Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[196] Moultrie, Wagner, and the batteries within range, having an aggregate of nearly three hundred pieces,¹ were hurling heavy shot and shells upon the squadron then within the focus of their concentric fire, at the distance of from only five to eight hundred yards. These were thrown at the rate of one hundred and sixty a minute.² The greater portion of them glanced off the mailed ships as harmlessly as if they had been pistol-shot, while others made severe bruises. The weaker Keokuk suffered most, having been hit ninety times. Both her turrets were riddled, and nineteen holes were made in her hull, some of them eighteen inches in diameter.³ She withdrew, went down the coast of Morris Island to Light-House inlet, and there sunk, at eight o'clock in the evening, after her people had safely abandoned her.

“The best resources of the descriptive art,” wrote an eye-witness, “I care not in whose hand, are feeble to paint so terrific and awful a reality. Such a fire, or any thing even approaching it, was simply never seen before. The mailed ships are in the focus of a concentric fire of five powerful works, from which they are removed only from five to eight hundred yards, and which, in all, could not have mounted less than three hundred guns. And, understand, these not the lighter ordnance, such as thirty-two or forty-two pounders, which form the ordinary armament of forts, but of the very heaviest caliber — the finest and largest guns from the spoils of the Norfolk Navy Yard, the splendid ten and eleven-inch guns cast at t-he Tredegar Works, and the most approved English rifled-guns (Whitworth and others) of the largest caliber made. There was something almost pathetic in the spectacle of those little floating circular towers, exposed to the crushing weight of those tons of metal, hurled against them with the terrific force of modern projectiles, and with such charges of powder as were never before dreamed of in artillery firing. It was less the character of an ordinary artillery duel, and more of the proportions of the war of the Titans in the elder mythologies. There was but one conviction in the minds of all who were made acquainted with the facts, whether among the naval officers engaged or intelligent outside observers — the fight could not be renewed. And yet it was fully expected, on the night of the battle, that another trial would be made in the morning. I saw many of the captains of the iron-clads during that night. All were ready to resume the battle, though each man felt that he was going to an inevitable sacrifice. I confess I prayed that the fiery cup might pass from them, and that no impetuosity might prompt our leader to throw the fleet again into that frightful fire. . . . . No man could possibly feel with greater intensity all the instincts and motives that prompted the renewal of the battle, than the grand old sailor, the noble Dupont; and yet no man could possibly see with more clearness the blind madness of such an attempt. He dared to be wise.” ⁴

The terrible fight did not last more than forty minutes, during which time, it was estimated, the Confederates fired three thousand five hundred