The Lure Of The Mississippi Part 22

The steamer was on the Ohio when the earthquake occurred, but when the boat reached the Mississippi, the pilot became much alarmed and said he was lost. The sh.o.r.es had changed and large islands had disappeared.

The naturalist, Audubon, felt the earthquake in Kentucky and wrote an account of it in his journal.

The shocks were most severe over a distance of about one hundred miles from Cairo to Memphis and over a width of about fifty miles. They were felt at St. Louis and New Orleans, Detroit, Washington, and Boston. They were undoubtedly felt as far up the great river as St. Paul and Minneapolis, but that region was at the time still an unsettled Indian country.

Although the earthquake was one of the most severe in the United States, few lives were lost. The country around New Madrid was at that time thinly settled and most of the houses were small and built of wood. It is, however, not surprising that many settlers left the country, for the shocks continued from time to time until the early part of May, 1812.

CHAPTER XIX-PAST ISLAND NUMBER TEN

Below Cairo the mighty river becomes still mightier and winds with countless curves and bends this way and that way through rich lowlands from ten to forty miles wide. On a stretch of three hundred and fifty miles, twice as far by river, only three large cities, Cairo, Memphis and Vicksburg, offer large and convenient ports. Very often the great river does not touch the high land for a hundred miles or more, but glides along through endless marshes and through forests of oak, elm, sycamore, walnut, gum, cypress, and other Southern trees, while numberless bayous, tributaries, and oxbow lakes give variety to the vast flood-plain of swamp and forest. Where the land is high or protected by dikes, rich plantations have been cleared, but many hundreds of square miles are subject to overflow and remain wild to this day.

When the travelers reached Hickman again they met once more their friend, d.i.c.k Banks.

"We just ran up to Cairo," he told them. "Now we are going south to bring up a load of wounded soldiers. Old Grant is fighting the Johnnies as hard as he knows how. The Johnnies say he can't take Vicksburg, but I reckon he will. He's got them in a trap and he'll starve them out, if he can't drive them out."

"Have you seen Hicks again?" Barker asked.

"Never a hair of him, Sam. I reckon he's gone down to Haynes Bluff or some place near Vicksburg, where he expects you-uns will show up. The scoundrel never got a smell of your presence in this river burg.

"When you pa.s.s Island No. 10, look out for sunken boats. The Southerners had a big fort there. And you had better go past New Madrid after dark.

The town is full of soldiers and the river full of boats. The commander is a pretty cranky sort. He might ask you for papers and if you haven't got them, he might put you in the pen. You know you're a suspicious looking outfit with your Indian and birch-bark dugout."

"Great Heavens, d.i.c.k, do you call that a dugout!" exclaimed Barker.

"It's a canoe. Haven't you ever seen one before! No dugout for me. We can portage this ship wherever we wish to go."

"You needn't worry about portages, Sam. The river is high all the way to Vicksburg. Just see you don't get lost in those endless swamps and forests.

"You don't have to go by way of Island No. 10. You can go by way of Bissell's Channel and Wilson's Bayou, and cut off about six miles. The channel may be dry now, but you say you can carry that bark tub of your'n."

"d.i.c.k," Barker replied, laughing, "if you ever again call our canoe a dugout or a tub, I'll swat you one. See if I don't!"

"Tatanka, and I made it ourselves and it is the best and safest birch-bark afloat on all this river."

"May be she is pretty steady," Banks took up his banter again, "but she is not much of a snagboat, and a mighty poor ram. Better let me stow you all away on the _Grey Hawk_ and take you safely down to Haynes Bluff, that is as far as we are going. From there you can walk to Vicksburg, if the Boys in Blue will let you, but I know they won't."

"No, d.i.c.k, thank you for your kind offer. The boys want to see Island No. 10, and I want to see it myself, but we may meet you at New Madrid."

"All right, Sam. If you are not afraid to show your outfit at New Madrid. We'll be there day after to-morrow."

Tatanka, although he saw and heard everything about the earthquake and the sunken lands with close attention, was happy when Barker had said:

"Let's get back to Hickman and the Old Mississippi. I reckon Hicks has lost our trail by this time, if he really ever found it.

