Identifier: navalhistoryofun02abbo (find matches)
Title: The naval history of the United States
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Abbot, Willis J. (Willis John), 1863-1934
Subjects: United States -- History, Naval To 1900
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: University of Massachusetts, Boston
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Massachusetts, Boston

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in it, so that the mighty Mississippi brokethrough with a rush, and flooded the country all about. But the fortsseemed as strong and unconquered as ever. While the soldiers were crowded together in the bomb-proofs to escapethe flying bits of shell, the sailors on the little fleet of Confederate vesselsanchored above fehem were busily engaged in getting ready a fire-raftwhich was to float down the river, and make havoc among the vessels ofthe Union fleet. Two such rafts were prepared ; one of which, an immenseaffair, carrying cords of blazing pine-wood, was sent down in the earlymorning at a time when the vessels were utterly unprepared to defendthemselves. Luckily it grounded on a sandbar, and burned and crackledaway harmlessly until it was consumed. This warned Commander Porterof the danger in which his mortar-vessels were of a second attack of thesame nature; and accordingly he put in readiness one hundred and fifty > PC >CCH mmH mz O> gzo Hm mz m m> mO PC t—m> >
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BLUE-JACKETS OF 6t. 737 small boats with picked crews, and well supplied with axes and grapnels,whose duty it was to grapple any future rafts, and tow them into a harmlessposition. They did not have long to wait. At sundown that night, Com-mander Porter reviewed his little squadron of row-boats as they lay drawnup in line along the low marshy shores of the mighty river. The sunsank a glowing red ball beneath the line at which the blue waters of thegulf and the blue arch of heaven seemed to meet. The long southern twi-light gradually deepened into a black, moonless night. The cries of frogsand seabirds, and the little flashes of the fireflies, were silenced and blottedout by the incessant roar and flash of the tremendous mortars that kept uptheir deadly work. Suddenly in the distance the sky grows red and lurid.The fort is burning! cry the men at the guns; but from the mastheadcomes the response, No, the fire is on the river. It is another fire-raft.The alarm was instantly given to all

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