About 4 o'clock this afternoon we went up the river to bring down a company of artillery, and one of cavalry, to assist us in raising and repairing our prize. When we had taken the last man aboard, the Queen of the West was descried coming down stream under a full head of steam, and signalling violently that a gunboat was in close chase of her. Lest we might not understand the signal, some one aboard called out for us to follow at once.
We now had a panic. The officer in command of the Beatty, Captain McDonald, of the Fifty-fifth Tennessee, ordered the two companies just taken aboard to get off. The order was misunderstood, and every man of the expedition, even to the cabin boy, started ashore, but the mistake was rectified, except as to five of them, who failed to return. We are now in full retreat, the Queen of the West taking the lead, the Webb following in her wake as fast as her crippled condition will allow.
The Grand Era is some mile and a half behind the Webb, while the Beatty is bringing up the rear, and covering the retreat. She has thrown off some cotton to make her more trim and increase her speed. What is to become of our prize we haven’t the remotest idea, and the natural inference is that she will fall into the hands of the enemy again. We made no attempt to destroy her; and, in fact, the attempt would have been useless, unless we could have gotten to her magazine and blown her up; she would have only burnt to the water, which was deep in her. I am surprised at the precipitateness of our officers in abandoning the boat without an attempt to hold it. If they had placed some artillerymen on board, they could have made an impregnable battery of it. Such is not their judgment, however, and it becomes not a private soldier to set up his opinions in opposition to superiors.
SOURCE: Edwin L. Drake, Editor, The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and Early Western History, Vol. 1, p. 69-70
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