Shortly before four o'clock the gunboats moved to the attack. Above the swamp through which the Sabine finds an outlet to the Gulf, the shore lies low and barren. The fort or sand battery was placed at the turn about one half mile below the hamlet called Sabine City, opposite the upper end of the oyster reef that for nearly a mile divides the channel into two parts, each narrow and neither straight. The _Sachem_, followed by the _Arizona_, took the eastern or Louisiana channel, and was hardly under fire before a shot struck her steampipe and completely disabled her. The _Clifton_ moved at full speed up the western or Texas channel until, when almost directly under the guns of the fort, she also received a shot through her boilers, grounding at the same time; and thus, nearly at the same instant, before the action had fairly begun, the two leading gunboats were completely disabled and at the mercy of the enemy. The Louisiana channel was too narrow for the _Arizona_ to pass the _Sachem_ or to turn about; so at the moment when the _Clifton_ received her fatal injury, the _Arizona_ was backing down the eastern channel to ascend the western to her assistance; but in doing this she also took the ground. The _Sachem_ hauled down her colors and hoisted the white flag at the fore, and after bravely continuing the fight for twenty minutes longer the _Clifton_ followed suit.
The place where the _Clifton_ grounded was fairly in range of the beach where Weitzel was expected to land his troops. There may have been a minute, or even ten, during which it might have been possible for Weitzel, breaking away from the concerted plan, to have thrown his picked men ashore while the attention of the Confederates was fixed upon the _Clifton_; yet, although this criticism has been suggested by high authority, the point would have been a fine one at best; and under the actual circumstances, with the _Granite City_ in the channel ahead, the _Arizona_ aground, and the guns of the _Sachem_ and the _Clifton_ about to be added to those with which the enemy had opened the action, the problem becomes one of pure speculation. What is clear is that the landing depended upon the gunboats; that these were cruelly beaten before they had a chance to prove themselves; and that nothing really remained to do but what was actually done: that is, to give up the expedition and go home.