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 next attempt of the Confederates to raise the blockade on the South Atlantic station resulted disastrously to its projectors. This was the brief cruise of the Atlanta, formerly the Fingal, in Wassaw Sound, in June, 1863.

The Fingal was an iron steamer of English origin, which had run the blockade of Savannah in November, 1861. She had been taken by the Confederate Government, re-named the Atlanta, and altered and strengthened for service as a man-of-war. In making the alterations, she had been cut down so as to leave the deck about two feet above the water when loaded. From this deck rose a casemate, with a flat roof and inclined sides. Within the casemate were four Brooke rifles, two VI 1/10-inch in the midship ports, and two Vii–inch on pivots at the bow and stern, so contrived that they could be fired either laterally or fore-and-aft. The armor protecting this powerful battery was four inches thick, made of English railroad iron, rolled into two-inch plates. The deck was of enormous strength, and its edges projected six feet from the side of the vessel, the projection being filled in and protected with a heavy covering of wood and iron. The Atlanta's bow ended in a ram, over which projected a torpedo spar. She was in every way one of the most powerful vessels which the Confederates had got afloat; and great things were expected of her.

Intimations had reached Admiral Dupont that the Atlanta and other ironclads at Savannah were on the point of leaving Wilmington River and entering Wassaw Sound for the purpose of raising the blockade at that place, and in the inlets to the southward. It was to be another raid on the blockades, like that of the 31st of January; but the vessel to be employed was much more powerful. Dupont, however, was