“In the meantime some of the boats lying above Chestnut Street fared badly. The _F. X. Aubrey_ was forced into the bank and was considerably damaged, the noble _Nebraska_, which was thought to be in a most perilous position, escaped with the loss of her larboard wheel and some other small injuries. A number of the upper-river boats, lying above Chestnut Street, were more or less damaged. Both the Alton wharf-boats were sunk and broken in pieces. The old _Shenandoah_ and the _Sam Cloon_ were forced away from the shore and floated down together, lodging against the steamer _Clara_, where they were soon torn to pieces and sunk by a collision with one of the ferryboats floating down. The Keokuk wharf-boat maintained its position against the flood and saved three boats below, viz., the _Polar Star_, _Pringle_, and _Forest Rose_, none of which was injured. “After running about an hour the character of the ice changed, and it came down in a frothy, crumbled condition, with an occasional heavy piece. At the end of two hours it ran very slowly, and finally stopped about 5 1-2 o’clock P. M. Just before the ice stopped and commenced to gorge, huge piles, twenty and thirty feet in height, were forced up by the current on every hand, both on the shore and at the lower dike, where so many boats had come to a halt. In fact these boats seemed to be literally buried in ice. * * * * * “The levee on the morning after the day of the disaster presented a dreary and desolate spectacle, looking more like a scene in the polar regions than in the fertile and beautiful Mississippi Valley. The Mississippi, awakened from her long sleep, was pitching along at a wild and rapid rate of speed, as if to make up for lost time. The ice coat of mail was torn into shreds, which lay strewn along the levee, and was in some places heaped up to a height of twenty feet above the level of the water. Where the boats had lain in dense crowds only a few hours before, nothing was to be seen save this high bulwark of ice, which seemed as if it had been left there purposely to complete the picture of bleak desolation. The whole business portion of the levee was clear of boats, except the two wrecked Alton wharf-boats, which were almost shattered to pieces, and cast like toys upon the shore in the midst of the ridge of ice. There was not a single boat at the levee which entirely escaped injury by the memorable breaking up of the ice on February 27, 1856.” [Sidenote: LA BARGE RESCUES HIS BOAT.]