When the Committee handed this document to Jefferson Davis, he faced them with a look of resolution:
"Richmond will not be abandoned, gentlemen, until McClellan marches over the dead bodies of our army. Not for one moment have I considered the idea of surrendering the Capital—"
"Good!"
"Thank God!"
"Hurrah for the President!"
The Committee grasped his hand, convinced that no base surrender of their Capital would be tolerated by their leader.
"Rest assured, gentlemen," he continued earnestly, "if blood must be shed, it shall be here. No soil of the Confederacy could drink it more acceptably and none hold it more gratefully. We shall stake all on this one glorious hour for our Republic. Life, death, and wounds are nothing if we shall be saved from the fate of a captured Capital and a humiliated Confederacy—"
The Government and the city had need of grim resolution. The Federal fleet moved up into range and opened fire on the batteries at Drury's Bluff. The little Confederate gunboat Patrick Henry which had won fame in the first engagement of the Merrimac steamed down into line and joined her fire with the fort.
General Lee had planted light batteries on the banks of the river to sweep the decks of the fleet with grape and cannister.
The little Monitor, the Galena, and the Stevens steamed straight up to within six hundred yards of the battery of the fort and opened with their eleven-inch guns. The Galena and the Stevens were iron-clad steamers with thin armor.