At midnight, April 19, 1864, the _Albemarle_ gave a proof of her prodigious power of destruction. On the preceding two days the Confederates had made a determined attack on Plymouth, held by the Union forces, and the ironclad now set out to render assistance. The wooden gunboats _Miami_ and _Southfield_ offered just the sort of targets the monster fancied. Under a full head of steam, the _Albemarle_ rammed her iron beak clean into the fire room of the _Southfield_. The latter was skewered upon the projection and began slowly sinking. The snout was so entangled with the _Southfield_ that the victim could not be shaken off, and as she sank she carried her foe with her. The bow of the ironclad dipped below the surface, and a most extraordinary and inglorious end seemed inevitable, when the _Southfield_ touched bottom, rolled over and freed itself from the bow of the ram, which popped up again. Meanwhile the _Miami_ was pounding the iron hide of the monster, which shed the missiles as the _Merrimac_ shed the broadsides from the _Cumberland_ and _Congress_. When only a few feet from the _Albemarle_, Lieutenant Flusser, standing directly behind a gun of the _Miami_, let fly with a heavy shell, which, striking the armor of the _Albemarle_, was shivered into a thousand fragments, most of which rebounding, instantly killed the officer and wounded a dozen men. The _Miami_ retreated, and the next day Plymouth surrendered to the Confederates. In May, the _Albemarle_ steamed down into the Sound and attacked the Union gunboats, which made a heroic defence. The monster received broadside after broadside and was repeatedly rammed, but suffered no material damage, while she killed 4, wounded 25 and caused the scalding of 13, through piercing the boiler of one of her assailants. It will be seen that this ironclad had become a formidable menace to the Union arms, not only in the immediate neighborhood, but further north. It was the intention of her commander to clear out the fleets at the mouth of the river, and then make an excursion up the coast, somewhat like that which Secretary Stanton once believed the _Merrimac_ was about to undertake. General Grant was pressing his final campaign against Richmond, and the _Albemarle_ threatened to interfere with his plans, for if she made the diversion of which she was capable, she was likely to postpone indefinitely the wind up of the war. Ah, if some daring scheme could be perfected for destroying the _Albemarle_! What a feat it would be and how vast the good it would accomplish! There was one young officer in the American navy who believed the thing could be done, and he volunteered to undertake it.