e sent word, that, if he had transports and a gunboat, he
could cross to the Tennessee shore and take the batteries in the rear.
The river was very high and the country overflowed. Near New Madrid
there is a bayou, which is the outlet of a small lake. It was determined
to cut a canal through the forest to the lake. Colonel Bissell with his
regiment of engineers went to work. Four steamboats were fitted up, two
barges, with cannon on board, were taken in tow, and the expedition
started. They sailed over a cornfield, where the tall stalks were waving
and swinging in the water, steamed over fences, and came to the woods.
There were great trees, which must be cut away. The engineers rigged
their saws for work under water. The path was fifty feet wide and the
trees were cut off four feet below the surface. In eight days they cut
their way to New Madrid, a distance of twelve miles. In one place they
cut off seventy-five trees, all of which were more than two feet in
diameter.

While this was doing, Commodore Foote kept the Rebels awake by a regular
and continuous bombardment, mainly upon the upper battery. He determined
to capture it.

On the night of the 1st of April, an armed expedition is fitted out from
the squadron and the land forces. There are five boats, manned by picked
crews from the gunboats, carrying forty men of the Forty-second
Illinois, under command of Colonel Roberts. The party numbers one
hundred. It is a wild night. The wind blows a gale from the south,
swaying the great trees of the forest and tossing up waves upon the
swift-running river, which boils, bubbles, dashes, and foams in the
storm. There are vivid lightning flashes, growls and rolls of deep,
heavy thunder. The boats cast off from the fleet. The oars have been
muffled. No words are spoken. The soldiers sit, each with his gun half
raised to his shoulder and his hand upon the lock. The spray dashes over
them, sheets of flame flash in their faces. All the landscape for a
moment is as light as day, and then all is pitch darkness.

Onward faster and faster they sweep, driven by the strong arms of the
rowers and the current. It is a stealthy, noiseless, rapid, tempestuous,
dangerous, daring enterprise. They are tossed by the waves, but they
glide with the rapidity of a race-horse. Two sentinels stand upon the
parapet. A few rods in rear is a regiment of Rebels. A broad
lightning-flash reveals the descending boats. The sentinels fire their
guns, but