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.

[148] the enemy boarded, and, after a short struggle, carried the vessel. Wainwright was killed at the head of his men, defending his ship gallantly to the last, and fell after having received seven wounds. Lea had already been mortally wounded before the enemy boarded.

After Wainwright fell, no defence was attempted. The surviving senior officer, an acting-master, almost immediately surrendered, though less than a dozen men were seriously hurt out of his crew of 112. Upon this proceeding Farragut makes the following brief comment: ‘It is difficult to conceive of a more pusillanimous surrender of a vessel to an enemy already in our power.’

Meantime the other vessels were variously occupied. The Sachem and Corypheus, lying near the wharf held by the troops, supplied in some measure the want of artillery; and the battle on shore, which had begun about three o'clock, was kept up until daylight, the Confederates gradually coming closer to our lines. The Owasco, at the beginning of the engagement in the city, had moved up to a position between the Sachem and Corypheus, and united with them in the support of the troops. When daylight showed the Harriet Lane engaged with two of the enemy's vessels, the Owasco moved up to assist her, occasionally touching the ground, as she steamed up the channel, which was two hundred yards wide at this point. After proceeding a short distance, she was driven back by the small-arm fire of the Bayou City; and when the howitzers of the Lane opened on her, she backed down below the Sachem and Corypheus, and took up her berth opposite the town.

It remains to account for the two other steamers, the Westfield and the Clifton, which, despite the fact that they were ferry-boats, were well-fitted to act with effect in such an encounter as this. The Westfield got under way at the first