As the _Varuna_ and the _Moore_ disappeared the _McRae_ turned down toward Fort St. Philip. On the way she ran aground, and then the Union steamer _Iroquois_ came along. The _McRae_ fired a broadside of grape and copper slugs at her, and the _Iroquois_ returned it with grape and canister. The slaughter was great on the _McRae_, her commander, Thomas B. Huger, being among the mortally hurt. Huger, but a few months before, had been executive officer of the _Iroquois_, and most of her crew were the men who had served under him. The _McRae_ afterward got under Fort St. Philip. The _Manassas_ during this time had not been idle. She had, indeed, plunged into the thick of the Union force. The _Brooklyn_, in coming through the barrier, almost ran down the _Kineo_. The collision changed her course, and a minute later the _Manassas_ butted her. Her chain cable saved her from a fatal wound. As the _Manassas_ glanced clear, a man climbed out of her hatch and stood by her smoke-stack a moment to see what damage she had done, and then he suddenly tumbled over into the water and disappeared. An officer of the _Brooklyn_ afterwards asked the quartermaster, who was heaving the lead in the chains of the _Brooklyn_ on that side, if he saw the man fall off the _Manassas_. “Why, yes, sir,” he replied; “I saw him fall overboard--in fact, I helped him; for I hit him alongside the head with my hand-lead.” As the _Brooklyn_ passed on, the _Manassas_ turned upstream after the Union ships, watching for an opportunity to strike. She was seen, and the _Mississippi_ and _Kineo_ turned back to crush her, but she eluded them and ran ashore. At that her crew fled to the river bank, and the _Mississippi_ gave her a broadside that knocked her clear of the mud, and she floated down the river. Opposite Fort St. Philip, Lieutenant Read, of the _McRae_, boarded her. He reported that she was then sound save for a cut pipe, but he must have been mistaken, for when she was passing Porter’s mortar flotilla she was seen to be on fire, and she soon “exploded faintly” and sank.