The bombardment of the city by the land-batteries began on March 22d, and on the next day Lieutenant Josiah Tattnall, with the steamers _Spitfire_ and _Vixen_ and five schooners in tow, attacked the castle. One schooner was left off Point Honorios, but the others steamed up until within grape range of Fort San Juan de Ulloa. The Mexicans held their fire in ominous fashion until the American vessels were in position and then opened with scores and hundreds of guns, from the city as well as the castle. The vessels were in an instant almost obscured by the spray that arose in clouds where the shot of the enemy struck the water on every side of them. A more terrific fire has rarely been seen. It covered the vessels with water as well as hid them with spray, and the sailors came out of the fight at the end of an hour soaking wet and in real danger of taking cold. But not a man had been hit by a missile. Only three of the vessels were struck, and those not seriously. It was a very poor exhibition of gunnery. In the meantime, between the 10th and the 20th, the sailors had established their battery on shore and had arranged to work it as it would have been worked on a ship. So eager were the forces afloat to see service in this battery that the officers for it were chosen by lot. So effective was its work that the enemy, on the 25th, concentrated upon it all the guns that would bear, and the work there became the warmest any man present had ever experienced. Seeing this, Commodore Perry, who had relieved Conner on the 21st, ordered four vessels into the harbor to divert the attention of the enemy from the battery. Lieutenant Josiah Tattnall was fortunate enough to get command of this little squadron, and with it discretion to go where he pleased. Accordingly he advanced to within eighty yards of the castle and then went still farther in. The fire he drew on his boats was terrific--so terrific, in fact that Commodore Perry, to save the vessels, that seemed doomed to immediate destruction, signalled Tattnall to return; but Tattnall was too busy to look for signals and did not see them. So a small boat had to be sent to bring the intrepid crews away. While the navy must share some of the honor of the capture of Vera Cruz with the army, it is clear that between the ships and the naval battery ashore the seamen did the main part of the work. It was their battery that made the first and the largest breach in the forts attacked, and at two o’clock on the afternoon of the 25th, every gun in reach of this battery had been silenced. The battery lost four men killed and eight wounded. [Illustration: Naval Bombardment of Vera Cruz, March, 1847. _From a lithograph published in 1847 by N. Currier._]