Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

‘ [30] Dover,’ where they could intercept either reenforcements or fugitives, and ‘to hold themselves in readiness to charge and take the work by storm, promptly on the receipt of orders.’¹

Dispatches from Halleck, and corroborating information received on the ground, that the rebels were rapidly reinforcing, made it imperatively necessary, in Grant's opinion, for the fort to be carried on the 6th; otherwise he would have delayed another day, to make the investment complete. His forces were not up from Cairo in sufficient numbers to set an earlier hour for the march: the orders were made at ten o'clock at night, when the whole command had not arrived, and McClernand was informed in writing, that ‘success might depend very greatly upon the celerity’ of his operations. Promptly at eleven o'clock, on the 6th, the march began; the gunboats moved at the same hour, and shortly before noon attacked the water-batteries, at a distance of six hundred yards. After a severe and rapid fire of an hour and a half, every gun was silenced by the naval force, no vessel receiving serious damage, except the Essex; she was struck in the boiler by a shot which disabled her, killing and wounding twenty-nine men by scalding. Her commanding officer, Porter, was among the wounded. Nineteen soldiers were also injured on the same ship, several of whom afterwards died.

The fort surrendered at discretion. Tilghman was captured, with his staff, and sixty men who had been retained to work the heavy guns in the fort. The rest of the garrison had been stationed at the outworks, about two miles off, to avoid the fire