Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/59

 Under it the captains of the Weehawken, Passaic, Montauk, and Patapsco were working with might and main to come abreast, with their badly steering vessels, of the northwest face of the fort, as directed in the order of battle, firing all the while their guns, now at Sumter, then at Moultrie. But they were still under the fire of the northeast face when they discovered three lines of floating obstructions, with another consisting of a row of piles across the whole harbor a short distance beyond. They endeavored to gain the narrow passage left open through the first, but found themselves unable to exercise sufficient control over their vessels to do so. While making this attempt, the turret of the Passaic was so bent in by a single shot as to make the working of the 11-inch gun impracticable. A short while after, the turret refused altogether to turn, depriving her of all offensive power. The 200-pounder Parrott of the Patapsco also became early disabled. But, aside from these damages to two, the fact that not one of the four could make head way past the batteries, rendered their stay under the heaviest fire useless, and hence they turned about and steered back, after having been in concentric range nearly an hour. The motion of the Weehawken was very much impeded by the Ericsson raft chained to her bow. A torpedo exploded close to her port side, but did not inflict any damage. On the way up, the Patapsco's screw caught in a kind of network of chains and cable, kept afloat by barrels and perpendicular by weights. For a while it seemed as though she could not be extricated from the mesh, but in the end she worked clear.

The Catskill, Nantucket, Nahant, and Keokuk had the same experience. When the Catskill and Nantucket got entangled with the Ironsides, the last-mentioned steamed ahead of the three others, but all four got into action shortly after each other, and about the time those that had preceded them were turning back. The enemy had by no means spent the force of their fire upon the first four. The increased number of assailants seemed to spur them, on the contrary, into doubling their energies. For nearly half an hour the scene was wrapped in intensified sheets of flame, clouds of smoke and sprays of water. Then the impassability of the obstructions compelled the last four to fall back with the others. The Catskill, Nantucket and Nahant had kept their course half-way between Forts Sumter and Moultrie, received and replied to the hottest fire of both. The Keokuk had stood more to the left, and come within 300 yards of Fort Sumter, the fire of the whole northeast face of which