[25] these batteries, pass by, and take a position where he could enfilade the fort with broadsides. The gunboats opened at a mile and a half distance, and advanced until within three or four hundred yards. The shot and shell of the fleet tore up the earthworks, but did no further injury. But the Confederate guns, aimed from an elevation of not less than thirty feet by cool and courageous hands, sent their shot with destructive power, and overcame all the enemy's advantages in number and weight of guns. The bolts of our two heavy guns went crashing through iron and massive timbers with resistless force, scattering slaughter and destruction through the fleet.1 Hoppin, in his Life of Commodore Foote, says:
The Louisville was disabled by a shot, which cut away her rudder-chains, making her totally unmanageable, so that she drifted with the current out of action. Very soon the St. Louis was disabled by a shot through her pilot-house, rendering her steering impossible, so that she also floated down the river. The other two armored vessels were also terribly struck, and a rifled cannon on the Carondelet burst, so that these two could no longer sustain the action; and, after fighting for more than an hour, the little fleet was forced to withdraw. The St. Louis was struck fifty-nine times, the Louisville thirty-six times, the Carondelet twenty-six, the Pittsburg twenty, the four vessels receiving no less than one hundred and forty-one wounds. The fleet, gathering itself together, and rendering mutual help to its disabled members, proceeded to Cairo to repair damages.The loss of the enemy was fifty-four killed and wounded. The report of Major Gilmer, who laid out these works, says:
Our batteries were uninjured, and not a man in them killed. The repulse of the gunboats closed the operations of the day, except a few scattering shots along the land defenses.In consequence of reenforcements to the enemy, the plan of operations for the next day was determined by the Confederate generals about midnight. The whole of the left wing of the army, except eight regiments, was to move out of the trenches, attack, turn, and drive the enemy's right until the Wynn's Ferry road, which led to Charlotte through a good country, was cleared, and an exit thus secured. The troops, moving in the small hours of the night over the icy and broken roads, which wound through the obstructed area of defense, made slow progress, and delayed the projected operations. At 4 A. M. on the 15th, Pillow's troops were ready, except one brigade, which came late into action. By six o'clock Baldwin's brigade was engaged with the enemy, only two or three hundred yards from his lines, and the bloody contest of the day had begun. At one o'clock the enemy's right was doubled back. The Wynn's Ferry road was cleared, and it remained only
