n
her starboard quarter, stopped when near Fort St. Philip, pouring in
her heavy broadside, before which the gunners of its barbette battery
could not stand but fled to cover; then as the big ship moved slowly
on, the enemy returned to their guns and again opened fire. The
Pensacola again stopped, and again drove the cannoneers from their
pieces, the crew of the ship and the gunners in the fort cursing each
other back and forth in the close encounter. As the ship drew away and
turned toward the mid-river, so that her guns no longer bore, the
enemy manned theirs again and riddled her with a quartering fire as
she moved off. At about this time the ram Manassas charged her, but,
by a skilful movement of the helm, Lieutenant Roe, who was conning the
Pensacola, avoided the thrust. The ram received the ship's starboard
broadside and then continued down, running the gauntlet of the Union
fleet, whose shot penetrated her sides as though they were pasteboard.

The Mississippi, following the Pensacola and disdaining to pass behind
her guns, was reduced to a very low rate of speed. As she came up with
and engaged Fort St. Philip, the Manassas charged at her, striking on
the port side a little forward of the mizzen-mast, at the same time
firing her one gun. The effect on the ship at the time was to list her
about one degree and cause a jar like that of taking the ground, but
the blow, glancing, only gave a wound seven feet long and four inches
deep, cutting off the heads of fifty copper bolts as clean as though
done in a machine. Soon after, moving slowly along the face of the
fort, the current of the river caught the Mississippi on her starboard
bow and carried her over to the Fort Jackson side.

The Oneida, having shifted her port guns to the starboard side,
followed the Mississippi. She shared in the delay caused by the
Pensacola's deliberate passage until the Mississippi's sheer gave her
the chance to move ahead. She then steamed quickly up, hugging the
east bank, where the eddy current favored her advance. As she passed
close under the muzzles of St. Philip's guns she fired rapidly
canister and shrapnel, the fire from the fort passing for the most
part harmlessly over the ship and the heads of her crew.

The two rear gunboats, the Kineo and Wissahickon, were both delayed in
passing; the Kineo by a collision with the Brooklyn, the two vessels
meeting between the hulks, and the Wissahickon by fouling the
obstructions. The dif