Return fire from the sailors was now individual and carefully aimed, but the enemy had more to barricade and conceal him than did the navy men. War hoops and yells could be heard with shouted insults to the Floridians fleeing in the boats. Simultaneous blasts of the muskets and shotguns from groups of Confederate militia sent a wall of bullets and pellets across the water from the river bank into the crowded ships. Soon screams could be heard, some of them female. Wake started to feel his legs weaken and gripped a shroud for support as he urged the men to fire as fast as they could.
“Fire at them, damn you. Keep shooting. Shoot them down now!”
Finally the mouth of the river was in sight, with the Annie, Random and St. James visible, anchored off the village. There was enough open space in the river now for the morning land breeze to speed up the flotilla. It also enabled them to edge further away from the settlement dwellings that were sending flaming death out over the water toward the terrified women and children in the boats.
Boom . . . boom . . . boom, boom. The twelve-pounder guns of the Annie and St. James, two on each ship, blasted lethal flashes out over their sides with clouds of smoke billowing up into the rigging. Wake glanced over to the shoreline and saw what the wave of grapeshot had wrought. Everything in a line fifty feet across had been sheared off at the ground or waterline. No tree, bush, dock, boat, or dwelling was left standing untouched. Several men could be seen dragging others away into the woods beyond. Moans mixed with curses rose from the land along the river bank. No more shots came out from the settlement, but the sailors kept up a steady fire into it as they slowly floated farther from the Confederates.
The armed schooners again fired a volley of grapeshot, literally mowing down another section of the refugees’ former village. Wake looked around the decks of the schooner and saw that two of the sailors aboard had been hit by the Rebel fire, one in the arm and the other in the shoulder. Both were being tended by their shipmates, and neither wound appeared mortal. Looking over at the sloop, he saw that several there were wounded but was relieved to see Rork standing tall by the helmsman. His survey of the ships’ boats revealed a sadder result, however.
A woman was crying while she held a civilian man, presumably her husband, in her arms as she sat in the stern of the Annie’s boat. Two sailors on that boat were lying in the bottom, bent over in pain and cursing in rage as they clutched their left sides. Both had been rowing when a volley came into the boat. Exposed as they were while rowing, they took the brunt of the fire. Wake couldn’t tell for sure at that distance, but by the writhing of the men, they both appeared to have very serious wounds. Two Floridian men had taken their places at the thwarts and were rowing. Others were bailing out water as quickly as they could.
The St. James’s boat held wounded also, two or three by the looks of it, with no way to tell the severity. Both it and the Random’s boat were closing in on the naval schooners and preparing to go alongside. Rork’s sloop, ahead of the captured schooner by twenty yards, had picked up speed and was heading out the channel without stopping. As he got closer to the anchored schooners, Wake could see them hauling in their anchors and setting sail. Soon all of them would be heading out the channel and away from this place—if the water was still high enough.
Several isolated shots popped along the shoreline but were silenced permanently by a last massive blast from the Annie’s guns as she turned to the west. The two naval schooners’ sails started to fill and move the ships. The Random was behind them and turning westward, followed by the ships’ boats, the prize sloop, and Wake’s prize schooner. Wake wanted to have Young lead them out the channel again but could not afford to have the flotilla wait while the sloop gained the lead. Time was precious due to the tide and the Confederates behind them. They would have to trust to luck.
The leadsman’s cry did its best to discourage any hope as they crossed the first shoal off the river’s mouth where they had grounded—was it only three-and-a-half hours earlier?
“Deep one! Now one fathom!”
The ships ahead were still sailing forward, albeit slowly, so Wake was reasonably certain his captured schooner would make it through this shoal. Then, just as he was reassuring himself of this fact, the Annie, in the lead, stopped.
Next the St. James slowed but kept sailing. The sloop, with a lighter draft, had no problem and glided up to the stranded naval schooner. Rork called out to James Williams.
“Captain! Send us a line and we’ll put a strain on it as you heel her!”
A line flew through the air and landed on the deck of the sloop, to be secured to the mast and led out over the stern. As Wake’s schooner approached, with all hands on the leeward rail to increase her heel and diminish her draft, the towing line from the sloop to Annie jerked out of the water between the two vessels. The sloop suddenly slowed while the schooner, heeling over as far as she could, bumped ahead a few feet.
The Random, sailing by Annie to leeward, also took a line and put her weight on it,
