The Cincinnati Gazette
and Commercial’s Cairo
correspondence give the following account of the bombardment and capture of
Fort Henry:
Yesterday, (February 6,) at 12½ p. m. the gunboats
Cincinnati, St. Louis, Carondelet, and Essex, the Tyler, Conestoga and
Lexington bringing up the rear, advanced boldly against the rebel works, going
to the right of Painter Creek Island, immediately above where, on the east
shore of the river, stands the fortifications, and keeping out of range till at
the head of the island, and within a mile of the enemy, passing the enemy in
full view of the rebel guns. We steadily
advanced, every man at quarters, ever ear strained to catch the flag-officer’s
signal-gun for the commencement of the action.
Our line of battle was on the left, the St. Louis next, the
Carondelet next, the Cincinnati, (for the time being the flag ship, having on
board Flag officer Foote,) and the next the Essex. We advanced in line, the Cincinnati a boat’s
length ahead, when at 11:30 the Cincinnati opened the ball, and immediately the
three accompanying boats followed suit.
The enemy was not backward, and gave an admirable response, and the
fight raged furiously for half an hour.
We steadily advanced, receiving and returning the storm of shot and
shell, when getting within three hundred yards of the enemy’s works we came to
a stand, and poured into him right and left.
In the meantime the Essex had been disabled, and drifted away from the
scene of action, leaving the Cincinnati, Carondelet and St. Louis alone
engaged.
As precisely forty minutes past one, the enemy struck his
colors—and such cheering, such wild excitement, as seized the throats, arms, or
caps, of the four or five hundred sailors of the gunboats can be imagined. After the surrender, which was made to
Flag-officer Foote by Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, who defended the fort in a most
determined manner, we found that the rebel infantry encamped outside the fort,
numbering four or five thousand, had cut and run, leaving the rebel artillery
company in command of the fort.
The fort mounted seventeen guns, most of them 32-pounders,
one being a magnificent 10-inch columbiad.
Our shots dismounted two of their guns, driving the enemy into the
embrasures. One of their rifled
32-pounders burst during the engagement, wounding some of their gunners. The rebels claimed to have but eleven
effective guns worked by fifty-four men—the numbers all told of our
prisoners. They lost five killed and ten
badly wounded. The infantry left
everything in their flight. A vast deal
of plunder has fallen into our hands, including a large and valuable quantity
of ordnance stores.
Gen. Tilghman is disheartened. He thinks it one of the most damaging blows
of the war. In surrendering to
Flag-officer Foote, the rebel General remarked, “I am glad to surrender to so
gallant an officer.” Flag-officer Foote
replied, “You do perfectly right, sir, in surrendering; but you should have
blown my boat out of the water before I would have surrendered to you.”
In the engagement the Cincinnati was in the lead, and flying
the flag officer’s pennant, was the chief mark.
Flagg-officer Foote and Capt. Stembel crowded her defiantly into the teeth
of the enemy’s guns. She got thirty-one
shots, some of them going completely through her.
The Essex was badly crippled when about half through the
fight, and crowding steadily against the enemy.
A ball went into her side-forward port, through the heavy bulkhead,
escaping steam scalding and killing several of the crew. Captain Porter, his aid, L. P. Britton,
Jr[.], and Paymaster Lewis, were standing in a direct line of the balls
passing, Mr. Britton being in the centre of the group. A shot struck Mr. Britton on the top of his
head, scattering his brains in every direction.
The escaping steam went into the pilot-house, instantly killing Mr. Ford
and Mr. Bride, pilots. Many of the
soldiers, at the rush of steam, jumped overboard and were drowned.
The Cincinnati had one killed and six wounded. The Essex had six seamen and two officers killed,
seventeen men wounded and five missing.
There were no casualties on the St. Louis or Carondelet, though the shot
and shell fell upon them like rain.
The St. Louis was commanded by Leonard Paulding, who stood
upon the gunboat and wrought the guns to the last. Not a man flinched, and with cheer upon cheer
sent the shot and shell among the enemy.
THE REBELS NOT TRUE.—It is reported, and believed at
Paducah, that the rebel troops at Fort Henry were not true to the rebel cause
and took advantage of the opportunity offered by an attack to run away from a
fight that was distasteful to them.
IT WAS A NAVAL VICTORY.—It appears that this victory was entirely a navel one—the troops of the expedition
not having come up to the scene of action until the rebels had
surrendered. The gunboats engaged are a
part of those strong iron-clad river boats, or turtles, which were built within
the last few months, at, St. Louis, Carondelet and other points and which were
originally destined for Gen. Fremont’s expedition down the Mississippi. Commodore Foote mentions nine of these
vessels as having been in the engagement.
