Part I of this tale left the lonely Arkansas and Captain Isaac N. Brown on July 15, 1862, facing a gauntlet of Yankee deep-water warships, steam rams, river ironclads, gunboats, and bomb vessels as he ran down the Mississippi toward Vicksburg. It was the combined squadrons of Flag Officers David G. Farragut and Charles H. Davis assembled to reduce this last major Confederate stronghold on the river.
Brown was bringing his powerful vessel to the defense of the city. He had started that morning from his base up the Yazoo River and had been engaged in a running battle ever since with Union river ironclad Carondelet, wooden gunboat Tyler, and ram Queen of the West, which had been dispatched upriver on reconnaissance just as Brown was coming down.
Carondelet now lay crippled and helpless in the mud of the Yazoo while Tyler and Queen of the West fled badly wounded before the Rebel monster seeking the safety of their fleet. Arkansas herself had been bloodied and battered in the fight; her engines were faltering; her gun crews and engineers were fighting exhaustion, heat, and fumes from the riddled smokestack.
