As a token of their disgust the rebels sent down, toward morning, the very largest fire-raft they had yet constructed. In fact, it was so large that the Westfield, a former Brooklyn ferry boat, now armed and attached to our fleet, was sent out to tackle it.
She quietly put her nose under the raft, and turning on her steam hose, quenched the fire sufficiently to prevent taking fire herself, when she pushed it ashore, where it made a superb blaze until daylight.
On April 23 each ship of our fleet received an order from Farragut announcing that the passage of the forts would be attempted that night, and notifying all the commanding officers of the proposed order of battle.
The mortar boats were to remain in position and keep up a continuous fire. The six steamers attached to the mortar fleet were to join in the attack, but were not to attempt to pass the forts. The other ships were to pass in three lines, Farragut leading in the Hartford, we following him in the Richmond, with the Brooklyn astern of us, forming one division and passing on the Fort Jackson side.
Captain Theodorus Bailey led the line on the Fort St. Philip side, in the Cayuga, followed by the Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon.
Captain Bell was to take the middle of the river in the Scioto, with the Iroquois, Pinola, Winona, Itasca, and Kennebec following. The order to all the ships was to keep in line and to push on past the forts as best they might.
We had not been mere idle observers during the past month on board the Richmond, but had been devising every method possible to strengthen our means of offense and defense. Among other ideas, we originated, through the suggestion of our first assistant engineer Hoyt, a plan that was adopted by other ships in the fleet, of protecting the boilers against shot by hanging our spare chain cables in lengths outside, in the line of the boilers, thus improvising an armor that was found quite effectual against solid shot as well as shell.
After receiving our final orders, Lieutenant-Commander Cummings, our executive officer, who was afterward killed at Port Hudson, directed that our decks should be whitewashed, a novel conceit, but one that enabled us to distinguish in the darkness any loose articles on deck, such as might otherwise have been difficult to find in the excitement of action.
When hammocks were piped down that evening, it was with the understanding that the men might sleep until midnight, when all hands were to be called quietly, without any of the customary noisy signals.
That was indeed a solemn time for us all as we gathered at the evening meal in the wardroom. We now had immediately before us a task the outcome of which none could predict; but, even if we were successful, it was highly improbable that the little band of eighteen officers who had now been together for two years, in the close and intimate relations that can only be found in the wardroom of a man-of-war, would ever again meet at the table in an unbroken body. Who would be the missing ones the next morning?