The _Hartford_ with her consort got past the batteries after some little trouble. The _Richmond_ was disabled by a shot, and with her consort’s aid turned back. The _Monongahela_ and consort both grounded, but the _Monongahela_ passed on, while the _Mississippi_ grounded so hard that she was fired and abandoned. It was a pretty serious affair for the government force, but the Red River was blockaded, and it was not opened for traffic until the end of the war. When two of the Ellet rams were sent down past Vicksburg to increase Farragut’s force above Port Hudson, one, the _Lancaster_, was sunk, and the other got through. Both were commanded by the indomitable Ellet boys. [Illustration: Confederate Forts. _Benton._ _Tuscumbia._ _Pittsburg._ _Lafayette._ _Louisville._ _St. Louis._ _Carondelet._ Battle of Grand Gulf--First Position. _From a painting by Admiral Walke._] Near the end of February, while Farragut held the river between Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Porter tried to get in behind Vicksburg by the way of the Yazoo swamps once more. He took a different route from that of the first expedition, but he could not drive the tin-clads over the willows, and the Confederates cut trees across the bayous both in front of and behind his steamers until he was well-nigh lost. And at the last he found his way blocked by the hulk of the _Star of the West_, the steamer at which the first shot of the war was fired--the shot that turned her back when she was carrying supplies to Fort Sumter. After the Sumter event she had gone to New Orleans, was there taken forcibly by the Confederates, and ended her existence as a barrier hulk in a Yazoo bayou. This expedition having failed, Grant determined to go down the westerly bank of the Mississippi to New Carthage, and then cross and surround Vicksburg. On the night of April 16, 1863, Porter took the following vessels down past Vicksburg to cover Grant when crossing: The flagship _Benton_, sixteen guns, Lieut.-commander James A. Greer, leading, and the other vessels in the following order: _Lafayette_, eight guns, Capt. Henry Walke; _Louisville_, twelve guns, Lieut.-commander Elias K. Owen; _Mound City_, fourteen guns, Lieut. Byron Wilson; _Pittsburg_, thirteen guns, Lieut. W. R. Hoel; _Carondelet_, eleven guns, Lieut. J. McLeod Murphy; _Tuscumbia_, five guns, Lieut.-commander James W. Shirk. The _Lafayette_ carried with her, lashed to the other side of her coal barge, the ram _General Price_, Lieut. S. E. Woodworth, which had continued in the service after being taken from the Confederates at Memphis. After the _Carondelet_, between her and the _Tuscumbia_, came three army transports, the _Silver Wave_, _Henry Clay_, and _Forest Queen_, unprotected except by bales of hay and cotton round the boilers. They carried stores, but no troops.