rd in pursuit. A thick rainsquall
came up, and rendered it impossible for the rear gunboats to know
whither the Confederate flotilla had fled. When it cleared away, the
watchers on the fleet saw that one of the two which were uninjured had
slipped off to Fort Morgan, while the other, the Selma, was under the
guns of the Metacomet, and was promptly carried by the latter.

Meanwhile the ships anchored in the bay, about four miles from Fort
Morgan, and the crews were piped to breakfast; but almost as soon as it
was begun, the lookouts reported that the great Confederate ironclad was
steaming down, to do battle, single-handed, with the Union fleet. She
was commanded by Buchanan, a very gallant and able officer, who had been
on the Merrimac, and who trusted implicitly in his invulnerable sides,
his heavy rifle guns, and his formidable iron beak. As the ram came on,
with splendid courage, the ships got under way, while Farragut sent
word to the monitors to attack the Tennessee at once. The fleet surgeon,
Palmer, delivered these orders. In his diary he writes:

"I came to the Chickasaw; happy as my friend Perkins habitually is, I
thought he would turn a somerset with joy, when I told him, 'The admiral
wants you to go at once and fight the Tennessee.'"

At the same time, the admiral directed the wooden vessels to charge the
ram, bow on, at full speed, as well as to attack her with their guns.
The monitors were very slow, and the wooden vessels began the attack.
The first to reach the hostile ironclad was the Monongahela, which
struck her square amidships; and five minutes later the Lackawanna,
going at full speed, delivered another heavy blow. Both the Union
vessels fired such guns as would bear as they swung round, but the shots
glanced harmlessly from the armor, and the blows of the ship produced
no serious injury to the ram, although their own stems were crushed in
several feet above and below the water line. The Hartford then struck
the Tennessee, which met her bows on. The two antagonists scraped by,
their port sides touching. As they rasped past, the Hartford's guns were
discharged against the ram, their muzzles only half a dozen feet distant
from her iron-clad sides; but the shot made no impression. While the
three ships were circling to repeat the charge, the Lackawanna ran
square into the flagship, cutting the vessel down to within two feet of
the water. For a moment the ship's company thought the vessel sinking,
and