"You had better lie here till morning; there are indications that we shall hear from those fellows up there," said the commander of the Marblehead. Looking westward into the golden light of the departing day, we could see the spires of Savannah, also nearer the Rebel gunboats moving up and down the river.
The anchor dropped, the chain rattled through the hawsehole, the lights were extinguished, the guns put in trim; the lookout took his position; the sentinels passed to and fro, peering into the darkness; a buoy was attached to the cable, that it might be slipped in an instant; all ears listened to catch the sound of muffled oars or plashing paddle-wheels, but there was no sound save the piping of the curlew in the marshes and the surging of the tide along the reedy shores. At three o'clock in the morning we were away from our anchorage, steaming up Wilmington River. The moonlight lay in a golden flood along the waters, revealing the distant outline of the Rebel earthworks. How charming the trip! exhilarating, and sufficiently exciting, under the expectation of falling in with a hostile gunboat, to bring every nerve into action. It was sunrise when the Washington emerged from the marshes and came to anchor among the ironclads. The Montauk had just completed a glorious work,—the destruction of the Nashville. We had heard the roar of her guns, and the quick, ineffectual firing from Fort McAllister.
The Nashville, which began her piratical depredations by burning the ship Harvey Birch, ran into Savannah, where she had been cooped up several months. She had been waiting many weeks for an opportunity to run out to sea again. On Saturday morning, the last day of February, a dense fog hung over the marshes, the islands, and inlets of Ossabow. The Montauk lay at the junction of the Great and Little Ogeechee Rivers, when the fog lifted and the Nashville was discovered aground above the fort.
The eyes of Captain Worden sparkled as he gave the command to prepare for action. He had not forgotten his encounter with the Merrimack. The Montauk moved up stream, came within range of the fort, which opened from all its guns, but to which Captain Worden gave no heed. Taking a position about three quarters of a mile from the Nashville and half a mile from the fort, he opened with both guns upon the grounded steamer, to which the Nashville replied with her hundred-pounder. The third shell from the Montauk exploded inside the steamer, setting her cotton on fire. The flames spread with great rapidity. Her crew fled to the marshes, the magazine soon exploded, and the career of the Nashville was ended.
At high tide on the morning of the 3d of March the Passaic, Patapsco, and Nahant moved up the Ogeechee, and opened fire on the fort, to test the working of their machinery. The fire was furious from the fort, but slow and deliberate from the ironclads. Several mortar-schooners threw shells in the direction of the fort. The monitors were obliged to retire with the tide. They were struck repeatedly, but the balls fell harmlessly against the iron plating. It was evident that at the distance of three fourths of a mile, or a half-mile even, the ironclads could withstand the heaviest guns, while on the other hand the fire of the monitors must necessarily be very slow. The attack was made, not with the expectation of reducing the fort, but to test the monitors before the grand attack upon Fort Sumter.
The first attack on Sumter occurred on the 7th of April. The fort stood out in bold relief, the bright noon-sun shining full upon its southern face, fronting the shallow water towards Morris Island, leaving in shadow its eastern wall toward Moultrie. The air was clear, and we who were on shipboard just beyond the reach of the Rebel guns, looking inland with our glasses, could see the city, the spires, the roofs of the houses thronged with people. A three-masted ship lay at the wharves, the Rebel rams were fired up, sail-boats were scudding across the harbor, running down toward Sumter, looking seaward, then hastening back again like little children, expectant and restless on great occasions, eager for something to be done.
The attacking fleet was in the main ship-channel,—eight little black specks but little larger than the buoys which tossed beside them, and one black, oblong block, the New Ironsides, the flag-ship of the fleet. It was difficult to comprehend that beneath the surface of the sea there were men as secure from the waves as bugs in a bottle. It was as strange and romantic as the stories which charmed the Arabian chieftains in the days of Haroun Al Raschid.
The ironclads were about one third of a mile apart, in the following order:—
| Weehawken, | Patapsco, | Nantucket, |
| Passaic, | Ironsides, | Nahant, |
| Montauk, | Catskill, | Keokuk. |
The Keokuk was built by a gentleman who had full faith in her invulnerability. She was to be tested under fire from the Rebel batteries before accepted by the government. She had sloping sides, two turrets, and was built for a ram. The opinions generally entertained were that she would prove a failure.