The daring column was moving straight for Fort
Jackson. They must pass close under the noses of her guns.
They were in for it now.
The dim star-lit world with its fading moon suddenly burst into sheets
of blinding, roaring flame. The mortar batteries moored in range, opened
instantly in response--their eleven-inch shells, glowing with
phosphorescent halo, circled and screamed and fell.
The black hulls belched their broadsides of yellow flame now. From
battlement and casemate of forts rolled the thunder of their batteries,
sending their heavy shots smashing into the wooden hulls.
Through the flaming jaws of hell, the fleet, with lungs throbbing with
every pound of steam, dashed and passed the forts!
Farragut led in the _Hartford_. But his work had only begun. He had
scarcely reckoned on the little Confederate fleet. He found them a
serious proposition.
Suddenly above the flash and roar and the batteries of the forts and
over the broadsides of the ships leaped a wall of fire straight into the
sky.
Slowly but surely the flaming heavens moved down on the attacking fleet
lighting the yellow waters with unearthly glare.
The Confederates had loosed a fleet of fire ships loaded with pitch pine
cargoes. Farragut's lines wavered in the black confusion of rolling
clouds of impenetrable smoke, lighted by the glare of leaping flames.
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