"Hurrah! Bishop will get her!" The crews of the gunboats dance with delight, and swing their caps. Bang! Right through her cabin. The Sovereign turns towards the shore, and runs plump against the bank. The crew, all but the cook, take to the woods, and the steamer is ours. It would astonish you to see how fast a well-drilled boat's-crew can load and fire a howitzer. Commodore Foote informed me that, when he was in the China Sea, he was attacked by the natives, and his boat's-crew fired four times a minute! The chase for the Sovereign was very exciting,--more so than any horse-race I ever saw. The crew on board the Sovereign had been stopping at all the farm-houses along the river, setting fire to the cotton on the plantations. They did it in the name of the Confederate government, that it might not fall into the hands of the Yankees. In a great many places they had rolled it into the river, and the stream was covered with white flakes. The bushes were lined with it. As soon as the people along the banks saw the Federal steamboats, they went to work to save their property. Some of them professed to be Union men. I conversed with an old man, who was lame, and could hardly hobble round. He spoke bitterly against Jeff Davis for burning his cotton and stealing all his property. While descending the river, we saw a canoe, containing two men, push out from a thick canebrake. They came up to the Benton. We thought they were Rebels, at first, but soon saw they were two pilots belonging to the fleet, who had started the day before for Vicksburg, to pilot Commodore Farragut's fleet to Memphis. They had been concealed during the day, not daring to move. The evacuation of Fort Pillow rendered it unnecessary for them to continue the voyage. They said that eight Rebel gunboats were a short distance below us. We moved on slowly, and came to anchor about nine o'clock, near a place called by all the rivermen Paddy's Hen and Chickens, about two miles above Memphis. CHAPTER XIII. THE NAVAL FIGHT AT MEMPHIS. On the evening of the 5th of June, while we were lying above Memphis, Commodore Montgomery, commanding the fleet of Rebel gunboats built by the citizens and ladies of Memphis, was making a speech in the Gayoso Hall of that city. There was great excitement. It was known at noon that Fort Pillow was evacuated. The stores were immediately closed. Some people commenced packing up their goods to leave,--expecting that the city would be burned if the Yankees obtained possession. Commodore Montgomery said:-- "I have no intention of retreating any farther. I have come here, that you may see Lincoln's gunboats sent to the bottom by the fleet which you built and manned." The rabble cheered him, and believed his words. On the morning of the 6th, one of the newspapers assured the people that the Federal fleet would not reach the city. It said:--