678 



NAVY, U. S., OPEKATIONS OF. 



ten A severe cannonade ensued between 

 the vessels and the forts with no definite re- 

 sults. Early on the morning of the 8th the 

 enemy perceived the condition of the Weehaw- 

 ken and opened upon her from Fort Moultrie, 

 in consequence of which the admiral ordered 

 the ironclads to cover her. The Weehawken 

 however gallantly replied to the enemy's fire, 

 and the second shot from her 15-inch gun ex- 

 ploded a magazine in the fort, which was silent 

 for some time afterward. She received no 

 further molestation from the batteries on Sul- 

 livan's Island until the afternoon, when, in the 

 face of a heavy fire, she succeeded in getting 

 afloat and returned to her anchorage. 



The evacuation of Morris Island by the enemy 

 seemed to Admiral Dahlgren to afford an op- 

 portunity to assault Fort Sumter, which was 

 well broken on the gorge and southeast face, 

 and thus to pass the obstructions in the main 

 channel. The night of the 8th was selected 

 for the undertaking, and the storming party, 

 comprising 34 officers and 413 men, who vol- 

 unteered for the duty, was put under the com- 

 mand of Commander T. H. Stevens, of the 

 Patapsco. The expedition started in twenty 

 boats soon after 10 P. M., with the intention of 

 assailing the fort at two points, one party land- 

 ing at the gorge wall and mounting up over 

 the ruins to the parapet, while another was to 

 attempt an entrance through the lower em- 

 brasures. At about half past one o'clock the 

 first line of boats was challenged by the sentry 

 on the fort, from which a sharp fire of mus- 

 ketry was immediately opened. At a signal 

 from the fort all the rebel batteries bearing on 

 Sumter began to fire on the boats, the garrison 

 aiding the gunners to obtain the range by 

 throwing lights upon the water. A rebel ram 

 also came up and attacked the boats at close 

 quarters. Seven boats nevertheless reached 

 tne gorge wall, amidst a storm of musketry, 

 grape, canister and hand grenades, only to en- 

 counter unforeseen difficulties of a formidable 

 nature. Instead of the d6bris up which the 

 stormers expected to ascend, they discovered a 

 solid wall of sand bags 12 feet high, from which 

 the enemy fired npon them with deliberate 

 aim. No scaling ladders had been provided, 

 and the men could neither advance nor retreat. 

 Under these circumstances orders were given 

 to withdraw, and four of the boats succeeded 

 in making their escape. The other three were 

 swamped by the enemy's guns, and the whole 

 number who landed, 10 officers and 104 men, 

 were either killed or taken prisoners. Several 

 of the boats were driven off by the ram and 

 took no part in the assault, which may be con- 

 sidered a fortunate circumstance, as, had the 

 whole force landed, they would doubtless have 

 been cut off to a man. (See ARMY OPERATIONS.) 



With this attempt ended the important op- 

 erations before Charleston, in which the navy 

 bore a prominent part. The ironclads cooper- 

 ated with General Gillmore's batteries in com- 

 pleting the destruction of Fort Sumter, but no 



further effort was made by them to pass into 

 the inner harbor, notwithstanding many of the 

 obstructions were torn np and washed ashore 

 by the violence of the December gales. Sub- 

 sequent to the evacuation of Morris Island by 

 the enemy, a line of interior blockade was es- 

 tablished by Admiral Dahlgren, extending from 

 the island to a point off Fort Moultrie. The 

 ironclads were placed on this line, each taking 

 its turn of picket duty, near the entrance of the 

 inner harbor, and as they thereby commanded 

 Maffit's Channel, through which the greater 

 part of the blockade runners had entered Char- 

 leston, the harbor was thenceforth effectually 

 closed. " Not a single blockade runner," says 

 Secretary "Welles, in his annual report, "has 

 succeeded in reaching the city for months, and 

 the traffic which had been to some extent, and 

 with large profits, previously carried on is ex- 

 tinguished. As a commercial mart, Charleston 

 has no existence. " 



On the night of October 5th, the New Iron- 

 sides, while lying at her moorings off Morris 

 Island, was struck by the rebel torpedo steam- 

 er David, whose apparatus exploded at the mo- 

 ment of contact, giving the ship a severe shock, 

 and throwing a column of water upon her spar 

 deck and into her engine room. No percept- 

 ible injury was done to her armor or hull. The 

 David, a cigar-shaped vessel, fifty feet long by 

 five in diameter, is supposed to have been sunk 

 by the shock of the torpedo, as nothing was 

 subsequently seen of her. She had a crew of 

 four persons, two of whom were picked up out 

 of the water. 



Early on the morning of Christmas day, the 

 gunboat Marblehead, Lieut.-Commander E. W. 

 Meade, jr., while lying on the Stono river, 

 opposite Legareville, was fired upon by two 

 batteries of field and siege pieces, the latter 

 being posted in a thick wood. A spirited con- 

 test of over an hour ensued, at the end of 

 which the enemy retired in disorder, leaving 

 behind them two 8-inch howitzer iron guns and 

 caissons. As the practice of the Marblehead 

 was excellent, their loss is supposed to have 

 been severe. The gunboat received twelve 

 shots in her hull, and was considerably injured 

 in her upper works and rigging. She had three 

 men killed and four wounded. The Pawnee 

 came up at the conclusion of the fight and an- 

 noyed the retreat of the enemy. 



The chief maritime disaster on this station 

 was the loss of the Weehawken, which sank at 

 her moorings on the morning of December Oth, 

 during the prevalence of a northwesterly gale, 

 carrying with her to the bottom four of her en- 

 gineers and twenty-six of her crew. The re- 

 mainder of the ship's company escaped in the 

 boats, or by jumping overboard, at the moment 

 of going down. The most of those who per- 

 ished were probably drowned in the turret and 

 immediately below it, while seeking to force 

 their way through the narrow openings which 

 afford the only means of escape. The disas- 

 ter was at the time attributed to her hatches 



