Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[196] casemate batteries of the east and northeast faces of Sumter, directed, as they were, by skilled and heroic officers, and manned by gallant soldiers, would have been equal to the disabling of the fleet before its powerful guns could have effected a serious breach.

The action began at 3 p. m., by a shot from Fort Moultrie, directed at the Weehawken. Fort Sumter and Batteries Bee, Beauregard, Wagner and Cummings Point opened their fire, and the action at once became general. All the batteries had been instructed to concentrate on the leading assailants, and following these directions, the concentration of fire soon disabled the Weehawken, and she steamed out of range, giving place to the next monitor, which steamed into action on the curve of an ellipse. The Ironsides came into action first against Moultrie, and then Sumter, approaching within 1,600 or 1,700 yards, but the fire of the forts and the batteries directed upon her drove her beyond range. The Keokuk, a double-turreted monitor, gallantly steamed under the walls of Sumter, within 900 yards of her batteries, and opened with her 11-inch guns. Sumter, Moultrie, Bee and Cummings Point concentrated their fire upon her, and for forty minutes she fought heroically for the breach in Sumter. The 10-inch shot and 7-inch bolts penetrated her armor, her hull and turrets were pierced, her boats shot away, the plating at her bow was ripped up for six feet in length and two and a half in width, and she was barely able to retreat to an anchorage off Morris island, where she sank. The battle was continued for two hours and twenty-five minutes, when Admiral Du Pont signaled his vessels to retreat. He had made a gallant fight, but his ironclads could not stand the fire of Ripley's guns, and his defeat was decisive. ‘I attempted to take the bull by the horns,’ he wrote General Hunter, the day after the battle, ‘but he was too much for us. These monitors are miserable failures where forts are concerned; the longest was one hour and the others fortyfive ’