At 2 A. M. the appointed signal was made, and at once was heard in every direction the clank-clank of the chains as the seamen hove the anchors to the bows. The strength of the current and the tenacity of the bottom in some spots made this operation longer than had been expected, and not till half-past three did the leading vessel reach the line of hulks, followed closely by the rest of her division. There is something singularly impressive in the thought of these moments of silent tension, following the active efforts of getting under way and preceding the furious strife, for whose first outburst every heart on board was waiting; and the impression is increased by the petty size of the little vessel in the lead, which thus advanced with steady beating of the engines to bear the first blast of the storm. Favored partly by her size, and yet more by the negligence of those among the enemy whose duty it was to have kept the scene alight with the numerous fire-rafts provided for that very purpose, the Cayuga passed the hulks and was well on her way up river before she was seen. "Although it was a starlight night," wrote Lieutenant Perkins, who by her commander's direction was piloting the ship, "we were not discovered until well under the forts; then they opened upon us a tremendous fire." It was the prelude to a drama of singular energy and grandeur, for the Confederates in the forts were fully on their guard, and had anticipated with unshaken courage, but with gloomy forebodings, an attack during that very night. "There will be no to-morrow for New Orleans," had said the undaunted commander of Fort Jackson the day before, "if the navy does not at once move the Louisiana to the position assigned to her," close to the obstructions. The Louisiana was a powerful ironclad battery, not quite complete when Farragut entered the river. She had been hurried down to the forts four days before the passage of the fleet, but her engines could not drive her, and the naval commander refused to take up the position, asked of him by the military authorities, below St. Philip, where he would have a cross fire with the forts, a close command of the line of obstructions, and would greatly prolong the gantlet of fire through which the fleet must run. To support the movement of the latter by drawing the fire and harassing the gunners of the enemy, Commander Porter moved up with the steamers of the mortar flotilla to easy range of the water battery under Fort Jackson, which he engaged; while the mortar schooners, as soon as the flash of the enemy's guns showed that the head of the column had been discovered, opened a furious bombardment, keeping two shells constantly in the air. Except for the annoyance of the bombs, the gunners of the forts had it much their own way until the broadsides of the Pensacola, which showed eleven heavy guns on either side, drew up abreast of them. "The Cayuga received the first fire," writes Perkins,