Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[202] assigned to her as a helpmate; then came the Monongahela, fastened to the gunboat Kineo; last of all came the Mississippi, which, being a side-wheeler, could not take a gunboat alongside with advantage.

The position of Port Hudson rendered this attempt extremely difficult. The village is situated on the left bank of the Mississippi, on the summit of a cliff forming a semicircle which encompasses a large angle of the river: on the opposite side a low sandy point, called Thompson's Point, stretches out to the centre of this semicircle, driving the principal current against the foot of the acclivity, the lower part of which is gradually crumbling away in consequence of the continuous action of the waters; a number of Confederate batteries were erected from the edge of the water to the foot of the slope, while others crowned the summit of the cliff. If you seek to avoid the current, you are carried by the eddies over the shoals of Thompson's Point; if you bear to the eastward in order to double this promontory, you run the risk of being thrown by the force of the water against the steep bank on the right side of the river. Navigation at this place is at all times difficult. How much more must it be, then, in the midst of the inevitable confusion of a night-combat! In order that the pilot of his vessel might be the better able to direct her course by keeping clear of the smoke, Farragut had placed him in the mizzentop, and had constructed a long tube by means of which orders could be transmitted directly to the tiller.

The fleet was slowly ascending the river, carefully hiding all its fires, and the Hartford had already passed the first batteries, when a rocket thrown by some Confederate sentry on the right bank rose suddenly in the air. Before its luminous track had disappeared a cannon-ball, fired from the opposite side, strikes the water in front of the Hartford: the Federals are discovered, and the fight is about to commence. It is twenty minutes past eleven when the flotilla of mortar-boats opens fire in its turn, and the sky is soon furrowed by the large thirteen-inch shells which presently fall in the midst of the enemy's works. Shortly after an immense fire is kindled on Thompson's Point, and Farragut's vessels, standing out in the darkness like so many fantastic Chinese figures, present in this sinister light large targets to the welltained