L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

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[465] all save the heroic engineer, who, scalded, blackened, sightless, still stood to his post with an indomitable will which no agony of pain could swerve from his duty, and whose clear voice, sounding out from amidst that mass of unloosed steam and uncontrollable machinery, urged his men to return with him into the fire room, to drag the fires from beneath the uninjured boiler, now in imminent danger of explosion. His marvellous fortitude in that hour of intense agony, aided by the bravery of his assistants, saved the lives of the two hundred persons on board the ship — for, as there was no means of instantly cutting off communication between the two boilers, and all the steam in both rushed out like a flash, the vessel was exposed to the additional horror of fire. All this time, in the midst of this thick white cloud of stifling vapor, the “Sassacus” moved on, working slowly ahead on a vacuum alone; but her guns thundering steadily and indomitably against her adversary. At last, the cloud of steam lifted from off the scene of conflict, and the rebel “Albemarle” was seen gladly escaping from the close lock in which she had been held, for nearly a quarter of an hour, by her slight but stubborn antagonist. Her broad ensign trailed, draggled and torn, upon her deck, and she looked far different from the trim, jaunty, and formidable vessel which an hour before had defied the slender river craft who had vanquished her. The gallant captain of the “Sassacus” could not refrain from giving her “another turn,” and turning his vessel around, with helm “hard-a-port,” which she answered slowly but steadily, she again passed down by the “Albemarle.” The divisions stood at their guns, the captain calmly smoking his cigar, gave his