And now the battle began. The naval force in a long line of fifteen ships, passed up midway between the forts, receiving and answering the fire from each. Near the head of the harbor, five or six were thrown off for a flanking squadron, to engage the rebel gunboats or enfilade the enemy's works from the north. The rest, including all the larger vessels, then turned south, and, passing slowly down in front of Fort Walker, gave her, one after the other, their heavy broadsides, turning again, after getting fairly by, to repeat the circuit. From my position I could see every shell strike. When one of them buried itself in the ramparts or plunged over into the fort, its explosion would throw up a vertical column of whirling sand high in the air, followed by another almost as soon as the first had disappeared. When one from the rebel batteries burst over the ships, it appeared suddenly like a white ball of smoke against the sky, that swelled and expanded into a cloudy globe, and then slowly drifted away to leeward; while a few seconds later came the sharp detonation of the exploded shell. On both sides the conflict was unremitting, and along the whole sea-face of the fort its guns kept on belching their volleys against the fleet.
About this time we noticed on our left, close in shore, a gunboat that seemed to be engaging the fort on its own hook. It was a two-masted vessel, probably of six or seven hundred tons, but it looked hardly larger than a good sized steam tug; and on its open deck was a single big gun, firing away at the southeast angle of the fort. It was the _Pocahontas_. She had been kept back by the gale, and had just arrived in time to get over the bar while the fight was going on. Her commander was Captain Percival Drayton, a native of South Carolina, but one of the stanchest and most gallant officers in the navy of the United States. The commander of the two forts was his brother, General Drayton, of the Confederate army, whose plantation on the island was only two or three miles away.
When looking at the new comer, I could not help thinking how much expression there may be in such inanimate things as two pieces of ordnance. The way the gun on the _Pocahontas_ was worked certainly gave the idea of skill, determination, and persistency; while that which answered it from the fort was equally suggestive of vexation, haste, and a little apprehension. No doubt it was natural for the defenders to feel so, when, in addition to the cannonading in front and on one flank, another enemy should appear, to harass them from the opposite quarter.