It was on Friday, May 31, 1861, at 10.30 o’clock at night, that the first shot of this war was fired from a naval ship at a fort. In all, fourteen shots were fired, and the Confederates fired fifty-six at the ships. The forts were not damaged, and one Confederate soldier lost a finger. However, the Confederates abandoned the battery they had erected at the water level and took the guns to the top of the bluff. Next day, the _Pawnee_ having come to reinforce the fleet, the attack was renewed, and for five hours the four little steamers hurled their shot at the forts. The Confederates fired over 1,000 shot in return. It is instructive to note that no one was hurt on either side by all that firing. The ships were struck several times, but “there was no irreparable damage done.” The attack failed absolutely. Ward was afterwards killed in an attack on the Confederate forts erected at Matthias Point, fifteen miles or so farther down the river. This was on June 27, 1861. The Federal forces attempted to land there and were driven off easily. But for the coolness of Lieut. J. C. Chaplin, of the _Pawnee_, who rallied his force, in spite of a heavy fire, the whole landing party would have been captured. Ward was the only one killed, but four others were wounded. On the whole, the work of the navy on the Potomac was confined to patrolling the stream for the purpose of preventing the Confederates of the two slave-holding States that bordered it from communicating with each other. The men engaged in it have not received and never can receive the credit they deserve for what they did, simply because there was nothing striking about the work. More unfortunate still, they had steamers that were wholly inadequate to the work, and the fighting, when any was done, was like that at Acquia Creek--ineffective necessarily. Instead of an opportunity to win fame, the men found toil of the most wearisome kind, and as a reward for it they got the reproaches of ignorant editors at the North and the jeers of exultant editors at the South. Nevertheless, this much was done: The river was kept open, so far as was needed, for the transportation of troops and supplies, to and fro, and when, in 1862, the Confederates found that their forts could not stop traffic, even though their guns had an effective range greater than the width of the river, they retired from the bank of the Potomac altogether. CHAPTER IV A STORY OF CONFEDERATE PRIVATEERS THEY DID PLENTY OF DAMAGE FOR A TIME, BUT THEIR CAREER WAS BRIEF--CAPTURE OF THE FIRST OF THE CLASS, AND TRIAL OF HER CREW ON A CHARGE OF PIRACY--REASONS WHY THEY COULD NOT BE HELD AS CRIMINALS--LUCK OF THE _JEFFERSON DAVIS_--A NEGRO WHO RECAPTURED A CONFEDERATE PRIZE TO ESCAPE THE TERRORS OF SLAVERY--A SKIPPER WHO THOUGHT A GOVERNMENT FRIGATE WAS A MERCHANTMAN--THE “NEST” BEHIND CAPE HATTERAS.