Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment

[180] the vessel, but crashed through some thin partition as if it were paper, to explode beyond us, or fall harmless in the water. Splintering, the chief source of wounds and death in wooden ships, was thus entirely avoided; the danger was that our machinery might be disabled, or that shots might strike below the water-line and sink us.

This, however, did not happen. Fifteen projectiles, as we afterwards computed, passed through the vessel or cut the rigging. Yet few casualties occurred, and those instantly fatal. As my orderly stood leaning on a comrade's shoulder, the head of the latter was shot off. At last I myself felt a sudden blow in the side, as if from some prize-fighter, doubling me up for a moment, while I sank upon a seat. It proved afterwards to have been produced by the grazing of a ball, which, without tearing a garment, had yet made a large part of my side black and blue, leaving a sensation of paralysis which made it difficult to stand. Supporting myself on Captain Rogers, I tried to comprehend what had happened, and I remember being impressed by an odd feeling that I had now got my share, and should henceforth be a great deal safer than any of the rest. I am told that this often follows one's first experience of a wound.

But this immediate contest, sharp as it was, proved brief; a turn in the river enabled us to use our stern gun, and we soon glided into the comparative shelter of Wiltown Bluff. There, however, we were to encounter the danger of shipwreck, superadded to that of fight. When the passage through the piles was first cleared, it had been marked by stakes, lest the rising tide should cover the remaining piles, and make it difficult to run the passage. But when we again reached it, the stakes had somehow been knocked away, the piles were just covered