It was with guns that were needlessly abandoned at Norfolk that the Confederates made their first fight against the Federal navy--the battle at Acquia Creek. Something like thirty miles below Washington the Potomac makes a wide sweep to the east. Two creeks enter it there from the west--one, right on the point of the elbow, being known as Potomac Creek, and the other, that enters a little way to the north of the elbow, being called Acquia Creek. There is a considerable bluff on the point between Acquia Creek and the river, known in those days as Split Rock Bluff. Because this creek was the terminus of a railroad leading to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and because it was believed by the Confederates that the point commanded the Potomac River, three batteries were erected. The Confederate accounts say that there were thirteen guns here, of which two were eight-inch Dahlgrens, brought from Norfolk. The Confederates completed this battery about May 14, 1861. They had decided to abandon Alexandria whenever the Federals chose to take it, and make Acquia Creek their frontier post on the river. Accordingly, when the Federals, under cover of the _Pawnee_, Capt. S. C. Rowan, crossed over on the 24th, the Confederates moved out, and there was no bloodshed until the insane hotel-keeper, Jackson, shot Colonel Ellsworth because the Confederate flag was taken down from the Marshall House. Then the Potomac flotilla, which was under Fleet Officer James H. Ward, was ordered to attack the Acquia Creek batteries. In one respect that order was one of the most remarkable ever issued in the navy, up to that date, for Ward had under him the _Freeborn_, a wooden paddle-wheel steamer of 250 tons, carrying three guns, the largest being a thirty-two-pounder smooth-bore; the _Anacostia_, a screw steamer of 100 tons, carrying two little howitzers, and the _Resolute_, a steamer of ninety tons, carrying two howitzers. In all, three frail wooden vessels, carrying seven small guns, were sent to attack a well-planned, well-manned fort with not less than thirteen guns, of which the worst was better than the best afloat before it. This matter is especially worth considering in connection with what a Secretary of the Navy is likely to do in future if the nation is ever again unexpectedly obliged to fight. However, Ward was a great man. He had already distinguished himself as a writer on gunnery and naval tactics and as an inventor. He now showed his pluck by bravely attacking the forts.