Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 8.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Question. Please describe that affair.

Answer. At six o'clock, on the morning of the twelfth of April, Major Booth sent me word that the rebels were advancing on us. I immediately got the ship cleared for action. I gave the men their breakfasts. I had no idea that there would be a fight. I thought it would merely be a little skirmish. I went out into the stream. Major Booth and myself had previously established signals, by which he could indicate certain points where he would want me to use my guns. He first signalled me to commence firing up what we call Number One ravine, just below the Quartermaster's department, and I commenced firing there. Then he signalled me to fire up Coal Creek ravine Number Three, and I then moved up there. Before I left down here at ravine Number One the rebel sharp-shooters were firing at me rapidly. I came along up, and the women and children, some sick negroes, and boys, were standing around a great barge. I told them to get into the barge if they wanted to save themselves, and when I came down again I would take them out of danger. They went in, and I towed them up and landed them above Coal Creek, where the rebel sharp-shooters commenced firing at them. The next time I moved up Coal Creek ravine I told them to go on up to a house, as the rebels were firing upon them. The trees and bushes around them there probably prevented them from being hit. On knowing that they were fired at much, I kept a steady fire up to about one o'clock. At that time the fire had ceased or slackened, and every thing seemed to be quieting down, and I thought, perhaps, they were waiting to get a little rest. My men were very tired, not having had any thing to eat since morning, and the officers nothing at all. I ran over on the bar to clean out my guns and refresh my men. We had fired two hundred and eighty-two rounds of shell, shrapnel, and canister, and my guns were getting foul. While we were lying on the bar, a flag, of truce came in — the first one. It was, I should judge, about half-past 6 o'clock. While the flag of truce was in, some of the officers came to me and told me the rebels were robbing the Quartermaster's department. I went out on the deck, and saw them doing so. Some of the officers said that we should go in and fire upon them; that we could slay them very nicely. I remarked to them that that was not civilized warfare; that two wrongs did not make a right; and that if the rebels should take the Fort afterward, they would say that they would be justified in doing any thing they pleased, because I had fired on them while the flag of truce was in, although they were thus violating that flag of truce themselves. They were also moving their forces down this hill, and were going up the ravine. When I saw that, I got under way, and stood off for the Fort again, intending to stop it. I had only seventy-five rounds of ammunition left, but I told the boys that we would use that at any rate. The flag of truce started and went out, and I do not think it had been out more than five minutes when the assault was made. Major Bradford signalled to me that we were whipped. We had agreed on a signal that, if they had to leave the Fort, they would drop down under the bank, and I was to give the rebels canister. I was lying up above here, but the rebels turned the guns in the Fort on us — I think all of them — and a Parrott shot was fired, but went over us. I had to leave, because, if I came down here, the channel would force me to go around the point, and then, with the guns in the Fort, they would sink me. Had I been below here at the time, I think I could have routed them out; but part of our own men were in the Fort at the same time, and I should have killed them as well as the rebels. The rebels kept firing on our men for at least twenty minutes after our flag was down. We said to one another that they could be giving no quarter. We could see the men fall, as they were shot, under the bank. I could not see whether they had arms or not. I was fearful that they might hail in a steamboat from below, capture her, put on four or five hundred men, and come after me. I wanted to get down so as to give warning, and I did send word to Memphis to have all steamboats stopped for the present. The next morning the gunboat Twenty-eight and the transport Platte Valley came up.

Question. When did you go ashore after the Fort had been captured?

Answer. I went ashore the next morning, about ten o'clock, under a flag of truce, with a party of men and an officer, to gather up the wounded and bury the dead. I found men lying in the tents and in the Fort, whose bodies were burning. There were two there that I saw that day that had been burned.

Question. What was the appearance of the remains? What do you infer from what you saw?

Answer. I supposed that they had been just set on fire there. There was no necessity for burning the bodies there with the buildings, because, if they had chosen, they could have dragged the bodies out. There was so little wood about any of those tents that I can hardly understand how the bodies could have been burned as they were.

Question. Were the tents burned around the bodies?

Answer. Yes, sir. On the fourteenth of April (the second day after the capture) I came up again. I had a lot of refugees on board, and as I came around I hoisted a white flag, intending to come in and see if there were any wounded or unburied bodies here. When I landed here, I saw, I should judge, at least fifty cavalry over on Flower Island, and while I was lying here with a white flag, they set fire to an empty coal barge I had towed over there. I put the refugees on the shore, took down the white flag, and started after them, and commenced shelling them, and the gunboats Thirty-four and Fifteen and the despatch-boat Volunteer came down and opened on them. We did not see the rebels then, but saw where they were setting