THE CIVIL WAR DIARY OF JOHN G. MORRISON 1861-1865

in full bloom, which gave the town a very pleasant looking
background indeed. Had a visit from Gen'l Pope, who
inspected the boat. He is a short, stout man with long, dark
hair and whiskers. Does not appear to be any way airish, if
he has 40,000 men under his command, and what is better, his
men speak well of him. A good many of the men went ashore
and brought off several trophies in the shape of pigs and
chickens and several other kinds of notions not laid down in
the articles of war. Turned in at 8 bells.
Sunday, April 6th. Turned out at 4 bells. Had quarters and
service at two bells, after which steam was gotten up and we
proceeded downstream with the intention of destroying the
rebel batter opposite Point Pleasant. They opened on us from
a three-gun batterie, of which we took no notice, more than
returning their warm complements in kind. We found that they
had batteries mounting from one to three guns, scattered all
along the Tennessee shore as far down as Tipton, a distance
of about 15 miles, with which they were in the habit of
annoying our troops on the Missouri shore, and as they
mounted heavier guns than our batteries did, they done so
almost with impunity. We lay off Tipton some time, expecting
that they had batteries also at this point, but as no signs
of animation were visible, we turned round and proceeded
upstream to take the batteries in detail. The first one,
mounting two heavy guns, was fought well and obstinately, but
whether it was the fault of the gunner or not, they could not
get the range of
[91] us, as their shot and shell invariably fell short or
overreached and of course doing us no harm. In the meantime,
we kept lessening the distance that lay between us, so that
we could use our grape and canister. In fact, we made it to
hot to hold any man, except one bearing a charmed life.
There was one man, however, that refused to leave, as he
quietly took his rifle and ensconsed himself behind a tree
that stood close by the battery and from which he would step
out and, deliberatly taking aim, would fire and then dodge
back again to reload. And so he kept on for about twenty
minutes, the boat all this time within an hundred yards of
him, firing her four broadside guns, as well as twenty
soldiers on deck with muskets and rifles, who also kept up a
continuous stream of fire on him and the tree. The tree and
the ground around it was cut up terribly. At last flesh and
blood could stand it no longer, and he started to run to the
woods beyond in a slow and painful manner, as if he was
wounded. Our third master stood by the gun to which I belong
and strove to hurry him up by sending a couple of pistol
shots after him but without effect. And as we had a strand
of grape in the gun, he told us to give him that, which we
did. And when the smoke had floated away, the rifleman was
not to be seen. If we killed him, peace to his ashes. If
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