James Russell Soley, Professor U. S. Navy, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, The blockade and the cruisers
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[118] cored shot, struck the inclined side of the vessel, in the line of the ports; and though fired at an angle of fifty degrees with her keel, penetrated the armor, and, ripping out the wooden backing, the two inner layers of which were of brittle Georgia pine, covered the deck with splinters. From the effects of this shot, forty or more men were prostrated, several of whom received ugly wounds from the fragments of wood and iron. The second shot, from the Xi-inch gun, struck the edge of the overhang, and started the plating. The third carried off the roof of the pilot-house, wounded the two pilots, and stunned the men at the wheel. The fourth shattered a port-shutter, driving the fragments in through the port.

Upon this the Atlanta hauled down her colors, and hoisted a white flag. It was just fifteen minutes after the Weehawken had commenced firing. The Atlanta was not disabled, nor had there been any great number of serious casualties among the crew; but they had had enough. The possibilities of a Xv-inch gun, fired at a range of two hundred yards, were matters that they had no wish to investigate further. As Rodgers drily remarked in commenting upon the action, the first shot took away their disposition to fight, and the third their ability to get away.

The battle was so short and decisive that the Nahant had no opportunity to take part in it. When the Weehawken ranged up to her prize, the latter was found to be aground; but she was backed off a few hours later with little difficulty, and steamed without assistance to Port Royal.

The engagement of the Weehawken and the Atlanta was one of the extraordinary events of the war, and illustrates, perhaps better than any other, the revolution which fifty years of scientific progress had wrought in naval warfare. The action of the Chesapeake and Shannon, which took