Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-08-10
ALL HANDS LIE DOWN.
The Fearful Sea Fight Between the Abe
marie and the Sassacus.


marie and the Sassacus.
Now came the decisive moment, for
by this action, which was in reality a
maneuver of u commander, we had
acquired a distance from the ram of about
400 yards, and the latter, to evade the
Mattabesett, had sheered off a little and
lay broadside to us. The Union ships
were now on both sides of the ram, with
engines stopped. Commander Roe saw
the opportunity, which an instant's de-
lay would forfeit, and boldly met the
crisis of the engagement. To the engi-
neer he cried, ''Crowd waste and oil in
the fires and back slowly Give her all
the steam she can carryp To Acting
Master Boutelle he said, LAY her course
for the junction of the casemate and the
hull!" Then came four bells, and, with full
steam and open throttle, the ship sprang
forward like a living thing. II was a
moment of intense strain and anxiety.
The guns ceased firing, the smoke lifted
from the ram, and we saw that every
effort was being made to evade the
shock. Straight as an arrow we shot
forward to the designated spot. Then
came the order, "All hands lie DOWN.
olib a. q llldb bilOOh liz MP
like an earthquake, we struck full and
square on the iron hull.
Our ship quivered for an instant, but
held fast, and the swift plash of the
paddles showed that the engines were
uninjured. My own station was in the
bow, on the main deck, on a line with
the enemy's guns. Through the star
board shutter, which had been partly
Jared off by the conclusion, I saw the
port of the ram not ten feet away. 1t
opened, and like a fash of lightning I
saw the grim muzzle of a cannon, the
straining guns crew naked to the waist
and blackened with powder; then a
blaze, a roar and a rush of the shell as it
crashed through, whirling me round and
dashing me to the deck.
Both ships were under Roadway, and,
as the ram advanced, our shattered bows
clinging to the iron easement were
twisted round and a solid shot from a
Brooke gun almost touching our side
crashed through, followed Immediately
by a cloud Of steam and boiling water
that filled the forward decks as our over
charged boilers, pierced by the shot,
emptied their contents with a shrill
scream that drowned for an instant the
roar of the guns. The shouts of COM
mand and the cries of the scalded,
wounded and blinded men mingled with
the rattle of small arms that told of a
hand to hand conflict above. The ship
surged heavily to port as the great weight
of water in the boiler was expended, and
over the cry, 1.-THE ship is sinking!" came
the shout, "All hands repel boarders on
starboard boww
The horrid tumult, always character.
istic of battle, was intensified by the
cries of agony from the scalded and fran
tic men. Wounds may rend, and blood
may flow, and grim heroism keep the
teeth set firm in silence; but to be boiled
alive-to have tine flesh drop from the
face and hands, to strip off in sodden
mass from the body as the clothing is
torn away in savage eagerness for relief,
will bring screams from the stoutest lips.
In the midst of all this, when every man
had left the engine room, our chief en-.
gineer, Mr.. Hobby, although badly
scalded, stood with heroism at his post;
nor did he leave it till after the action,
when he was brought up, blinded and
helpless, to the deck. l had often before
been in battle; had stepped over the
decks of a steamer in the Merrimac
fight when a shell had exploded cover
ing the deck with fragments of human
bodies, literally tearing to pieces the men
on the small vessel as she lay
alongside the Minnesota, but never
before had l experienced such a sicken-
ing sensation of horror as on this
occasion, when the bow of the Sassacus
lay for thirteen minutes on the roof of
the -Albemarle. An officer of the Viva.
lusing says that when the dense smoke
and steam enveloped us they thought we
had sunk, till the flash of our guns
burst through the clouds, followed by
flash after flash in quick succession, as
our men recovered from the shock of the
explosion.
In Commander Febiger's report the
time of contact was said to be ''some
few minutes" To us, at least, there
seemed time enough for the other ships
to close in on the ram and sink her or
sink beside her, and it was thirteen min
'utes as timed by an officer, who told me,
but the other ships were silent, and with
stopped engines looked on as the clouds
closed over us in the grim and final
struggle.-E. Holden, NJ. D., late U. S.
N, in The Century.