With no power, the Mississippi was defenseless and there was nothing left to do but destroy her so it wouldn't fall into Union hands. A fire was started and the empty vessel floated downriver. As smoke and flames shot from her funnel and gunports, she twisted and turned in the current.
The Tift brothers and hundreds of Confederate carpenters, shipbuilders and sailors stood on shore and watched months of work lost. The Mississippi was no more.
Captain Arthur Sinclair, commander of the ship later wrote: "If the Mississippi had been completed, and her armament and men on board, she alone could have held the river against the entire Federal fleet coming up from below; she would have been the most formidable ship that I ever heard of -- vey creditable to her projectors, builders and country."
--Old B-Runner
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