“The excuse offered by the commanding general for neglecting to exercise and familiarize his artillerists with target-drill was the scarcity of ammunition. The commodore replied: ‘Half the allowance spent in practice will more likely insure good results for the balance in fighting.’” Within a few hours after the flagship reached the bar at Port Royal, all but two or three of the government force was safely anchored inside. They found that the channel marks had all been removed or placed to deceive. Capt. Charles H. Davis and Mr. Boutelle of the coast survey went in the coast survey steamer _Vixen_ to replace the buoys, being guarded by five of the smaller warships. When this had been done four of the gunboats--the _Ottawa_, the _Seneca_, the _Pembia_, and the _Penguin_--anchored within three miles of Fort Walker. Meantime Commodore Tattnall had brought his river-boat squadron through the inland waters to help defend Port Royal, and seeing the gunboats within reach, he made a dash at them, regardless of the character of his own ships. It was like Tattnall to do that; but he was fighting his own countrymen now, and not Mexicans or Chinese. Capt. T. H. Stevens, of the _Seneca_, who was senior officer, without waiting for orders from the flagship, got up anchor, and with the four gunboats headed in to meet the Confederates. Of course the encounter could have but one result, for the government force was much the greater, and after Lieut. Daniel Ammen had fired an eleven-inch shell into Tattnall’s _Savannah_, Tattnall turned and ran. And that was the end of the offensive warfare waged by that Confederate squadron. The plan of attack chosen by Flag Officer Dupont was to divide his force into two squadrons. The first included the _Wabash_, the _Susquehanna_, the _Mohican_, the _Seminole_, the _Pawnee_, the _Unadilla_, the _Ottawa_, the _Pembina_, and the _Vandalia_ in tow of the _Isaac Smith_, a steam gunboat that had been obliged to throw overboard all but one of her guns in the gale, and so was useless for any other purpose than that of a tug. The smaller squadron included the _Bienville_, the _Seneca_, the _Curlew_, the _Penguin_, and the _Augusta_, of which all but the _Seneca_ were converted merchantmen carrying thirty-two-pounders; the _Seneca_, being armed with one eleven-inch Dahlgren and a twenty-pounder rifle, besides two howitzers, was the only one of much consequence for attacking an earthwork.