Within a few hours after the flagship reached the bar at Port Royal, all but two or three of the government force was safely anchored inside. They found that the channel marks had all been removed or placed to deceive. Capt. Charles H. Davis and Mr. Boutelle of the coast survey went in the coast survey steamer Vixen to replace the buoys, being guarded by five of the smaller warships. When this had been done four of the gunboats—the Ottawa, the Seneca, the Pembia, and the Penguin—anchored within three miles of Fort Walker.

Meantime Commodore Tattnall had brought his river-boat squadron through the inland waters to help defend Port Royal, and seeing the gunboats within reach, he made a dash at them, regardless of the character of his own ships. It was like Tattnall to do that; but he was fighting his own countrymen now, and not Mexicans or Chinese. Capt. T. H. Stevens, of the Seneca, who was senior officer, without waiting for orders from the flagship, got up anchor, and with the four gunboats headed in to meet the Confederates. Of course the encounter could have but one result, for the government force was much the greater, and after Lieut. Daniel Ammen had fired an eleven-inch shell into Tattnall’s Savannah, Tattnall turned and ran. And that was the end of the offensive warfare waged by that Confederate squadron.

The plan of attack chosen by Flag Officer Dupont was to divide his force into two squadrons. The first included the Wabash, the Susquehanna, the Mohican, the Seminole, the Pawnee, the Unadilla, the Ottawa, the Pembina, and the Vandalia in tow of the Isaac Smith, a steam gunboat that had been obliged to throw overboard all but one of her guns in the gale, and so was useless for any other purpose than that of a tug. The smaller squadron included the Bienville, the Seneca, the Curlew, the Penguin, and the Augusta, of which all but the Seneca were converted merchantmen carrying thirty-two-pounders; the Seneca, being armed with one eleven-inch Dahlgren and a twenty-pounder rifle, besides two howitzers, was the only one of much consequence for attacking an earthwork.

The larger squadron was to steam in past the fort on Hilton Head (on the south side of the channel), at a distance, when abreast, of 800 yards, and bombard it while passing in; the small squadron was to keep at the north side of the larger one and give such attention as it might at long range to Fort Beauregard over on the north side of the channel. When the forts had been passed, the larger squadron was to turn back and steam out past Hilton Head, firing as before, while the little squadron remained in the harbor to head off any attack from Commodore Tatnall, and, what was of more importance as the event proved, to attack the forts from the rear.

For both forts had been planned to face the roadstead and open sea, and very little had been done to protect the landward faces from an attack from within the harbor.

An offshore gale of wind prevented an attack on the 6th, but the morning of the 7th came with scarcely a ripple on the sea, and at 9 o’clock the two squadrons of warships, in the order named, headed with a flood tide in close order to attack the fort on Hilton Head. They steamed along at six knots per hour, and at 9.26 o’clock precisely a puff of white smoke was seen on the parapet of the fort at the south. Instantly an answering puff was seen on Fort Beauregard at the north, and a round black ball from each came bounding over the smooth water, to fall short and sink out of sight. In a minute the Wabash replied with her two big ten-inch pivots, the Susquehanna followed with an eight-inch pivot, and in ten minutes more the whole fleet was engaged. A hundred huge shells were falling upon and around the fort, burying themselves for a moment in its walls, and then bursting and throwing great masses of sand in the air—masses of sand that fell upon the gunners and the guns there.

But, though inexperienced in war, and but slightly trained in the handling of great guns, the men within the forts were a sturdy host, and fought back in a way that must excite the admiration of all who read the story. The ships were drawing nearer steadily, and there was need for rapid work. To bring one cartridge from the magazine every time a gun was to be loaded required too much time, and the gun’s crews in the forts, regardless of the bursting shells that fell thickly around them, brought cartridges by the armful, and piled them beside the guns.

Nevertheless, they labored in vain. Fire as swiftly as they might and as accurately as they could, the majestic column of steamers passed in with the tide, unimpeded, until well within the harbor, when the longer column turned slowly around and came back, heading to pass this time within 600 yards instead of 800 as before. Sweeping out to sea, they came back again, passing once more at the shorter and more deadly range, and then a number of them came to anchor at a distance of 1,200 yards from the fort, and began a steady fire at a sure range, while “the Vandalia, in tow of the Isaac Smith by a long hawser, swept in long, graceful, but inconvenient curves past and among these vessels. The Unadilla, whose machinery was disabled, pursued her eccentric orbit, her commanding officer hailing and requesting other vessels to get out of the way, as he ‘could not stop.’ As he swept by, again and again the droll song of the man with the cork leg that would not let him tarry was brought to mind.” So says Ammen. But while the Unadilla amused the government forces she was not amusing the Confederates, for she kept her batteries working as relentlessly as her machinery worked.