For motive power she had one compound engine and two screws, the high-pressure cylinder working one shaft and the low-pressure the other. There was but one hatch, a small one, at that, and through this everything--coal, supplies, men--must pass. A ship like that, no matter what her power, could never be popular in any navy in time of peace, but she was built for an emergency, and there was no trouble in finding a crew. Lieut. Alexander F. Warley, formerly in the government service, took command of her for her owners. From time to time the government officers on the blockaders down at the head of the passes heard about the work in the New Orleans ship-yards. They learned some of the details of the ram that was building, as well as of the gunboat, but they not only did not make any preparations for meeting or guarding against an attack: they did not even consider what might be done if the Confederates should come. At 3.30 o’clock on the morning of October 13, 1861, the government fleet lay quietly at anchor, save that the schooner _Joseph H. Toone_ was alongside the _Richmond_, and the _Richmond’s_ watch on deck were taking coal out of her. The _Preble_ was in advance--that is, was further up the river than any. Below her lay the flagship _Richmond_, and below her the _Vincennes_, while the _Water Witch_ lay between the _Richmond_ and the east shore, with a little prize schooner, the _Frolic_, near by. It was a moonlight night, with some clouds flying, the worst kind of a night, as all seamen know, for seeing anything clearly, but there had been no especial care in posting or warning lookouts. It was with the squadron literally “the careless end of night.” Within ten minutes after the bell struck the hour of 3.30, a lookout on the _Preble_ saw a dark object driving down the river, but without any smoke or steam or other appearance of motive power. At nearly the same moment the lookout on the prize schooner saw it, and as the alarm was raised on the _Preble_ the schooner lookout bawled to _Richmond_: “A rebel steamer is coming down the river.” In a minute the whole squadron awoke, and with rattle and shout the crews ran to quarters, but before they could get a gun cast loose, the dark object afloat, the ram _Manassas_, driving with the aid of the current at about nine miles an hour, glanced across the coal schooner’s bow, crashed through a cutter, and struck the _Richmond_ “abreast of the port forechannels, tearing the schooner from her fasts.” “Three planks on the ship’s side were stove in, about two feet below the water-line, making a hole about five inches in _circumference_.” These quotations are from Pope’s official report, but the report did not use italics.