Grant marched straight across the narrow neck of land between the forts, which were only twelve miles apart. Foote of course had to go round by the Ohio--fifteen times as far. His vanguard, the dauntless _Carondelet_, now commanded by Henry Walke, arrived on the twelfth and fired the first shots at the fort, which stood on a bluff more than a hundred feet high and mounted fifteen heavy guns in three tiers of fire. Grant's infantry was already in position round the Confederate entrenchments; and when his soldiers heard the naval guns they first gave three rousing cheers and then began firing hard, lest the sailors should get ahead of them again. Birge's sharpshooters, the snipers of those days, were particularly keen. They never drilled as a battalion, but simply assembled in bunches for orders, when Birge would ask: "Canteens full? Biscuits for all day?" After which he would sing out: "All right, boys, hunt your holes"; and off they would go to stalk the enemy with their long-range rifles. Early next morning Grant sent word to Walke that he was establishing the rest of his batteries and that he was ready to take advantage of any diversion which the _Carondelet_ could make in his favor. Walke then fired hard for two hours under cover of a wooded point. The fort fired back equally hard; but with little effect except for one big solid shot which stove in a casemate, knocked down a dozen men, burst the steam heater, and bounded about the engine room "like a wild beast pursuing its prey." Forty minutes later the _Carondelet_ was again in action, firing hard till dark. Late that night Foote arrived with the rest of the flotilla. The fourteenth was another naval day. Foote's flotilla advanced gallantly, the four ironclads leading in line abreast, the two wooden gunboats half a mile astern. The ironclads closed in to less than a quarter-mile and hung on like bulldogs till the Confederates in the lowest battery were driven from their guns. But the plunging fire from the big guns on the bluff crashed down with ever increasing effect. Davits were smashed like matches, boats knocked into kindling wood, armor dented, started, ripped, stripped, and sent splashing overboard as if by strokes of lightning. Before the decks could be re-sanded there was so much blood on them that the gun crews could hardly work for slipping. Presently the _Pittsburgh_ swung round, ran foul of the _Carondelet_, and dropped downstream. The pilot of the _St. Louis_ was killed, and Foote, who stood beside him, wounded. The wheel-ropes of the _St. Louis_, like those of the _Louisville_, were shot away. The whole flotilla then retired, still firing hard; and the Confederates wired a victory to Richmond.