guns, mortally wounding Lieutenant Lea. They leaped on board, but were met by Captain Wainwright, who fought till pierced with seven wounds. The acting-master who succeeded to the command needlessly surrendered the ship. The Westfield, with Commodore Renshaw on board, was three miles away, and in attempting to reach the Lane ran aground. The Clifton went to her assistance. The Owasco started to assist the Harriet Lane, but after her surrender could not open fire without killing or wounding those who had surrendered. The Confederates ran up a flag of truce, sent word to Renshaw announcing their capture of the Harriet Lane, and saying that two-thirds of her crew had been killed or wounded, whereas the number was less than a dozen. They offered Renshaw the privilege of taking one of the vessels out of the harbor with the crews of all.

While this was going on, a flag of truce was hoisted on shore under which the Confederates came down with the Harriet Lane and Neptune, and took position to pour a fire upon the Union troops, which compelled their surrender. The terms proposed to Commodore Renshaw were refused by him, but the Westfield could not be removed, and had to be destroyed. A train was laid, but some one lighted it too soon, and the explosion of the magazine came before the commodore could leave the ship. He was killed, together with several sailors. The other vessels made their way out of the harbor and sailed for South-west Pass, leaving Galveston without any vessel to continue the blockade. The affair was a series of mishaps. General Magruder issued a proclamation announcing that the blockade was raised; but before the week ended Commodore Bell was off the harbor with the Brooklyn and Hatteras and several other vessels, again closing the port.

Commodore Bell saw a vessel in the distance, and sent the Hatteras, commanded by Captain Blake, to find out what ship was sailing away towards the south, as if trying to escape. It was seven o'clock in the evening when the Hatteras came up with the stranger. The last ray of twilight had faded from the western sky, and it was quite dark.

"What steamer is that?" was the hail from the Hatteras.

"Her Britannic Majesty's ship Vixen," the reply.

"I will send a boat on board," the response from the Hatteras.

The boat was lowered. "This is the Confederate steamer Alabama,” came through the darkness; and at the same moment the thunder of a broadside, the crash and explosion of shells in the Hatteras, which sent back a feeble reply, and which in thirteen minutes was at the bottom of the sea. When Blake saw that his vessel was going down, he fired a lee gun as a signal that he had surrendered, and the Alabama's boats were

lowered, and the crew transferred to that vessel. The Hatteras was no match for the Alabama, which steamed rapidly away, Captain Semmes, well knowing that the Brooklyn would ere long be down upon him. He landed his prisoners at Port Royal, Jamaica, and received the congratulations of the officers of several English war-ships over his exploit.(')

During the last days of December, 1862, the army under General Grant, which had been moving southward along the railroad to gain the rear of Vicksburg, had been compelled to turn back, not from defeat in battle, but because the Confederates had succeeded in capturing and destroying his supplies at Holly Springs, in Mississippi. General Sherman had been repulsed at Chickasaw Bluffs, on the Yazoo, a short distance above Vicksburg, and on January 2, 1863, was at Milliken's Bend, on the Mississippi. General McClernand, having been appointed by President Lincoln to fit out an expedition against Vicksburg, arrived and assumed command. General Sherman, although repulsed in his movement, had already planned another.

Fifty miles up the Arkansas River the Confederates had constructed Fort Hindman, located at a bend of the stream, to prevent the passage of the Union gunboats. Three heavy cannon had been placed in position, together with fourteen pieces of field artillery. General Churchill, with five thousand troops, held the position. General Sherman thought that it would not be a difficult matter to capture the fort, and so on January 5th seven gunboats and the ram Monarch steamed up the Mississippi, accompanied by a great fleet of river steamers crowded with troops, and entered the Arkansas River.

The troops were landed on the northern bank, three miles below the fort; two corps-one under General Sherman, and the other commanded by General Morgan. A brigade commanded by General Lindsey landed on the south bank, and marched through the woods up to the bend of the river opposite the fort, to prevent the Confederates from crossing at that point and escaping.

A line of breast works extended from the fort westward to a bayou,