ARMAMENT OF THE GUNBOATS.—The Essex, 9 guns, Commander H. [sic] D. Porter, U. S. N.; Carondelet, 13
guns, Commander H. Walke, U. S. N.; Cincinnati, 13 Guns, Commander R. N.
Stembel, U. S. N.; St. Louis, 13 guns, Lieutenant Commanding Leonard Paulding, U.
S. N.; Conestoga, 9 guns, Lieutenant Commanding Phelps, U. S. N.; Taylor [sic], 9 guns, Lieutenant Commanding W.
Gwin, U. S. N.; Lexington, 9 guns, Lieutenant Commanding J. W. Shirk, U. S. N.
The boats are built very wide, in proportion to their
length, giving them almost the same steadiness in action that a stationary land
battery would possess. They are constructed
upon the same principle as the famous iron battery at Charleston, the sides
sloping both upward and downward from the water line, at an angle of 45
degrees. The bow battery on each boat
consists of solid oak timber 26 inches in thickness, plated on the exterior
surface with iron 2½ inches thick. The
side and stern batteries are somewhat thinner, but have the same thickness of
iron over that portion covering the machinery.
The boats are not plated on the roof which consists of a 2½ inch plank.
The most dreadfully savage contrivance upon these boats is
that to prevent boarding. Each boat is
supplied with a number of large hose-pipes for throwing hot water from the boilers with a force of 200 pounds pressure to
the square inch. Any human being who
shall encounter this terrible stream of hot water will be boiled in an instant.
The Conestoga, Taylor [sic]
and Lexington are not of the same model or character as the others, being
simply Mississippi River steamboats rebuilt with perpendicular bulwarks and
pierced for guns.
VALUE OF THE VICTORY.—There is another and stronger rebel
fort on the Cumberland, a few miles eastward of the scene of our present
victory; but considering the fact that our troops are now in the rear of that
fort, and learning, as we do, from the West, the movement that is on the lapis to bring it down as suddenly as
Fort Henry has been brought down, we look upon the victory we have gained as
being full and complete, as regards the object in view. Look at the map at that part of Tennessee
where Fort Henry is located, and at that point of the Memphis and Ohio railroad
which our troops now hold, and see how far we have penetrated in the rear of
Bowling Green—see how far in the rear of Columbus—how convenient we are for
sweeping down on the railroad to Memphis—see how near we now are to Nashville—and
how Nashville is located to the whole State of Tennessee, and that again to the
whole of the rebel States of the Southwest, and some idea will be had of the
value of the present advance and victory.
COMMODORE FOOTE has been in the naval service over forty
years. He is known in the navy as one of
its most efficient officers, and distinguished himself greatly in China by the
bombardment and breaching of a Chinese fort, the fort, in all respects, a
superior work of masonry. The feat
called forth the praise of all foreign naval officers on that coast. Commodore Foote is an affable gentleman, and
as will be seen by his reply to the rebel Tilghman, never surrenders.
CAPT. PORTER.—Capt. Porter, of the gunboat Essex, who is
reported as badly scalded by the bursting of his boat’s boiler, is a native of
Louisiana, but entered the navy from Massachusetts in 1823. He is a son of the renowned Commodore Porter,
who figured so prominently in the war of 1812.
He has been thirty-eight years in the service, and has seen twelve years
sea duty. When the Mississippi flotilla
was projected, he was detailed to the command of a gunboat. The Captain christened his boat the Essex,
after his father’s renowned vessel, and judging from precedent, Capt. Porter is
the “bull-dog,” or fighting man of this expedition. He has Dahlgren guns for his armament, and
delights in “shelling.” He worked
prodigiously getting his boat ready, and since then he has been cruising
around, stirring up the rebels wherever he could find them.
GEN. TILGHMAN, the traitor who commanded at Fort Henry, was
graduated at West Point, and made brevet second Lieutenant in the First dragoons
in 1836, but shortly after resigned, and became division engineer on the
Baltimore and Susquehanna railroad, and afterward on the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad. In the Mexican war, he
re-entered the service as volunteer aid-de-camp to Colonel Twiggs, and was
present at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de Palma. He commanded a volunteer regiment till October, 1846, and in January, 1847, was
made superintendent of the defences of Matamoras; finally he acted as captain
of volunteer artillery in Hughes’ regiment from August, 1847, till July,
1848. At the close of the war he again
entered civil live, and was chosen principal assistant engineer in the Panama
Isthmus railroad. On the breaking out of
the war, he was acting railroad engineer, but joined the rebels, and was appointed
to command at Fort Henry, where he has been ingloriously captured.
SOURCE: The National Republican,
Washington, D.C., Monday, February 10, 1862, p. 2
