NEW YORK, May 20. – The following was written on board the Galena:
Yesterday morning we were up to Watch’s Bluff, where we found the river full of sunken steamers, the Jamestown and Yorktown and a number of others. The bank was lined with rifle pits and on the top of the bluffs the rebels had a very heavy battery mounting ten guns – some of them ten inches and three or four very heavy rifled guns. We ran within half a mile of the battery, anchored broadside to them. – They opened fire, the first shot striking our port bows and going through the armor five minutes after we got another shot very near where the first one struck as it came through it killed one man and wounded four more. We fought them four hours, until we got out of ammunition when we had to retire. We got twenty eight shots in our side and seventeen on deck. We had 12 men killed, 2 dangerously wounded who have since died, and 15 slightly wounded. We made a gallant fight, but had we taken the battery we could not have held it, and the obstructions in the river prevented our going up any higher. – We think we have demonstrated that the Galena cannot stand heavy shot at short range. We fired 238 rounds, all that we had had we had plenty of shells we could have silence the rebels in two hours.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 4
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