Pleasant, and the day was used in concentrating the little army and
preparing for another advance.

On July 13th we moved again, making about ten miles, and finding the
navigation becoming difficult by reason of the low water. At several
shoals in the stream rough wing-dams had been built from the sides
to concentrate the water in the channel, and at Knob Shoals, in one
of these "chutes" as they were called, a coal barge had sometime
before been sunk. In trying to pass it our leading boat grounded,
and, the current being swift, it was for a time doubtful if we
should get her off. We finally succeeded, however, and the
procession of boats slowly steamed up the rapids. We had hardly got
beyond them when we heard a distant cannon-shot from our
advance-guard which had opened a long distance between them and us
during our delay. We steamed rapidly ahead. Soon we saw a man
pulling off from the south bank in a skiff. Nearing the steamer, he
stood up and excitedly shouted that a general engagement had begun.
We laughingly told him it couldn't be very general till we got in,
and we moved on, keeping a sharp outlook for our parties on either
bank. When we came up to them, we learned that a party of horsemen
had appeared on the southern side of the river and had opened a
skirmishing fire, but had scampered off as if the Old Nick were
after them when a shell from the rifled gun was sent over their
heads. The shell, like a good many that were made in those days, did
not explode, and the simple people of the vicinity who had heard its
long-continued scream told our men some days after that they thought
it was "going yet."

From this time some show of resistance was made by the enemy, and
the skirmishing somewhat retarded the movement. Still, about ten