The fight with the “Albemarle.”
One of the most remarkable naval conflicts of this or any other war — a single-handed encounter between a delicate river steamer and a most formidable “iron-clad” --occurred on the 5th of May, 1864, in
Albemarle sound, about twenty miles below the mouth of the
Roanoke river.
On the afternoon of that day, three side-wheel gunboats, the “
Mattabesett,” “
Sassacus,” and “
Wyalusing,” were lying at anchor in the sound, awaiting the appearance of the “
Albemarle,” a most formidable rebel iron-clad ram, whose recent exploits in sinking two of our gunboats, near
Plymouth, rendered the prolonged occupation of the sound by our forces somewhat uncertain and problematical.
To the three vessels above named had been especially assigned the duty of encountering and, if possible, destroying this dreaded iron monster; and, on the afternoon in question, an advance-guard of picket boats, comprising four or five of the smaller vessels of the Union fleet, with the “
Miami,” had been sent up to the mouth of the
Roanoke, with the design of decoying the rebel “ram” from under the protection of the batteries at
Plymouth into the open waters
[
460]
of the sound.
The ruse succeeded, and falling back before the “
Albemarle,” as she left her moorings to pursue them, they quickly drew her into a favorable position for attack.
Shortly after three P. M., in obedience to signals from the “
Mattabesett,” the three vessels got under way, and forming in line ahead, in the order in which their names are above written, proceeded at ordinary speed up the sound.
At four P. M. the “
Mattabesett” communicated with the army transport “
Massasoit,” coming down, and immediately signalled to her consorts the “ram is out.”
Almost at the same instant they discovered the picket boats falling back slowly before the advancing foe; and beyond them a glistening speck upon the waters, with two other dark objects hovering near, which they knew to be the ram,--accompanied by her consorts.
The Union vessels were now cleared for action, and every preparation was made for a determined struggle with their formidable antagonist, toward whom they were driving under full steam.
The day was charming, the broad expanse of water was undisturbed by a ripple, while the sun's beams were dazzlingly reflected from the inclined sides of the “
Albemarle,” till she seemed like a mass of silver, while above her waved an unusually large and handsome Confederate flag.
The rebels were now seen to be communicating by boats, and one of their vessels, a white, stern-wheel steamer, which was afterward ascertained to be the “
Cotton Plant,”
cotton-clad, and manned by two hundred sharpshooters and boarders, put hastily back to
Plymouth.
The other steamer, which proved to be the “
Bombshell,” closed up on the “ram's” quarter, in readiness for the coining conflict.
[
461]
Sweeping gracefully along, under a full head of steam, the Union vessels approached, and while the “
Mattabesett” hauled up abreast of the “
Albemarle,” the “
Miami,” some distance astern, threw a good but ineffectual shot, to which the “ram” promptly responded from guns that were evidently of the heaviest calibre.
Almost at the same moment the “
Mattabesett” delivered her full broadside, at three hundred yards' distance, and sweeping round the “ram's” stern, ran by the “
Bombshell,” close aboard, while the latter lay in the quarter post of the “ram.”
The “
Sassacus” now entered the fight, and the “ram,” which had failed to get at the “
Mattabesett” as she swept by, turned her bow squarely for the former, whose pilot, quickly measuring the distance, sheered his vessel slightly, and passed some one hundred and fifty yards ahead of the “
Albemarle,” the “
Sassacus” delivering with precision her whole broadside of solid shot, which, however, rebounded from the ironclad like cork balls.
Then, sweeping around the stern of the “
Albemarle,” the “
Sassacus” paid her attentions to the “
Bombshell,” by whose sharpshooters she had been considerably annoyed, and poured into her hull a full broadside, which brought the rebel ensign down, and sent the white flag up in short order.
Directing her to drop out of fire and anchor, which order was promptly executed in good faith, the “
Sassacus” turned again to the “
Albemarle,” whom she found hotly engaged by the “
Mattabesett” and “
Wyalusing.”
The latter was particularly attracting the attention of the “ram,” which was steaming slowly, though using her guns rapidly and with effect, and whose whole side was just then most opportunely exposed to the “
Sassacus,”
[
462]
now only some eight hundred yards distant. Comprehending, at a glance, the value of the opportunity thus offered, the gallant captain of the “
Sassacus” unhesitatingly gave a preconcerted signal, “four bells,” again and again repeated, to the engineer, and the ship was headed straight for what was supposed to be the “ram's” weakest part, where the casemate or house joined the hull.
The fires were clear, and with thirty pounds of steam on, and throttle wide open, the “
Sassacus” dashed upon her adversary, under a headway of nine or ten knots, striking her a fair, square, right-angled blow, without glance or slide!
