The Original Battleship Missisisppi and the Battle of Port Hudson, Louisiana.

Document # 001. The Vicksburg Weekly Whig Saturday, March 21st, 1863
The Naval Attack on Port Hudson
The Warren County - Vicksburg Public Library, Vicksburg, Warren County, Mississippi
The Naval Attack on Port Hudson; Correspondence of the Appeal. Port Hudson, Louisiana, March 15th, 1863; Yesterday (Saturday) a number of the enemy’s vessels came within sight and anchored off the point at the head of Prophet’s Island, about four miles down the River. The Iron Clad Battery Essex and a number of Mortar Boats anchored close-up behind the point. Having calculated the range of the batteries’ accurately as might be under the circumstances, about 3;00 o’clock in the afternoon the Mortar Boats and the Essex commenced practice, throwing shells for an hour and a half, but without causing any damage or alarm on our side. All was then quiet and the fleet awaited the hour of mid night for their surprise visit; The plan of the attack, as ordered by Admiral Farragut, was as follows;
Six vessels were to comprise the expedition, divided into two divisions. The vanguard was to consist of the Flagship Hartford, first – class steam sloop – of – war, carrying Twenty six eight and Nine inch Parkham guns leading, followed by the Monongahela, a second class steam sloop, mounting sixteen heavy guns, and t he Richmond, a first class s team sloop of Twenty – Six guns, principally Eight and Nine inch Columbiads. The rear guard was composed of t he first class steam sloop Mississippi, Twenty - Two guns, Eight and Nine inch and the gun boats Kinnes and Genesee, each carrying Three Columbiads and Two Rifled Thirty - Two pounders. The Mississippi was Side Wheel Steamer. All the others were screw propellers. The vanguards as commanded by Admiral Farragut in person, on board the Hartford,. The rear guard was under the command of Captain Melangthon Smith, flying his pennant form the Mississippi. They were to proceed up stream in single file, the stern of One flowing close upon the stern of another, and keeping their fires and lights well concealed, until they should be discovered by our batteries, when they were to get by the best they could, fighting their passage, and once above they believed they would have the rebel stronghold on both sides, their guns covering every part of the encampment. The ordeal in which they formed was as follows;
# 1. The Sloop Hartford – 26 guns.
# 2. The Monongahela – 16 guns,
# 3. Richmond – 26 guns.
# 4. Gunboat Kinnes – 5 guns.
# 5. Gun oat Genesee – 5 guns.
# 6 Sloop Mississippi – 22 guns.
Making Six Vessels crying – 100 guns.
Besides this, the Essex and Mortar Boats anchored at the point; And supposed to have already acquired our range, were expected to play so mean part in the affair; (Column Two, page # 02.)
Shortly before midnight, the boats, having formed the line - of - battle as described, their decks cleared for action, and the men at tier quarters, the Hartford led the way and the others promptly followed her direction, the moment of their discovery a rocket was to be sent up form the admiral’s Flag Ship, as the signal for the Essex and her accompanying Mortar Boats to commence work. Doubtless the men of this auxiliary fleet were willing enough for the battle to begin. Safety ensconced behind their headland at a distance of Two and Three Quarter miles form our lower batteries, they could purchase glory at a reasonable expense of sweat and no loss of blood. Whether the men on board the other boats were as anxious for the fight, is a question for others to decide. Whatever their individual opinions, naval discipline effected its purpose and they fought stubbornly enough.
All through there had been no indication of such a determined night attack by Farragut, our batteries. Every gun was ready for action and around each piece slept a detachment of gunners. So dark was the night, however, and so slightly had the armed craft nosed their way up, that the flag slip had passed some of our guard all the fleet were with easy range before their approach was known. Almost at the same time a rocket was our signal corps, and the discharge of muskets by our infantry picket, aroused our line. Quick as a flash, while the falling fire of our alarm rocket was yet un - extinguished, there shot up into the sky, form the Hartford’s deck another. Then came One grand long, defining roar that rent the atmosphere with its mighty thunder shaking both land and water, and cueing the high battery crowned cliff. Tremble, and if with fear and wonder. Every go n on the fleet and every mortar at the pint joined in one simultaneous discharge.
