Morning journal and courier., 1886-11-30
ON BOARD A MORTAR BOAT.

Experience While Rombarding For
 Jackson.
 Harrington Smith in Detroit Free Press
 One of the preliminary movements for the passage of the forts defending New Orleans was the bringing up and placing of Porter's mortar fleet where it could shell the forts The number of these mortar boats was sn even twenty. and they were divided into three divisions, each division having a sep crate commander and being lodated by itself For several days before the mortars got to work the coast survey men were busy buoy ing out positions and calculating distances, and the wonderful work accomplished by
 It must not be supposed that all the fun was on our side. After third shot the Confederates opened on us from number of heavy guns While they could rot see us on account of the forest they knew our posi- tions, and after a little shot and shell began to fall around us. Inside of one hour counted eight shells which fell within two hundred feet of our schooner, and the burst ing of some of them threw water on our decks. During the first day we had dozen missiles pass directly over us, cutting a few ropes, and I witnessed several accidents aboard of other vessels lying ahead and be- hind us. The destructive work of the Con federate fire was, however, more plainly seen when the pig one hundred ana twenty pound shells fell into the forest which protected us. The soil was soft and spo gy, being subject to periodical overhows, and when the great shells sunk into this earth and exploded they would throw mud and water over the tree tops and leave 8 crater large enough to take in house. Scores of great trees were up- rooted by these explosions and the shells which exploded in the tops of others created far more havoc than the angriest bolts of lightning ever hurled from Jove's hand.
 We planted over thirteen hundred bombs inside the two forts on that first day, burn ing the citadel and everything else which would burn in Fort Jackson, driving most of the men to shelter and damaging the mag azine so that it could not be entered during the night. Outside of thirty forty shells which exploded in the air owing to bad fuses, not more than dozen out of the great number fired fell outside of the works. We fired entirely at Fort Jackson which was mile and half away.
 We opened fire again at daylight on the second day and the reply from the fort was just as vigorous, although we knew the ene- my had suffered great deal and must be considerably detnoralized. About mid fore noon, just as we were ready to fill our nor tar for the fifteenth time since opening, great rife shell, which plainly saw before it fell and took to be a bird of some sort, de- scended upon our deck with an awful crash. It disappeared through the heavy blanks as if they had been paper, passed down through the magazine with its dangerous contents, and ou down through the bottom of the schooner and into the mud of the river bed. The fuse was burning brightly when it struck the deck, and the men a trail of sparks as it passed through the magazine. In moment it was known that we were sinking but the craft around us hastened alongside and helped to remove most of the stores before she went down. That the shell struck without killing any of us was con sidered miraculous. That it passed through the magazine without exploding it one of those unaccountable things in war which admit of discu .sion.