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and perhaps a blind.
Captain Davis reported: ‘As a demonstration, the appearance of the naval and military force in Wilmington and Warsaw Sounds has had complete success.
Savannah was thrown into a state of great alarm, and all the energies of the place have been exerted to the utmost to increase its military defences, for which purpose troops have been withdrawn from other places.’
On February 18th, Captain John Rodgers had carried out the objects for which he had been sent into Mud and Wright Rivers, and after mooring the small steamer Hale to protect an army battery planted at Venus Point, on the Savannah River, he returned to Port Royal with the force under his command.
In relation to this the flag-officer informed the Department that Captain John Rodgers had a force of four gunboats and two purchased steamers, and had rendered the most efficient support and protection to the military parties in the planting of this battery.1
For some time the flag-officer had been making arrangements for an attack on Fernandina, by collecting or getting ready the vessels doing duty on blockade that would best serve the purpose.
At length, on the last day of February, he left Port Royal in the Wabash.
On the 2d of March the Wabash and other large vessels anchored off St: Andrew's Inlet, twenty miles north of the sea entrance to Fernandina.
The flag was temporarily hoisted on board of the Mohican, Captain S. W. Godon, and the force intended for that inlet formed by signal and entered in the following order: Ottawa,
1 These two demonstrations were known at the time, in the fleet, to be intended to weaken the defences at Fernandina, particularly by withdrawing the guns for the defence of Savannah. Whether they only drew the attention of General Lee to the impossibility of defending Fernandina with the rear approach unguarded, is of little import. The guns at St. Simon's and at Jekyl Island had been previously sent to Savannah, and those at Fernandina were in process of removal when the expedition reached that point. The troops on board the transports remained in Warsaw Sound until they left for Fernandina.
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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