On the night of the 1st of April, an armed expedition is fitted out from the squadron and the land forces. There are five boats, manned by picked crews from the gunboats, carrying forty men of the Forty-second Illinois, under command of Colonel Roberts. The party numbers one hundred. It is a wild night. The wind blows a gale from the south, swaying the great trees of the forest and tossing up waves upon the swift-running river, which boils, bubbles, dashes, and foams in the storm. There are vivid lightning flashes, growls and rolls of deep, heavy thunder. The boats cast off from the fleet. The oars have been muffled. No words are spoken. The soldiers sit, each with his gun half raised to his shoulder and his hand upon the lock. The spray dashes over them, sheets of flame flash in their faces. All the landscape for a moment is as light as day, and then all is pitch darkness. Onward faster and faster they sweep, driven by the strong arms of the rowers and the current. It is a stealthy, noiseless, rapid, tempestuous, dangerous, daring enterprise. They are tossed by the waves, but they glide with the rapidity of a race-horse. Two sentinels stand upon the parapet. A few rods in rear is a regiment of Rebels. A broad lightning-flash reveals the descending boats. The sentinels fire their guns, but they are mimic flashes. "Lay in quick!" shouts Colonel Roberts. The oars bend in the row-locks. A stroke, and they are beside the parapet, climbing up the slippery bank. The sentinels run. There is a rattling fire from pistols and muskets; but the shots fall harmlessly in the forest. A moment,--and all the guns are spiked. There is a commotion in the woods. The sleeping Rebels are astir. They do not rally to drive back the invaders, but are fleeing in the darkness. Colonel Roberts walks from gun to gun, to see if the work has been effectually accomplished. "All right! All aboard! Push off!" He is the last to leave. The boats head up-stream. The rowers bend to their oars. In a minute they are beyond musket range. Their work is accomplished, and there will be no more firing from that six-gun battery. Now the gunboats can move nearer and begin their work upon the remaining batteries. In the morning General Mackall was much chagrined when he found out what had been done by the Yankees. It is said he used some hard words. He flew into a rage, and grew red in the face, which did not help the matter in the least.