James Russell Soley, Professor U. S. Navy, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, The blockade and the cruisers
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[104] rattles were sprung, the bell was rung violently; and a shower of rifle-bullets was poured in upon the launch. Swan received a slight wound, and Cushing had three bullets in his clothing, but no one was disabled. Passing close to the enemy, the launch took a wide sweep out to the middle of the river; then turning, it headed at full speed for the ram. As he approached, Cushing, with the rollicking bravado and audacity that marked all his doings, shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Leave the ram! We are going to blow you up!’ with more exclamations of the same kind, in which the others joined. To Cushing, who went into action with the zest of a schoolboy at football, and the nerve and well-balanced judgment of a veteran, the whole affair was half sport, even while the bullets were flying around him, and while he could hear the snapping of the primers, as the guns of the ram were brought to bear. Luckily they missed fire. As he came near, Cushing ordered the howitzer to be trained and fired; and he directed every movement himself, which was promptly carried out by those in the bow. He says of this incident in his report: ‘The enemy's fire was very severe, but a dose of canister, at short range, served to moderate their zeal and disturb their aim.’

In a moment the launch struck the boom of logs, abreast of the ram's quarter port, and pressed over them. As it approached the side of the ram, the torpedo-spar was lowered; and going ahead slowly until the torpedo was well under the Albemarle's bottom, Cushing detached it with a vigorous pull. Waiting until he could feel the torpedo rising slowly and touching the vessel, he pulled the trigger-line and exploded it. At the same second, as it seemed to those in the boat, the Albemarle's gun was fired, while the launch was within a dozen feet of the muzzle. To Cashing it seemed that the shot went crashing through his boat, though in fact