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

[70] the Seneca was fired on at a distance of sixty to one hundred yards by a company of ‘Regulators,’ and two of the crew dangerously wounded. Although the attack was wholly unexpected, and the commanding officer, pilot, and others were grouped, and the mass of fire was directed at them, none of the group were struck, although many bullets hit the hammock netting and the bulwark opposite.

As stated before, the enemy were most desirous of closing the upper part of the St. John's, to permit the transportation of small arms through the inlets of the peninsula, and for that purpose had erected a battery of seven Viii-inch and two IV 1/2-inch rifled guns on St. John's Bluff, some seven miles from the mouth of the river.

Commander Steedman in the Port Royal suggested that a co-operating land force should be sent to secure the guns when silenced by the vessels under his command. General Mitchell, then in command at Port Royal, promptly sent a force under General Brannan, which was landed at a favorable point. The gunboats attacked the battery on the 5th of October, which led to the hasty abandonment of the works and the seizure of them by our troops. The armed steamer Darlington, captured, as the reader will remember, by Commander Rodgers at Fernandina, Lieutenant-Commander Williams, with Company E Forty-seventh Pennsylvania regiment on board, and the Hale, Lieutenant-Commander Snell, ascended the river to Lake Beresford, two hundred and thirty miles, and captured the steamer Morton, one of the best on the river and engaged in the transportation of arms and munitions. General Brannan wrote to the flag-officer: ‘Commander Steedman exhibited a zeal and perseverance in every instance, whether in aiding my forces to effect a landing, the ascent of St. John's river two hundred and thirty miles, or the assistance to one of my transports, ’