ons. The heavy
rifled gun bursts, crushing and killing those who serve it. The
flagstaff is splintered and torn, as by intensest lightning.

Yet the fort replies. The gunners have the range of the boats, and
nearly every shot strikes the iron plating. They are like the strokes of
sledge-hammers, indenting the sheets, starting the fastenings, breaking
the tough bolts. The Cincinnati receives thirty-one shots, the Essex
fifteen, the St. Louis seven, and the Carondelet six.

Though struck so often, they move on. The distance lessens. Another gun
is knocked from its carriage in the fort,--another,--another. There are
signs that the contest is about over, that the Rebels are ready to
surrender. But a shot strikes the Essex between the iron plates. It
tears through the oaken timbers and into one of the steam-boilers. There
is a great puff of steam. It pours from the portholes, and the boat is
enveloped in a cloud. She drops out of the line of battle. Her engines
stop and she floats with the stream. Twenty-eight of her crew are
scalded, among them her brave commander.

The Rebels take courage. They spring to their guns, and fire rapidly and
wildly, hoping and expecting to disable the rest of the fleet. But the
Commodore does not falter; he keeps straight on as if nothing had
happened. An eighty-pound shell from the Cincinnati dismounts a gun,
killing or wounding every gunner. The boats are so near that every shot
is sure to do its work. The fire of the boats increases while the fire
of the fort diminishes. Coolness, determination, energy, perseverance,
and power win the day. The Rebel flag comes down, and the white flag
goes up. They surrender. Cheers ring through the fleet. A boat puts out
from the St. Louis. An officer jumps ashore, climbs the torn embankment,
stands upon the parapet and waves the Stars and Stripes. "Hurrah!
hurrah! hurrah!" You hear it echoing from shore to shore.

General Lloyd Tilghman commanded in the fort. He went on board the
flag-ship.

"What terms do you grant me?" he asked.

"Your surrender must be unconditional, sir. I can grant you no other
terms."

"Well, sir, if I must surrender, it gives me pleasure to surrender to so
brave an officer as you."

"You do perfectly right to surrender, sir; but I should not have done it
on any condition."

"Why so? I do not understand you."

"Because I was fully determined to capture the fort or go to the
bottom."

"I thought I had you, Commodore, bu