CSPAN3 February 26, 2012
to back the ship off the mud and she proceeded on up river. after treating some wounded men below the hartford surgeon came back on deck again where as he wrote in his journal i saw a big river steamboat coming straight for us. decks were black with armed men. the forecast of men by marines immediately planted a shell in the advancing steamboat, he wrote. he must have gone straight to a boiler or magazine for there was an explosion. the most feared confederate vessel was the css manassas which was actually the first iron clad to have gone into action on the lower mississippi the prev...
Source: archive.org