Battle of Island Number Ten - Conclusion

Conclusion

The destruction of the Confederate garrison was complete. Only a few hundred individual soldiers managed to escape by wading or rafting across Reelfoot Lake and later rejoined the army. The number who were captured became a matter of controversy. Pope asserted, in his official reports, that he had taken 273 officers and 6,700 private soldiers captive. This is almost certainly a great exaggeration. Confederate records (admittedly incomplete) indicate that not more than 5,350 men were present. The number captured would then likely have been less than 4,500.

Aside from the prisoners taken, the number of casualties in the entire campaign was very low. From the fall of New Madrid to the surrender at Tiptonville, the Union army and navy had lost only 7 men killed from all causes, 4 missing, and 14 wounded. During the entire campaign, losses in the Army of the Mississippi were reported as 8 killed, 21 wounded, and 3 missing. Confederate losses in killed and wounded were not reported, but seem to have been similarly low.

Because April 7 was the second day of the far bloodier Battle of Shiloh, the campaign for Island No. 10 soon fell from public notice. It has become memorable principally for the run of USS Carondelet past the batteries, whose passage marked the introduction of a new tactic in warfare. The use of steam for driving ships meant that they no longer had to slug it out with fixed forts. The tactic later became commonplace in the Civil War, being employed by Farragut at New Orleans, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, and Mobile, and by David D. Porter at Vicksburg. Consequently, the value of fixed fortifications was much diminished. The South did not learn this lesson, continuing to rely on forts until the end of the war, but the restored nation had to consider it when designing its defense system from 1865 on.