces of artillery appeared on the 28th before Fort
Heiman, an earthwork about seventy-five miles from Paducah. Here he
captured two transports and a light-draught called the Undine. On the
2nd of November he had established batteries on the west bank both
above and below Johnsonville, one of the Union army's bases of
supplies and a railway terminus, thus blockading the water approach
and isolating there eight transports, with barges, and three
light-draughts, the Key West, Elfin, and Tawah. Nevertheless, the
three boats went down and engaged the lower battery, and though they
found it too strong for them they retook one of the transports.
Meanti