After further and severe bombardment of the forts, the flag-officer gave notice to the steam-vessels of the squadron, of his determination to break the chain and run past the forts, engage the rebel fleet, and having defeated it, ascend the river to New Orleans, and capture that city. It was a most daring movement. The chain had previously been broken, and the mortar-vessels moved up and anchored ready to pour in their fire as soon as the forts should open. The steam-fleet moved up in two columns, one led by Flag-officer Farragut in person, in the Hartford, the other by Captain Theodorus Bailey, as second in command, in the Cayuga. The left column (Farragut's) was composed of the Hartford, Brooklyn, Richmond, Sciota, Iroquois, Kennebec, Pinola, Itasca, and Winona; the right (Bailey's), of the Cayuga, Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon. The right column was to engage Fort St. Philip; the left, Fort Jackson. The fleet were fairly abreast of the forts before they were discovered, and fire opened upon them; but from that moment the firing was terrible, and the smoke, settling down like a pall upon the river, produced intense darkness, and the ships could only aim at the flash from the forts, the forts at the flash from the ships. A fire-raft, pushed by the ram Manassas against the flag-ship (the Hartford), set it on fire, and at the same instant it ran aground; but by the prompt and disciplined exertions of the men the flame was extinguished in a few minutes and the ship got afloat, never ceasing its fire upon the enemy. At times the gunboats passed so near the forts as to be able to throw their broadsides of shrapnel, grape, and canister with most destructive force into their interior; and the forts, in the endeavor to depress their guns sufficiently to strike the vessels, lost their shot, which rolled into the ditches. They were nearly past the forts when the rebel fleet came down upon them, the iron-clad ram Manassas among them. Several of these gunboats were iron-clad about the bow, and had iron beaks or spurs. The Cayuga, Captain Bailey's flag-ship, was the first to encounter these; and soon after the Varuna, commanded by Captain Boggs, found itself in a nest of rebel steamers, and moved forward, delivering its broadsides, port and starboard, with fearful precision, into its antagonists, four of which were speedily disabled and sunk by its fire. The Varuna was finally attacked by the Morgan and another rebel gunboat, both iron-clad at the bow, which crushed in her sides; but crowding her steam, she drew them on, while still fast, and poured broadsides into both, which drove them ashore crippled and in flames. Running his own steamer on shore as speedily as possible, the gallant Boggs fought her as long as his guns were out of water, and then brought off his men, who were taken on board the Oneida and other gunboats of the fleet. Several of the gunboats were considerably