"I will make a reconnoissance with a party of soldiers," he added. He jumped on board his tug, and went off to get his soldiers. "Captain Phelps, you will please to take my tug and drop down also," said Commodore Foote. "If you are willing to run the risk, you are at liberty to accompany Captain Phelps," were his words to me. What is a thing worth that costs nothing? We drop down the stream slowly and cautiously. "We are in easy range. If the Rebels are there, they could trouble us," says Captain Phelps. We drop nearer. The flag is still waving. The man holding it swings his hat. They are not Rebels, but Union cavalry! Away we dash. The other tug, with General Sherman, is close behind. "A little more steam! Lay her in quick!" says Captain Phelps. He is not to be beaten. We jump ashore, scramble up the bank ahead of all the soldiers, reach the upper works, and fling out the Stars and Stripes to the bright morning sunshine on the abandoned works of the Rebel Gibraltar! The crews of the boats crowd the upper decks, and send up their joyous shouts. The soldiers farther up stream give their wild hurrahs. Around us are smoking ruins,--burned barracks and storehouses, barrels of flour and bacon simmering in the fire. There are piles of shot and shell. The great chain has broken by its own weight. At the landing are hundreds of Mr. Maury's torpedoes,--old iron now. We wander over the town, along the fortifications, view the strong defences, and wonder that the Rebels gave it up,--defended as it was by one hundred and twenty guns,--without a struggle, but the fall of Fort Donelson compelled them to evacuate the place. They carried off about half of the guns, and tumbled many of those they left behind down the embankment into the river. The force which had fled numbered about sixteen thousand. Five thousand went down the river on steamboats, and the others were sent to Corinth on the cars. This abandonment of Columbus freed Kentucky of Rebel troops. It had been invaded about six months, and Jeff Davis hoped to secure it as one of the Confederate States, but he was disappointed in his expectations. The majority of the people in that noble State could not be induced to go out of the Union. CHAPTER X OPERATIONS AT NEW MADRID.