riven off by the latter ship's
battery. Night now approaching, the whole Rebel flotilla withdrew, and
proceeded up the Norfolk Channel.

"Although relieved from the pressure of actual battle, we still had
the unpleasant consciousness that the fire was making progress in the
vicinity of our after-magazine; and we felt as I suppose men would
feel who are walking in the crater of a volcano on the verge of
eruption. Fortunately for us, the 'Merrimac' and her consorts had not
fired much at our upper works and spars, the principal damage being
inflicted upon our lower decks. We had, therefore, the launch and
first cutter,--large boats,--which, with a little stuffing of
shot-holes, were fit to carry us the short distance between our ship
and the shore. The yard and stay-tackles were got up, and the boats
put into the water, as soon as possible; the fire gaining, and the sun
going down, in the mean time.

"By successive boatloads the survivors were all landed; the launch
being brought up under the bill port, and the wounded, in cots,
lowered into her by a whip from the fore yard, which was braced up for
the purpose. This boat was nearly filled with water on her last trip,
being a good deal damaged; obliging some of the officers, who had
stayed until the last, to jump overboard into the icy cold water, and
lean their hands on the gunwale, so as to relieve the boat of a part
of their weight. She grounded in water about waist-deep; and the
soldiers from the camp waded out and assisted our men in bearing on
shore, and to the log hospital of the Twentieth Indiana, those who
were in cots. We had managed to get the body of our gallant young
commander on shore in one of the cots, as a wounded man. The mass of
the men were so 'gallied,' to use a sailor phrase, by the time the
action was over, what with enduring so severe a fire without being
able to respond, and also with the knowledge that an explosion of the
magazine might occur at any time, that I doubt whether they could have
been induced to bring off a man whom they knew to be dead. The
officers repeatedly went about the decks looking for wounded men; and
I firmly believe that all who were alive were brought off. Our poor
old ship, deserted by all but the dead, burned till about midnight,
when she blew up."

The final destruction of the "Congress" must have been a most imposing
spectacle. A member of the Confederate army, who was stationed in one
of the batteries near the scene