a description of the battle between the albemarle and our gun boats—death of captain flusser—captain french cuts loose from the sinking southfield and runs away.
With the reader’s permission I will stop here to narrate the struggle between our gun boats and this ram, as it was detailed to me while a prisoner, by one of the crew of the Southfield, which, if correct, shows how the death of one brave officer and the cowardice and incompetency of another, served to make prisoners of two thousand brave men, and by the fall of Plymouth supply the Confederacy with an immense amount of artillery, ammunition and supplies of all kinds, of which they stood greatly in need.
Lieut. Commander Flusser, as I have said, was one of the most gallant and efficient Commanders in the U. S. naval service, and was fully resolved to either sink that ram or sink every gunboat under his command. As I have before stated, the Miama was a large double-ender, and she was also a very high boat, being a double-decker as well. This was Flusser’s flagship, and she and the Southfield, which as I said, was an old New York ferry boat, with wales reaching ten or twelve feet over[Pg 20] the water, were fastened together fore and aft with heavy cables, and lay out in the channel with steam up and lights out, intending to let the ram drop in between them and then push her ashore, or sink her. It was three a. m., when the ram passed battery Worth, where a two hundred pound Parrot gun, all shotted and waiting her appearance, was located. But when the ram passed battery Worth, she was so low in the water and came down so still, and the night was so very dark, that the lookout at battery Worth failed to see her until she had passed the work, although the gunboat Whitehead, Capt. Barret, dropped down just ahead of her, having been stationed up the river on picket, and notified Lieutenant Hoppins, who was in command of battery Worth, of the approach of the ram. Only one shot was fired at her, and this after she had passed the redoubt, but as she had got by, the aim of the gun was inaccurate, so she passed on uninjured.
She ran between the Miama and Southfield, striking the latter with her horn on the forward quarter, just at the water line. The bow of the ram had passed under the forward cable and her horn was, of course, under the wide spreading wales of the Southfield. This boat was now rapidly sinking, while both she and the Miama were all the time sending solid shot in quick succession against her iron-clad deck and sides. The ram was trying to disengage her horn from the fast settling Southfield, which was drawing her down with her as she settled,[Pg 21] making it every minute more difficult for her to extricate herself. The water was pouring into the forward ports of the iron monster, when unfortunately Capt. Flusser was struck in the breast by a piece of a shell, that had by some mistake been placed in one of his guns, and exploded as it struck the ram at short range, killing him instantly.
As soon as Capt. French, who was in command of the Southfield, learned of his death, he jumped aboard the Miama, calling his crew to follow him, but they bravely staid by their ship. He then ordered the cables cut loose and steamed away down into the Sound, thus leaving the ram in a position to extricate herself from the Southfield, as she could not do while held down by the cable. If French had, instead of cutting the cables, just put on steam, he could have run the ram on the shore stern foremost, as Flusser had intended to do, and for which purpose he had the boats lashed together. Extricating herself from the Southfield, from whose guns she was continually receiving solid shot, she opened her batteries upon her and soon sent her to the bottom, picking up and making prisoners of the crew. These were very bitter in their denunciation of Capt. French, whose cowardice alone, they said, saved the ram from being run ashore and captured, as it would have been had Flusser lived.