Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

On the Confederate side, the defence of the Mississippi had been entrusted to Beauregard. Taking advantage of the inactivity which the rigors of the season imposed upon McClellan, he had left Manassas with about fifteen thousand men; but he only reached Columbus to learn of the capture of Donelson, and his first act in the exercise of his new authority was to order the evacuation of the fort which had been too hastily called the Gibraltar of the West. He had with him, however, well-trained troops, who took with them the prestige of the Bull Run victory, and were to inspire new ardor in the army of the Mississippi, of which they were destined to form the nucleus. He hastened to reorganize Polk's regiments, which had just left Columbus, and addressed an urgent appeal to his friend General Braxton Bragg. This stern and resolute officer, who was commanding at Mobile, and had already imparted a certain military education to the troops he had assembled there, immediately started for the North with all the forces at his disposal.

Beauregard was fully aware that the fall of Donelson and of Nashville rendered all the defences of the Mississippi above Memphis powerless. It was, therefore, near that city that he prepared a system of works capable of definitely checking the Federals. But to retard their progress, and gain time to finish those works, he had fortified New Madrid and Island No.10. After making what resistance he could, he intended to fall back upon his true line of defence, with the determination to attack the enemy in an open country rather than allow himself to be shut up like Floyd in entrenchments. The six gun-boats of Commodore Hollins, which had arrived from New Orleans to support the army of Beauregard, and to dispute the mastery of the Mississippi with Foote, had taken position between New Madrid and Island No.10.

It is known that the first of these two points lies both below and north-west of the second. The Federals, therefore, in order to take possession of it, could land at a short distance without passing under the fire of the second; and once masters of it, it would be easy for them to riddle any vessel with balls that should