Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/32

 lasting nearly all day, between the Montauk, four gunboats, and a mortar-boat on our side, and the rebel fort, mounting thirteen heavy guns. The Montauk approached within a mile of the fort, when she was stopped by a row of close piles driven into the channel. She was struck thirteen times by heavy shot, but not injured beyond slight dents in her armor. The attack led to the discovery that the rebel cruiser Nashville was still in the Ogeechee, seven miles from Fort McAllister. She had run in some months before, and was prevented from getting to sea again by the vigilance of our cruisers and the obstructions placed by us in the outlets from the Ogeechee.

It was the purpose of Captain Worden, in command of our flotilla, to get by the fort with the Montauk and attack the rebel vessel. Our fire was supposed to have disabled most of the armament of Fort McAllister. Captain Worden was bent upon overcoming the obstructions in the river, but, as this would take time, I returned to Hilton Head. I found that the military and civilian community was much stirred up by very exciting news, just arrived, of a partially successful attack made by rebel rams from Charleston harbor upon our blockading fleet, preceded by the disablement and surrender of one of our gunboats in Stono River. The veteran braggart, Beauregard, was in command of Charleston at the time. On receiving the report of the rebel rams, he launched forthwith a proclamation to the civilized world announcing that the Federal blockading fleet, having been either destroyed or dispersed, had disappeared, and that the blockade was therefore raised. The proclamation was accompanied by an official statement of a British naval officer and the resident British consul that they had been out to sea on a tug, but had seen no sign of the blockading fleet. The rebel Secretary of State followed this up by a circular to the Confederate agents in Europe, announcing the reopening of Charleston harbor to the ships of seafaring nations. This performance of Beauregard and the British officials ranks