then turning again at New Madrid, making a great bend towards the
southeast, as you will see by the map. The island is less than a mile
long, and not more than a fourth of a mile wide. It is ten or fifteen
feet above high-water mark. The line between Kentucky and Tennessee
strikes the river here. The current runs swiftly past the island, and
steamboats descending the stream are carried within a stone's throw of
the Tennessee shore. The bank on that side of the stream is also about
fifteen or twenty feet above high water.

The Rebels, before commencing their works at Columbus, saw that Island
No. 10 was a very strong position, and commenced fortifications there.
When they evacuated Columbus, they retired to that place, and remounted
the guns which they had brought away on the island and on the Tennessee
shore. They thought it was a place which could not be taken. They held
New Madrid, eight miles below, on the Missouri side, which was defended
by two forts. They held the island and the Tennessee shore. East of
their position, on the Tennessee shore, was Reelfoot Lake, a large body
of water surrounded by hundreds of acres of impassable swamp, which
extended across to the lower bend, preventing an approach by the Union
troops from the interior of the State upon their flank. The garrison at
the island, and in the batteries along the shore, had to depend upon
steamboats for their supplies.

The distance across the lower promontory from the island to Tiptonville,
along the border of Reelfoot Lake, is about five miles, but the distance
from the island by the river to Tiptonville is over twenty miles.

On the 22d of February, General Pope, with several thousand men, left
the little town of Commerce, which is above Cairo, on the Mississippi,
for New Madrid, which is forty miles distant. It was a slow, toilsome
march. The mud was very deep, and he could move scarcely five miles a
day, but he reached New Madrid on the 3d of March, the day on which we
raised the flag on the heights at Columbus.

[Illustration: ISLAND NO. 10.

1 Commodore Foote's fleet.
2 Island No. 10 and Rebel floating-battery.
3 Shore batteries.
4 Rebel boats.
5 2 Forts at New Madrid.]

The Rebels had completed their forts. The one above the town mounted
fourteen heavy guns, and the one below it seven. Both were strong works,
with bastions and angles, and ditches that could be swept by an
enfilading fire. There was a line of intre