Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[566] army and worked in frequent relays. The banks of Red River presented a strange and novel spectacle for these regions, which the feverish activity of the Northerner has not turned upside down as it has other parts of the United States. On one side was seen a detachment tearing down dwellings and loading up the debris on lumber-wagons; on another, the century-old trees were falling by hundreds under the axes of lumbermen from Maine. On the north bank the white soldiers were working with that steadiness which constitutes their force; on the south bank the workmen, furnished for the most part by the black regiments, brought to their work the noisy turbulence of the African blood. These felt an ardent rivalry from the start, but in proportion as the wings gained in height confidence spread among even the most sceptical, and every one seemed personally interested in the success of the dam. The soldiers went into the ice-cold water in spite of the force of the current, and with their heads exposed to a burning sun. The darkness of the night did not retard their energies. Great fires built on the bluffs furnished light and revealed to the enemy, who were unable to hamper them, the progress of the great enterprise which was to rob them of their prey.

Finally, on the 8th of May the two wings met. Boats loaded with bricks and sunk at the extremity formed the connecting-link over which the waters of the river poured with violence. These waters thus dammed up rose rapidly on the upper side, and covered the rapids above which the fleet was stopped. The decisive moment had arrived. But although the rapids were practicable, the navigation of them was, for all that, exceedingly difficult. The sole channel which the vessels could follow was narrow and winding from one end to the other. These vessels, lightened of their heavy artillery and of the heaviest part of their cargoes, which had been put ashore, could only proceed one by one, and avoid the rocks by now making fast to one bank and now to another. Three vessels, the Fort Hindman, the Neosho, and the Osage, passed in this manner, and reached by evening the deep waters accumulated in front of the dam. But the darkness soon rendered the navigation of the rapids impossible, and the passage of the other vessels had to be put off till the morrow. In the mean time, the waters