The vessels encountered adverse weather immediately after starting from Fortress Monroe, and a number of the transports were obliged to put back, having experienced one of those severe storms which have rendered the coast of Cape Hatteras a terror and a proverb to the mariner. For a time the expedition was in deadly peril. Communication between the vessels of the fleet was rendered impossible, and wreck and disaster appeared to be their inevitable fate. Several gunboats and vessels were driven ashore and lost, and a number of valuable lives sacrificed to the fury of the elements, in a vain endeavor to succor some of the disabled vessels. Along the whole coast of North Carolina there are many desolate sand-bars or islands, varying from half a mile to two miles in width, intersected by numerous inlets, which with few exceptions, are not navigable. A principal one of these, known as Hatteras Inlet, opening into the waters of Albemarle Sound, was the point where Commodore Goldsborough’s fleet was now endeavoring to concentrate. On Monday morning, January 13, they were off Hatteras Inlet. Day broke with a leaden sky, against which the angry, white-crested waves raced their mad career along the reefs of Cape Hatteras, that threw its headland oceanward but eight miles distant. Fourteen steamers were laboring to weather the storm point. Bravely they breasted on, staggering beneath the giant blows of each successive sea, the decks swept fore and aft, and all on board reeling from side to side like drunken men. One figure stood immovable, grasping the bits and scanning the horizon for traces of ships as they rose on the glittering mass of foam. It was the square, manly form of General Burnside, whose anxiety for the fate of his army was intense. Many of the vessels on which the troops were embarked were nothing more than huge top-hampered river steamers, with projecting guards, that would break up like cardboard if fairly struck by a sea.