A special messenger from Admiral Du Pont with dispatches
came to my house early this morning before I was awake, and would deliver them
into no hand but my own. I received them at the door of my chamber. They relate
to the late flurry at Charleston. The Mercedita was neither captured nor sunk,
nor was any vessel of the Squadron. The Mercedita and Keystone State were
injured in their steam-chests, and went to Port Royal for repairs. All the
noise about raising the blockade was mere trash of the Rebels South and their
sympathizers North. Dr. Bacon, the bearer of the dispatches, came to
Philadelphia in the prize Princess Royal, captured running the blockade. Abuse
will cease for a day, perhaps, under this intelligence. Am surprised at the
ignorance which prevails in regard to the principles of blockade, which the
late trouble has exposed.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 234
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