Ten and its supports would be cut off from reinforcements and from escape. General Polk began the evacuation of Columbus on February 25th. One hundred and forty pieces of artillery were mounted in the works. All these, except two thirty-two pounders and several carronades, which were spiked and left, were taken to Island No. Ten and the works in connection with it. Brigadier-General McCown with his division went down the river to Island No. Ten, on February 27th, and General Stewart, with a brigade, followed to New Madrid on March 1st. The rest of the infantry marched under General Cheatham, by land, March 1st to Union City. Next day General Polk, having sent off the bulk of the great stores accumulated at this place, destroyed the remainder and moved away with his staff and the cavalry. The force that went from Columbus to Island No. Ten included General Trudeau's command of ten companies of heavy artillery and the Southern Guards who acted as heavy artillery. The light batteries were brigaded with the infantry. Some progress had been made in throwing up batteries on the island and at the bend. Sappers and miners were at once set to work, aided by the companies of heavy artillery and details from the infantry. By March 12th, four batteries, scarcely above the water-level, were completed on the island and armed with twenty-three guns, and five batteries on the main-land, armed with twenty-four guns. Battery No. 1, on the main-land, called the Redan, armed with six guns, was three thousand yards in an air-line above the point of the island. A line of infantry intrenchments, _en cremaillere_, extended from the Redan to the water of a bayou which connects with Reelfoot Lake. A floating battery, anchored near the lower end of the island, added ten guns to its defence. Later, a fifth battery was erected on the island, and the number of guns in battery on the island and on the main-land, at the bend, was increased to fifty-four, exclusive of the floating battery. On the Missouri shore a bastioned redoubt, called Fort Thompson, with fourteen guns, stood below the town, and an earthwork with seven guns, called Fort Bankhead, just above the town. Infantry intrenchments extended these forts, and a field-battery of six pieces was added to the armament of the upper fort. Commodore Hollins, of the Confederate navy, aided the land-forces with eight gunboats. General McCown, making an inspecting visit to the position on February 25th, found there Colonel Gantt, of Arkansas, with the Eleventh and Twelfth Arkansas, and two artillery companies, acting as garrison to Fort Thompson, and at once, before returning to Columbus, ordered Colonel L.M. Walker, with two regiments from Fort Pillow, to guard the defences just above New Madrid.