On March 8–9, 1862, at the Battle of Hampton Roads, the Confederate flotilla tried to break a blockade maintained by two wooden Union frigates, the USS "Cumberland" and the USS "Congress". The Union ships were escorted by some gunboats and backed by shore batteries. Buchanan wrote later: "The general order under which the gunboat squadron went into action required that, in the absence of all signals, each commanding officer was to exercise his own judgment and discretion in doing all the damage he could to the enemy and to sink before surrendering." To support the CSS "Virginia" in this action, Capt. John Randolph Tucker, commanding the rest of the James River Squadron, ran past the shore batteries to join the battle, with the CSS "Teaser" "puffing with all the energy of a short-winded tug." They arrived just as the CSS "Virginia" had managed to sink the USS "Cumberland".