One instant, said what a change in the aspect of officers. Many Thousand soldiers springing to their feet at a bound, exchange glances with comrades, whiter eyes glistening with the light of a grim satisfaction. instinctively muskets are grasped with a firm hand, and with soldierly heart, relieved of the weight of a long protracted expectation, throbs a glad echo to the startling peal of cannon. The batteries of the Long line of Bluff, but a monument before silent as the Church yards, now respond to the hurrying tread of men, wile the quick, s tern tones of command are heard above the awful din, and the furtively glancing rays of light from the battle lanterns reveal the high instruments of death and destruction, nod show the half covered way to magazines.(Column Two, page # 03.)
Relying greatly upon the suddenness and vigor suddenness and vigor of their attack to disconcert and confuse the defenders of our cliffs, the roar of their first discharge had on not died away upon the ear before it recommenced, and then the quick and irregular but unceasing volleys and broadsides showed that the crew of each Yankee gun were vying with each other to celerity. The sheets of flames that poured from the sides of the sloops at each discharge, lit up nearly the whole stretch of river, placing each craft in strong relief against the black sky. The noise was stunning t the ear, but they knew not yet the position of our batteries, and the shot and shells fired at random,, had no material effect. The shelling from the mortar boats presented the finest scene of the two. First the distant flash and puff of white smoke, then the star of light raising by spasmodic effort. – So its revolutions make it appear. – Up to the very firmament, while the more slowly traveling sound brings the hoarse roar of the mortar; Then the now brightening star descending by he name spasmodic motion; Near the omnibus whirring, growing, under and shall more clear, until – bang! Right in your face it seems, a flash like that of sheet lightening. – A sharp, terrible explosion. – and then thud! Thud! The rent iron strikes in every direction, burying its jagged fragments deep in the solid earth.
Minute after minute passed away, each driven to eternity, distracted by the maddening roar of so many cannon, and the fleet kept up its unchecked course up the River. Amazement seized upon the Yankee Officers and Men. Where were that now long talked of batteries the Rebels had been constructing to hold the Mississippi? Had they been abandoned in a panic caused by the terrible bombardment of the fleet? The Marine Office of the Mississippi, now a prisoner tells us, that the query was seriously propounded whether the Rebels had not evacuated their stronghold, and thus cheating the “Brave Yankees Tars ” out of the glory they were expecting to reap. Only too soon did the Enemy discover that they were but waiting to bring their whole fleet under our Guns before we went to work. For Fifteen Minutes they had played their monster cannons. Now they were commanding is under from vexation when a flash of light from the crest of a Cliff and a shell to go Clanging through the Hartford’s deck. This was the monster cannon cordon of vivid lights as well as their own. (Column Three, page # 01.)
Now commenced the battle in all its terrible earnestness , out numbered in guns, out - weighed in metal, our volleys were so quickly repeated and the majority of them unswerving in their aim. As soon as the Enemy thus discovered our batteries, they opened on them with grape and canister which were more accurately thrown than their shells had been, and threw clouds of dirt upon the men and the guns and gunners; The shells went over them in every possible direction, except the last one. The Hartford, a very fast ship, now made straight for the up river making her best time, and trying to divert the aim of our gunners by her incessant and death dealing broadsides. She soon outstripped the balance of the fleet. Shot after shot struck her, riddling her though the and through, but still she kept on her way.
Every craft now looking for herself and bound to make its very best time to get by, the fleet lost its orderly Line - of – Battle, and got so mixed up it was difficult, and some times impossible, to distinguished one from another. It was speedily apparent to the enemy, that the fire was a great deal hotter and more destructive than had been expected, and the Captains of the Two Gun Boasts and of the Monongahela doubtless resolved quickly that it would be madness to attempt to run such a terrific gauntlet of iron hail. Whether the commanders of the Richmond and Mississippi had already arrived at the same determination, or came to it soon after, is not known, but they all except the Hartford, understood to put about and return the way they came.
For this purpose the Richmond steered close in to the left bank, under the Batteries, and circled round, her course reaching nearly up to the opposite point. In executing this maneuver she gave our batteries successively a raking position, and they took excellent advantage of it. Ripping her from stern to stern. From the crashing of timbers plainly heard during every brief interval of the din, and from the view had of shots that struck her, it was evident that her doom was sealed. Instead of making a run for it, down the river, hugging the opposite shore, she again turned her prow towards our batteries and run right in under them. As she got the position, a voice from on board of her cried out; “Now, let me see you strike me from those hills. D – n you..” As if in answer to the blasphemous a appeal, a battery above and below got his range, and while a shell crushed through his forecastle a double charge of grape swept its decks from the Mizzenmast forward. It must have done fearful execution, and the voice which had just before rung out an oath and a defiance, now exclaimed, in piteous accents. – “For G--- Sake, don’t shoot any more! We are Sinking!’
It was reported among the crowd of observers on the bluff that a voice from her deck had called out; “We surrender! We surrender!” If this was said, it was not probably spoken by her Commander, who, however, appealed to our batteries to cease firing upon her, as the ship was sinking,. As she was evidently drifting down in an unmanageable condition, and apparently settling, the batteries let her along, and turned their intention to other c raft. Whether or not she sank, I do not as yet know, Her commander may have used a Yankee artifice to escape by the mistaken formality of the victors, but if she is not seriously disabled, then many an experienced eye was greatly deceived.
The Mississippi; The Mississippi undertook to execute the same maneuver, of turning round and making her escape back to the point she started from. She had rounded and just turned down stream, when one of our shots tore off her rudder, and another went crashing through her machinery. Immediately after came the rushing sound of steam, escaping from some broken pipe, and the now unmanageable vessel drifted around directly opposite our crescent, line of batteries. Her range was quickly gained, and she was being rapidly torn to pieces by our missiles., when the commander gave the order for all hands to save themselves the best way they could. At the same time fire broke out in two places. The prisoners we have taken are of the opinion that she was set on fire by her own Officers, but it is quite as likely that it was caused by our red hot shot, which were being poured into her uninterruptedly. At this time her decks were strewn with dead and wounded, according tone of her crew, with whom I have conversed, who thought that one half of her complement of men were included in the list of casualties.
In the meantime, I must account for the other vessels, of the fleet. The Three larger vessels had occupied most of the attention of the batteries, but the other craft add not by any means been overlooked Two had turned round and started down stream. One of them apparently escaped without serious disability, but the other, which was probably the Kinnnes, floated down past the potteries in an unmanageable condition, receiving our volleys without being able to return them and from the confusion of voices and mingling of oaths, execrations and orders heard from her decks, it was evident that great slaughter must have been med among her crew, else that the boat itself was in a critical predicament. A Vessel, which was eight the Tennessee or Monongahela, more probably the former, slipped by in the confusion, and joined the Hartford up the River. (Column Three, page # 03.)
Some Fifty – Five or Sixty persons saved them selves by jumping overboard and swimming or wading from the Mississippi to shore. Of these the Major and Captain of Marines and Assistant Engineer, with Forty – Five Sailors and Marines, have been arrested by our cavalry and brought cross during the day. Some few others are reported to be hiding themselves in the swamp. The dead and wounded were left upon the Mississippi which soon floated off and started down with the current all the other vessels were now out of range, and the spectacle of the burning ship was a grand and solemn one, yet mingled with painful thoughts of the horrible fate of those mangled unfortunates who were being burned to death upon this floating funeral pyre. As the flames should reach the shells laying among the guns, they exploded one by one, adding to the novel grandeur of the sight.
When the burning Mississippi reached the point where the Mortar Boats and other craft lay, she created a perfect panic among them. Probably from the fear either magazine exploding among them ran before her. Not making their appearance against until near the hour of noon today,., The light of the burning wreck could be seen steadily increasing its distance, for Two hours and a Half. At Five minutes past Five o’clock, when the Mississippi was probably within Five Miles of Baton Rouge, a sudden glare lit up the whole sky. The cause was known to be the explosions of the magazine. After a considerable interest of time a rumbling sound brought final proof that the Mississippi, one of the finest vessels of the United States, which had earned an historic fame before the commencement of the present War as the Flag Ship of the Japan Expedition, was a thing of the past. (The End of the long Newspaper Article.)

The Essay;

Abbay’s Battery of Heavy Artillery, a Port Gibson, Claiborne County, Mississippi, was a part of the above fight. Several of the young men from the Utica, Hinds County, Mississippi, area,about 30 miles distance went to Port Gibson and became a part of Abbay’s Battery. One of these young men was my uncle. Uncle William A (Billy) Broome. After Port Hudson, Abbay’s Battery was transferred to the Mobile area where they surrendered at the end of the War. Afterwards Uncle Bill and his Family move to Texas. (Signed) James Earl (Sam) Price