drifted past the batteries with the force of the current and was not discovered until in front of the town. The batteries opened upon her, but she escaped unharmed, and the success of the movement prompted General Grant to make further attempts in the same direction. The Indianola was captured in a fight with the Confederate gun-boat Webb and the Queen of the West, which had been repaired and placed in the service of her captors. Soon afterwards a coal-barge was disguised to resemble a gun-boat and allowed to drift past the batteries of Vicksburg in the night. Her pilot house was a small shed taken from a plantation, and her smoke-stacks were made of barrels piled endwise on top of one another, the topmost one containing a kettle of burning tar.
A tremendous fire was opened from the batteries, but the coal-barge, with not a soul on board, drifted along as though nothing had happened, and passed beyond the reach of the guns. The Indianola was being repaired a few miles below, and fearing the supposed gun-boat would recapture her, the Confederates sent a courier with orders that she should be set on fire. By the time the ruse was discovered and an order countermanding the burning could be sent, the Indianola had been destroyed. She burned and blew up and not even a gun was saved from her.
Preparations were now made by General Grant for transferring his army to a point on the Mississippi below Vicksburg, and for this purpose General McClernand, on the 29th of March, moved with the 13th corps to New Carthage, distant by land from Milliken's Bend about thirty-five miles. The movement was slow, as the roads were bad; the 16th corps followed, accompanied by long trains of wagons transporting supplies and ammunition. While the movement was going on preparations were made for running several gun-boats and a fleet of transports past the batteries of Vicksburg. Eight gun-boats
