Island No. 10

The siege of Island No. 10 is the most tedious and difficult job that our forces have yet undertaken and calls forth all the skill of Com. Foote.  Two weeks have now elapsed since the siege was commenced and comparatively little progress has been made, while there seems to be no disposition upon the part of the enemy to abandon their entrenchments.  The high water which favored the attack of our gunboats at Fort Donelson is here a drawback.  There they fought up stream, for which these boats appear to be adapted, here the enemy is below them and they cannot float within effective distance without exposure to the guns of the enemy.  Although, no doubt, many of the insurgents have been killed and wounded, yet as they are now in the strongest position in all rebeldom they will hold it to the last, knowing that when that is lost all is lost.

A different system of military tactics must be adopted or the immense quantities of ammunition yet in reserve will be exhausted and the rebels continue their daily pastime of dodging shells, and at the same time strengthening those portions of their fortifications that cannot be readily reached by the gunboats.  These boats were found to be inefficient at Fort Donelson, and the only alternative of storming the entrenchments with land forces was resorted to, and with what success is well known.  Though it may be impossible – if such a word as impossible is found in the vocabulary of our officers – to storm an entrenched island in the middle of a swollen and rapid stream, yet as large bodies of the rebels are stationed on the Tennessee shore, and several very effective batteries are planted there, a successful attack in their rear and the possession of these guns will place Island No. 10 at the mercy of the Federal troops and cut off their only avenue of escape.

That is the policy intended we have no doubt, and we hope to see those large bodies of troops, including four or five regiments of brave Iowa boys, that have gone up the Tennessee river make a detour and come in on the enemy’s rear opposite Island No. 10, and cut them off effectually.  That done, and the famed rebel retreat – more famed than robbers’ cave – will become a matter of history.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 29, 1862, p. 2