"When on the western tail end of Rattlesnake Shoal, we encountered streaks of mist and fog that enveloped stars and everything for a few moments, when it would become quite clear again. Running cautiously in one of these obscurations, a sudden lift in the haze disclosed that we were about to run into an anchored blockader. We had bare room with a hard-a-port helm to avoid him some fifteen or twenty feet, when their officer on deck called out: 'Heave to, or I'll sink you.' The order was unnoticed, and we received his entire broadside, which cut away turtleback, perforated forecastle, and tore up bulwarks in front of our engine room, wounding twelve men, some severely, some slightly. The quartermaster stationed by the mail bags was so convinced that we were captured that he instantly used his hatchet, and sent them, well moored, to the bottom. Hence my meager account of the cruise of the _Florida_. Rockets were fired as we passed swiftly out of his range of sight, and Drummond lights lit up the animated surroundings of a swarm of blockaders, who commenced an indiscriminate discharge of artillery. We could not understand the reason of this bombardment, and as we picked our way out of the mêlée, concluded that several blockade runners must have been discovered feeling their way into Charleston. "After the war, in conversing with the officer commanding on that occasion, he said that a number of the steamers of the blockade were commanded by inexperienced volunteer officers, who were sometimes overzealous and excitable, and hearing the gunboats firing into me, and seeing her rockets and signal lights, they thought that innumerable blockade runners were forcing a passage into the harbor, hence the indiscriminate discharge of artillery, which was attended with unfortunate results to them. This was my last belligerent association with blockade running. Entering the harbor of Charleston, and finding it in the possession of the Federals, I promptly checked progress and retreated. The last order issued by the Navy Department, when all hope for the cause had departed, was for me to deliver the _Owl_ to Frazier, Trenholme & Co., in Liverpool, which I accordingly did." CAPTAIN MAFFITT AND THE CONSUL. The following story was told me by the veteran blockade runner George C. McDougal: