shifted to the starboard side to engage the fort she had only one IX-inch gun available, the shot from which struck one of the enemy's port shutters driving fragments into the casemates. The Lackawanna then kept away, making a circuit to ram again. She had her stem cut and crushed from three feet above the water-line to five below, causing some leakage, and the Monongahela had her iron prow carried away and the butt ends of the planking started on both bows; but the only damage caused to the Tennessee, protected by her sponsons, was a leak at the rate of about six inches an hour. The flag-ship now approached to ram, also on the port side; but the Tennessee turned toward her so that the bluff of the port bow in each ship took the blow. The Hartford's anchor was hanging from the hawse-pipe, there not having been time to cat it, and acted as a fender, being doubled up under the blow, and the two vessels rasped by, the port sides touching. Most of the Hartford's battery was also on the starboard side, but there were still seven IX-inch guns which sent out their solid shot with their heaviest charge of powder; yet at a distance of ten feet they did the Tennessee no harm. The primers of the latter again failed her, being heard by the flagship's people to snap unsuccessfully several times; one gun finally went off, and the shell exploding on the berth-deck killed and wounded an officer and several men. This was the last shot fired by the Tennessee. The Hartford put her helm to starboard and made a circle to ram again, but in mid career the Lackawanna ran into her, striking near the person of the admiral, who had a narrow escape from being killed, and cutting the flag-ship down to within two feet of the water. Meanwhile the monitors had come up. The Manhattan had lost the use of one of her XV-inch guns early in the day by a fragment of iron which dropped into the vent and could not be got out; she was therefore able to fire only six of her heavy shot, one of which broke through the port side of the casemate leaving on the inside an undetached mass of oak and pine splinters. The Winnebago's turrets could not be turned, so the guns could only be trained by moving the helm and her fire was necessarily slow. The Chickasaw was more fortunate; her smoke-stack had been pierced several times by the fort, so that her speed had run down and she had not yet reached the anchorage when the Tennessee came up, but by heaping tallow and coal-tar on the furnaces steam was raised rapidly and she closed with the enemy immediately after the Hartford rammed and fired. Passing by her port side and firing as she did so, she took position under her stern, dogging her steadily during the remainder of the fight, never over fifty yards distant, and at times almost touching, keeping up an unremitting fire with her four XI-inch guns.[36]