The iron-clad reeled under the blow, and her black hull was forced under water by the bow of the “
Sassacus,” till the water flowed over it from side to side, and it seemed as if the monster was sinking.
“As we struck her,” says one of the participants in the fight,
the “ ram” drove a one hundred pounder Brooke's shot through and through us, from starboard bow to port side.
Our stem was forced into her side, and keeping up our headway we careened her down beneath our weight, and pushed her like an inert mass beneath our weight, while, in profound silence, our gunners were training their heavy ordnance to bear upon our astonished enemy.
Now a black muzzle protrudes from the “ ram's” open port, and the loaders of our Parrott rifle, standing on the slide, served the gun within fifteen feet of that yawning cannon's mouth.
It was a grand reproduction of the old days of “ broadside to broadside,” and “ yard-arm locked to yard;” but the immense guns, now grinning defiance across the few feet of space which separated them, each one carrying the weight of metal of a whole tier of the old time carronades, rendered this
[463]
duel of ponderous ordnance a magnificent and imposing spectacle.
Still we pushed her broadside — to before us, our engine at full speed, pressing our bow deeper and deeper into her. Still she gave way. ... It was a grapple for life.
A silent but fearful struggle for the mastery, relieved only by the sharp, scattering volleys of musketry, the whizzing of leaden bullets, and the deep, muffled explosion of hand grenades, which the brave fellow in our foretop was flinging in the enemy's hatch, driving back their sharpshooters, and creating consternation and dismay among the closely packed crew of the iron-clad; but not until our pilot house and smoke stack had been spattered all over with the indentation of rifle balls.
No one had yet fallen.
We had thrown shot and shell square into her ports from our rifle guns on the hurricane deck, and driven volley after volley of musketry through every aperture in her iron shield, and now our heavy one hundred pounder was training for another crushing blow.
At this juncture, the sharp, false stern of the “
Sassacus,” which had cut deeply into the side of the ram, gave way under the pressure, and the two vessels swung around abreast of each other, their guns thundering away with simultaneous roar.
At the same moment a shot from the “
Albemarle” pieced the boiler of the “
Sassacus,” and then was heard the terrible sound of unloosed, unmanageable steam, rushing in tremendous volumes, seething and hissing as it spread, till both combatants were enveloped and hidden in the dense, suffocating vapor.
Now the contest deepened in intensity, it was a savage fight for life.
The gunners of the
[
464]
“
Sassacus” felt that their only chance of injuring their antagonist was to throw their shots with accuracy into her open ports, and that upon their own frail wooden vessel the enemy's every shot would tell with terrible effect.
Muzzle to muzzle, the guns were served and fired, the powder from those of the “
Albemarle” blackening the bows and side of the “
Sassacus,” as they passed within ten feet. A solid shot from the latter's hundred pounder struck the “
Albemarle's” port sill, and crumbled into fragments, one piece rebounding to the deck of the “
Sassacus,” and the rest entering the port hole and silencing the enemy's gun. Through the same opening, followed, in rapid succession, a nine inch solid shot, and a twenty pounder shell, and as the tough-hided “ram” drifted clear, the starboard wheel of the “
Sassacus” ground over her quarter, smashing the launches that she .was towing into shapeless drift wood, and grating over the sharp iron plates with a raw, dismal sound.
Then, as the “ram” passed the wheel of the “
Sassacus,” the crew of the latter drove solid shot into her ports from their after guns-and her armor was rent by a solid shot from the Parrott rifle gun, which, however, had received such damage to its elevating screw that it could not be depressed so as to fire into the enemy's ports.
All this cool gunnery and precise artillery practice transpired while the ship, from fire room to hurricane deck, was shrouded in one dense cloud of fiery steam.
The situation was appalling as imagination can conceive.
The shrieks of the scalded and dying sufferers, rushing frantically up from below, the shrivelled flesh hanging shred-like from their tortured limbs, the engine without control, surging and revolving without check or guide, abandoned by
[
465]
all save the heroic engineer, who, scalded, blackened, sightless, still stood to his post with an indomitable will which no agony of pain could swerve from his duty, and whose clear voice, sounding out from amidst that mass of unloosed steam and uncontrollable machinery, urged his men to return with him into the fire room, to drag the fires from beneath the uninjured boiler, now in imminent danger of explosion.
His marvellous fortitude in that hour of intense agony, aided by the bravery of his assistants, saved the lives of the two hundred persons on board the ship — for, as there was no means of instantly cutting off communication between the two boilers, and all the steam in both rushed out like a flash, the vessel was exposed to the additional horror
of fire. All this time, in the midst of this thick white cloud of stifling vapor, the “
Sassacus” moved on, working slowly ahead on a vacuum alone; but her guns thundering steadily and indomitably against her adversary.
