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.

The Savannah River was easily blockaded after the capture of Fort Pulaski. Its channel, narrow and difficult at the best, was well-nigh impassable when stripped of buoys and lights; and the fort, lying opposite the narrowest point, prevented access in the daytime. The principal side entrance to the city of Savannah, through Wassaw Sound, was effectually closed when the Sounds were occupied after the battle of Port Royal.

The Confederates were not at any time sufficiently strong to raise the blockade on the South Atlantic coast. The raids that were made with this object—sudden dashes into the midst of the blockading fleet—though well organized and conducted, failed to accomplish any more important result than disabling one or two vessels, and increasing the watchfulness of the blockaders.

One of the boldest of these attempts was made in the winter of 1863, off Charleston. On the morning of January 31, before daylight, two ironclad rams, the Chicora and the Palmetto State, came out of the harbor, crossed the bar, and, under cover of a thick haze, approached the vessels stationed outside. It happened that at this time two of the largest vessels of the blockading fleet, the Powhatan and Canandaigua, had been sent to Port Royal for coal and repairs. Of those that remained, numbering ten or more steamers, the Housatonic was the only war-vessel of considerable size. The others were chiefly purchased vessels and gunboats. It was one of the many disadvantages of the exposed station outside the bar that it necessitated the distribution of the ships over a wide area, and at this time they were spread out in a line five or six miles in length.

The Mercedita was the first vessel attacked. It could not be said that she was off her guard, for, only an hour before, she had slipped her cable and overhauled a troop-ship, which