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 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, 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.