"Boys," he continued, "I must tell you something now. That Cousin Hicks of yours is a bad case. There may be a fight if we ever run across him.

If there is, you keep out of it. Tatanka and I will handle him.

"Never mind," he cut the boys short when they wanted to know more, "I tell you he is a bad egg. Now you know enough. I ran across him long ago in Indiana."

"He is a skunk," Tatanka grunted, with an angry face and with eyes flashing. "If we catch him, we shall throw him into the river like a worthless cur.

"I am glad we shall go away," he continued. "I never was afraid to fight our enemies, the Chippewas, but I am afraid of spook lakes, of earthquakes, and of big guns. All Indians are afraid of them."

The Mississippi River contains a very large number of islands. Below the larger islands often lie long low bars grown over with small willows, and these brush-covered bars are known as tow-heads.

Between Cairo and New Orleans, the Mississippi River Commission has numbered about one hundred and thirty islands, while many large ones have names. From time to time old islands disappear and new ones are made, when the river washes out a short cut across a bend.

The travelers found Bissell's Channel about half-way between Island No.

8 and Island No. 9, as Captain Banks had told them. But it was not a channel at all; as the boys had expected. It was a road of stumps about two miles long, and the boys wondered how it was made and what it was for.

The four travelers arrived on Island No. 10 in good time, for the distance was only twenty-five miles down stream from Hickman.

They made their camp inside the deserted Confederate works and they looked with awe upon the big portholes in the logs through which the cannons had swept the river.

"How did the Union soldiers take the island!" the boys asked.

"I don't know," Barker told them. "I think two of their gunboats ran past the guns of the island on a very dark night. You had better ask Captain Banks about it.

"I reckon we'll go to Vicksburg on the _Grey Hawk_. It will take us all summer to paddle the five hundred miles the way the river runs. You see, if we get there after Vicksburg falls, your people may not be there any more and we might not be able to find them. So I think we had better go with Captain Banks."

Next morning early they carried their canoe out from under the big sycamore and cottonwoods on Island No. 10 and started north on a big bend of the river.

At noon they reached New Madrid, at that time a lively, hustling town, as Captain Banks had told them.

The _Grey Hawk_ had already arrived and as Captain Banks vouched for his four friends, the commander was willing to let them go along to Vicksburg.

After supper, as they all sat on deck chatting with the captain, the lads begged the old river captain to tell them about Bissell's Channel and about the fight at Island No. 10.

"That channel," the captain began, "was cut by the Engineer Regiment of the West, and it was a great piece of work. It was done more than a year ago in March and April, 1862.

"You see, the Confederates held a strong fort with big guns on Island No. 10, and they had also planted guns on the left bank of the river above and below New Madrid, but we held New Madrid.

"Colonel Bissell's men built large rafts for men to work on, for the water was very high at the time. At first they cut the trees about eight feet above the water. Then they rigged a frame and a long saw to the stump and four men, two at each end, pulled the saw and cut the stump about four feet and a half under water.

"The small trees were easy, but we had an awful time with some of the big elms that grow a kind of braces near the ground. On some of those we worked two hours, but Captain Tweedale, who was saw-boss, always figured out what was wrong when the saws began to pinch."

"What did you want the channel for!" asked Bill, not a little puzzled by the whole strange plan.

"Well, General Pope," the captain explained, "wanted gunboats and transports to attack Island No. 10 and cut off the Confederates below the island, but Commander Foote of the river fleet did not think that his boats could run the island. So Colonel Bissell was ordered to dig a ca.n.a.l above the island and thus cut off the bend of Island No. 10 on which you came. If that could be done we could place guns, boats, and men and transports above and below Island No. 10, and the Confederates would have to get out.

"We did some great work. We had four steamboats, six coal-barges and four cannons. You see, we were ready to fight as well as work. Besides the Engineer Regiment, we had about 600 fighting men ready for battle.

"But things moved faster than we expected. On the night of April 4th Commander Henry Walke of the _Carondelet_ ran the guns of Island No. 10.

"It was a very dark night and a storm was pa.s.sing over the river. The _Carondelet_ had been protected in vulnerable parts with coils of hawsers and chains, and a coal barge, loaded with hay, had been lashed to its port side.