The armed vessels were repeatedly hulled, but were in no way disabled. One transport, the _Henry Clay_, caught fire and sank. On the 22d of April a number of transports ran the batteries, and on the 29th, the plans having been changed somewhat, the squadron attacked the works at Grand Gulf. Here there were four of the best rifled cannon of the day, two eight-inch smooth-bores, two old thirty-twos, and some light guns--a battery of not a fourth of the power of the fleet, but it was seventy-five feet above the water, and the fleet pounded it all day and accomplished nothing. They lost eighteen killed and fifty-six wounded at that. However, the work of carrying the army across the river at Bruinsburg, below Grand Gulf, began next day. This was on April 30th. On that day the gunboats left above Vicksburg made such a determined attack on the works there that no reinforcements were sent down to Grand Gulf. Having carried the Union army over at Bruinsburg, Porter, on May 3d, attacked the works at Grand Gulf and found them evacuated. Then Grant made Grand Gulf his base of supplies, and the surrounding of Vicksburg was accomplished by May 21, 1863. From that time on a steady advance was made by the army, and the flotilla supported every movement by shelling the river batteries. There was no great conflict on the part of the navy, but the help of the ships in keeping open the water route for supplies and in covering the movements of the army was fully appreciated by General Grant and by the whole nation. The writer hereof, who was a lad in the backwoods of Ohio at the time, remembers that when, on the afternoon of the 4th day of July, the people of the village where he lived, half crazy with joy over the news, were piling up dry rails fifty feet high for a bonfire to celebrate the fall of Vicksburg, the name of Porter was frequently mentioned by the shouting crowd, with that of Grant, although the people there didn’t know a warship from a coal barge. [Illustration: _Benton._ Fort. _Tuscumbia._ _Carondelet._ _Mound City._ _Lafayette._ Lower Forts. Battle of Grand Gulf--Second Position. _From a painting by Admiral Walke._] [Illustration: Confederate Batteries. _Pittsburg._ _Louisville._ _Lafayette._ _Mound City._ _Carondelet._ Battle of Grand Gulf--Third Position. _From a painting by Admiral Walke._] [Illustration: Admiral Porter on Deck of Flagship at Grand Écore, La. _From a photograph._]