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

[59] proceeded on the 13th in the Potomska, accompanied by the Pocahontas, to open the inland route to the Altamahaz in doing this he had to remove two double rows of piles several miles apart. They had been sawed off at low water mark to make them more difficult to remove. Their removal took so much time that he did not arrive near Darien until late; he there found two steamers leaving under a heavy head of steam. The brass sleeves of the propeller shaft of the Potomska had given out, which induced him to return to Doboy Island. Darien, as well as Brunswick, had been deserted.

The operations against Fernandina led to the abandonment of the entire coast line defence by batteries, and to points sufficiently high up on the rivers to embarrass an attack by gunboats, except the defences of Charleston, and of Pulaski, the outer defence of Savannah, which was soon to fall. Skiddaway and Green Island batteries were reported abandoned, and the guns taken for the defence of the immediate vicinity of Savannah.

After establishing the lawful authority of the National flag at St. Augustine, the Wabash proceeded to the entrance of the St. John's River, where the admiral had the day before sent several gunboats. The bar had been sounded and buoyed, but in the rough state of the sea only the Ellen, having a lighter draught, could enter, which she did, with two armed launches of the flag-ship. The earthworks in face were found deserted, and the American ensign was hoisted on the lighthouse as a sign of quiet possession.

At high water on the afternoon of the 10th, the gunboats Ottawa, Seneca, and Pembina crossed the bar and at sunset anchored near Mayport Mills, three miles up the river. Every vessel had on board a company of troops of the Fourth New Hampshire.

The Wabash then left the anchorage for Mosquito Inlet,