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| Ram Manassas attacking the Brooklyn. |
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| Shrapnel shell. |
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obstructions, lost her way in the intense darkness, and finally returned to her moorings below.
The waning moon was now just above the horizon, and the mist and smoke had become less dense.
Farragut, in the fore-rigging of the Hartford, had been watching the movements of Bailey and Bell through his night-glass with the greatest interest, while the vessels under his immediate command were slowly approaching Fort Jackson.
When he was within a mile and a quarter of it, the heavy guns of that fortress opened with a remarkable precision of aim, and the Hartford was struck several times.
Farragut had mounted two guns upon the forecastle, and with these he promptly replied, at the same time pushing ahead directly for the fort.
When he was within half a mile of it, he sheered off and gave the garrison such broadsides of grape and canister that they were driven from all their barbette guns.
But the casemate guns were kept in full play, and the conflict became very severe.
The Richmond soon joined in the fight; but the Brooklyn lagged behind, in consequence of becoming entangled with one of the hulks that bore up the great chain.
As soon as the Brooklyn was extricated and turned its bow up the river, the ram Manassas came down upon it furiously, and fired from its trap-door, when within about ten feet of the ship, a heavy bolt at the Brooklyn's smoke-stack, which fortunately lodged in some sand-bags that protected her steam-drum The next moment the ram butted into the ship's starboard gang-way, but the chain armor that had been formed over the sides of the Brooklyn so protected it that the Manassas glanced off and disappeared in the gloom.
The Brooklyn had been exposed to a raking fire from Fort Jackson while entangled in the boom and encountering the Manassas. She had just escaped the latter, when a large Confederate steamer assailed her. She gave it a broadside that set it on fire and consigned it to swift destruction.
Then pushing slowly on in the dark she suddenly found herself abreast Fort St. Philip, and very close to it. She was in a position to bring all her guns to bear upon it in the course of a few minutes.
This was done with powerful effect.
โI had the satisfaction,โ said Captain Craven in his report, โof completely silencing that work before I left it, my men in the tops witnessing, in the flashes of the bursting shrapnel,1 the enemy running like sheep for more comfortable quarters.โ
1 A Shrapnel shell is sometimes spherical and sometimes conical, like that represented in section in the engraving. They are hollow spheres or cones of iron, filled with musket-balls or grape-shot, with sufficient gunpowder to explode them when ignited by a fuse. The balls are then scattered and are very destructive.
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