At last, the cloud of steam lifted from off the scene of conflict, and the rebel “
Albemarle” was seen gladly escaping from the close lock in which she had been held, for nearly a quarter of an hour, by her slight but stubborn antagonist.
Her broad ensign trailed, draggled and torn, upon her deck, and she looked far different from the trim, jaunty, and formidable vessel which an hour before had defied the slender river craft who had vanquished her. The gallant captain of the “
Sassacus” could not refrain from giving her “another turn,” and turning his vessel around, with helm “hard-a-port,” which she answered slowly but steadily, she again passed down by the “
Albemarle.”
The divisions stood at their guns, the captain calmly smoking his cigar, gave his
[
466]
orders with surpassing coolness, and directing the movements of his vessel with wonderful precision and relentless audacity, kept his guns at work, so long as they could be brought to bear upon the retiring foe, till the “
Sassacus” was carried, by her disabled engine, slowly, gracefully, and defiantly out of range.
Of course, in this hand-to-hand fight between the “
Sassacus” and “
Albemarle,” little aid could be rendered, at close quarters, by the former's consorts, as such aid would have merely endangered her safety.
Yet, the “
Wyalusing,” the “
Mattabesett” and the “
Miami” did effective service, as opportunity offered, and the little “
Whitehead,” during the fiercest of the fight, steamed alongside of the iron monster, and delivered shot after shot from her one hundred pounder Parrott gun. The “
Commodore hull” and “
Ceres” were also gallantly handled, and rendered all the assistance in their power.
But the main brunt of this novel and unequal engagement fell upon the “
Sassacus,” an inland light draught river steamer.
The result, so contrary to all preconceived ideas of “iron-clad” invincibility, was eminently gratifying.
The rebel gunboat “
Bombshell,” with four rifled guns and a large supply of ammunition, was captured, with all her officers and crew, and the “
Albemarle,” which was on her way to
Newbern to form a junction with the rebel force then moving upon that place, was beaten with her own weapons, in a fair stand up fight, and driven back with her guns disabled, her hull terribly shaken, and leaking so badly that she was with difficulty kept afloat.
Twice, also, had her flag been cut down and trailed in the water which swept over her deck.
Her discomfiture proved to be the saving
[
467]
of
Newbern, which had already been summoned to surrender by the rebel
General Palmer, and undoubtedly it prevented the whole Department of North Carolina from being lost to our Government.
The “
Sassacus,” although disabled in guns, machinery, and hull, and suffering severely in killed, wounded, and scalded, was ready, with two months repair, to return again to active duty, staunch and strong as ever.
Her exploit, on the 5th of May, 1864, justly ranks as one of the most remarkable on record, while the skill and coolness of her officers, and the indomitable bravery of her crew rivals the heroic traditions of the days of
Decatur and
Commodore John Paul Jones.
An example of almost superhuman endurance and spirit, as related by
Dr. Voorhies, of
Mississippi, a gentleman far too intelligent and skilful to be engaged in such a cause otherwise than in alleviating its miseries, is as follows:
When, at the bombardment of Fort Henry, a young Wisconsin boy, who had by some means been made a prisoner, had his arm shattered by a ball from our gunboats, he was taken to one of the huts, where Mr. Voorhies attended to him. He had just bared the bone, when an enormous shell came crashing through the hut. The little fellow, without moving a muscle, talked with firmness during the operation of sawing the bone, when another went plunging close by them.
The doctor remarked
[468]
that it was getting to hot for him, and picked the boy up in his arms, and carried him into one of the bomb-proofs, where the operation was completed.
The only answer of the Northerner was: ‘ if you think this hot, it will be a good deal too hot for you by-and-by.’
‘And,’ says the doctor, ‘ I should like to see that boy again.
He is the bravest little fellow I ever saw.’
A gallant boy.
Captain Boggs, of the “Varuna,” tells a story of a brave boy who was on board his vessel during the bombardment of the forts on the
Mississippi river.
The lad, who answers to the name of Oscar, was but thirteen years of age, but he has an old head on his shoulders, and is alert and energetic.
During the hottest of the fire he was busily engaged in passing ammunition to the gunners, and narrowly escaped death when one of the terrific broadsides of the “Varuna's” rebel antagonist was poured in. Covered with dirt and begrimed with powder, he was met by
Captain Boggs, who asked “where he was going in such a hurry?”
“To get a passing-box, sir; the other one was smashed by a ball!”
And so, throughout the fight, the brave lad held his place and did his duty.
When the “Varuna” went down,
Captain Boggs missed his boy, and thought he was among the victims of the battle.
But a few minutes afterward he saw the lad gallantly swimming toward the wreck.
Clambering on board of
Captain Boggs' boat, he threw his hand up to his forehead, giving the usual salute, and uttering only the words, “All right, sir!
I report myself on board,” passed coolly to his station.
