There was none of the merry jesting that usually marked our meals, and when the table was cleared every officer went to his stateroom, and I think each of us wrote some lines to his nearest and dearest in anticipation of what might happen before we saw another sun. I know, at least, that I wrote such a letter. Then lights were extinguished and all was quiet throughout the ship; such absolute quiet as is never found except just before a battle.
It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed my eyes when the quartermaster, with his hooded lantern, touched me, and said quietly, “All hands, sir!”
I hastened on deck. The night was dark and the air was chill. Officers and men were hurriedly but quietly going to their stations for action, which in our case was at the port battery.
My own division was amidships, where I had four 9-inch guns. My men came to their stations stripped for work, some of them without their shirts, their monkey-jackets knotted by the sleeves, hanging loosely about their shoulders.
Guns were at once cast loose and provided, and then all stood quietly awaiting developments. In the mean time our anchor was hove short, and we only waited the order to trip it and steam ahead. Down in the engine-room I could see, by the hatch near one of my guns, that the engineers were also on the alert, and the indicator showed that we had a heavy pressure of steam on.
Ah! here comes the Hartford, steaming up on our starboard quarter. As she comes abreast of us, our anchor is tripped, hove up, and we fall into place, a cable’s length astern of her, and steam ahead.
The other two divisions are dimly seen moving up in echelon. Everything is done with the utmost silence, save for the thunder of the mortar fleet, which has now gone at it, hammer and tongs, and the air above us is filled with the hurtling shells, made visible in their passage, like comets, by their trains of fire.
As yet our movement has not become known to the enemy, and every instant we are getting nearer to the forts, as yet unharmed.
Ah! they have seen us at last; and Fort Jackson belches out upon the Hartford a hail of shot and shell. We go ahead at full speed! Now we are ourselves under fire, and “Load and fire at will” is the order from the quarter deck!
Our ship throbs with the beat of the engines below and trembles with the shock from the continuous fire of our great guns.