Daniel Ammen, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.2, The Atlantic Coast
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[214] of Cushing. He was perhaps six feet in height, and slender, resembling greatly an engraving of the poet Schiller when he was young. The attentive reader will not fail to see in his despatches a poetic vein, at times of great humor. He will see, too, that within his sphere of action he was a man of consummate plan and courage.

The cutter that was in tow and cast off when the launch was hailed, proceeded to the wreck of the Southfield and secured four prisoners. No gun was mounted as supposed.

On the 8th of December, 1864, the army asked a coopera-tive movement on the part of the navy for the purpose of reducing Confederate batteries at Rainbow Bluffs, on the Roanoke River, some sixty miles above Plymouth. As agreed upon, Commander Macomb left Plymouth in the Wyalusing, followed by the Otsego, Valley City, tugs Belle and Bazley, and picket boat No. 5. At 10 P. M. the force had arrived at a sharp bend just below Jameston, at which point they were to meet an army force. The vessels were about anchoring when the Otsego exploded a submerged torpedo under her port side forward, and almost immediately another under the forward pivot gun, which was thrown over. The vessel settled on the bottom at once, making a depth of three feet of water over the spar-deck. In a torpedo net which the vessel carried as a protection were found two others. The following morning the tug Bazley, in making preliminary preparations to execute orders, was also blown up in the same manner, and sank at once, two men having been killed by the explosion.

The 10th and 11th were spent in dragging for torpedoes, and six were found. No army force appeared. Commander Macomb asked instructions of the admiral as to further action, and as then the preparations for an attack on Fort Fisher was the engrossing object, nothing further is to be