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“I think I see something,” Preston Kimble shouted.
Kimble was fifty feet from Antoine and closer to the water.
Like an evil mourner shrouded in black, the dim outline of Hartford slowly materialized on the river. Kimble reached for the pistol lying on the wall of the rampart and fired a minié ball at the approaching wraith. The effect was like trying to use a flyswatter to kill a bird, but Kimble didn’t care.
And just then the water batteries of Fort Jackson opened up with a roar.
The battle began at 3:40 A.M.
Lieutenant Warley opened the roof hatch on Manassas and stared at the sky. Mortar shells arced through the air with a flash of light from their burning fuses. He watched as the shells reached the apex of their trajectory and slowed. Then, looking like spi
In the engine room of Manassas, Chief Engineer Dearing, who had transferred over from Tuscarora, was stoking a hellish fire of his own creation. Dearing knew the Confederate ram would need all the steam he could make, and he took the boilers to the limit just as a Federal ship appeared through the gloom.
“Make for the Yank ship,” Warley shouted to the pilot.
The pilot began his course adjustment, but just then the Confederate ram Resolute, in full retreat, crossed abeam. Manassas struck her around the wheelhouse.
“Back off,” Warley shouted.
While still entangled with Resolute, the Union vessel slowed and poured shot into the side on Manassas before continuing upstream. Once they were free of Resolute, Warley ordered a course to midstream, where he had spotted a Union paddle wheeler.
The outline of the familiar ship appeared in the blackness.
“She’s the U.S.S. Mississippi,” Warley shouted.
In a war that pitted brother against brother, there was no time for sentiment. The U.S.S. Mississippi was the last ship Warley had served on before resigning his commission in the Union navy. Now Warley was bent on sinking her.
In the foretop of the U.S.S. Mississippi, artist William Waud spied the sinister-looking ship approaching. He would later draw her as a lead-colored wet whale, with the smokestack high in the air the only feature that might define it as a ship. At this second, there were pressing matters. Waud shouted to Lieutenant George W. Dewey, later to become famous for his destruction of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay.
“Here is a queer-looking customer off our port bow,” Waud yelled.
Dewey corrected course in an attempt to run down the Confederate vessel, but his paddle wheeler was going upstream against the current and his pilot had little control.
He ordered his guns to fire, but the shots glanced off Manassas’s back.
“Take her at the wheelhouse,” Warley shouted to the pilot.
Manassas had the current on her side, but the pilot’s aim was poor in the blackness.
They came in on Mississippi’s quarter.
“Fire the gun,” Warley shouted, as they struck the Union ship.
The single ca
Fear and anger ran through the Confederate fleet as the Union navy steamed upriver. With a few more weeks of preparation, they might have stood a fighting chance. As it was, the saber thrust of the Union navy was cutting through their defenses with indescribable ease. Most Confederate rams were grounded on the side of the river by their captains, and their crews escaped into the swamps. The mighty Louisiana, crippled by uncompleted construction and faulty propulsion, lay tied up alongside the shore. She was firing her guns, but the design of her gun ports was faulty, and she had only a limited range in which to fire.
A Union ship came abreast and poured shot into her hull.
Things were no better on Manassas. The Mississippi River had become a boiling inferno. Clouds of smoke rolled across the river, illuminated by bursts of light from muzzle flashes from the passing ships. Shells flew through the air in a rain of lead, and the flames of burning ships made for a macabre scene of destruction. A large orange-tinted moon had risen, but it was hidden behind the thick, choking smoke.
Over the noises of the engines, Warley could hear the shouts of the Union gu
“To port,” he shouted to his pilot.
Aboard the Union ship Pensacola, Executive Officer F. A. Poe viewed Manassas advancing. Ordering a course correction to avoid the ramming, he waited until the last second, then ordered his guns fired into the Confederate ram. The shells exploded on Manassas’s back. Only a few inches to starboard and they would have entered the pilothouse through the port.
By now, the majority of the Union fleet had passed, and Warley ordered Manassas downstream. He was intent on attacking the mortar boats downstream to take fire off the Confederate forts. His decision would prove deadly. Once Manassas came into the range of Fort St. Philip, the batteries, mistaking the Confederate ram for a disabled Union ship, opened fire on their own countrymen.
“Get us out of here!” Warley shouted to the pilot, an order to steer upstream.
Manassas, underpowered to begin with, struggled hard to make headway against the current. And then Warley thought he’d found salvation. A Union vessel appeared in the gloom. Warley thought she was Farragut’s flagship Hartford, and he made his way toward her. But salvation would not be his. The vessel was not Hartford but Brooklyn, a worthy target but not what Warley had hoped for. Brooklyn was entangled with part of the remaining chain obstruction and was struggling to free herself. The Union vessel was stuck under the guns of Fort Jackson, and if she didn’t free herself soon, the guns now finding their range would turn her into tinder.
“Resin in the boiler,” Warley shouted down in the engine room.
The increase in power came seconds later. Warley ordered the pilot to ram Brooklyn. Had not the Union navy ordered chain armor mounted to their vessels before the battle, the blow from Manassas’s ram would have sunk the Union ship. As it was, the blow was deflected and caused minimal damage. Warley ordered the pilot to back off.
The battle had raged for hours. The sky to the east was begi
Warley noticed the Confederate vessel McRae involved in a one-sided fight with several Union ships. Manassas came to assist and chased the Union ships upriver. The crew was weary from the hours of battle. Manassas had taken numerous hits at close range. Many were injured. But Warley was still game. He ordered the pilot upriver around Quarantine Point, where most of Farragut’s fleet was waiting.
“We are losing steam,” Dearing shouted up to the pilothouse.
“We’re barely making headway,” the pilot shouted to Warley, as he stared out the tiny forward port at the approaching Union ships.
Warley stood silently for a moment. They had fought the good fight, but now his ship’s systems were failing. His ship was dying, and he was forced to face this fact. From the gun deck, Warley heard the low cries of a wounded sailor. To the front was an advancing enemy he was ill-equipped to fight.