Below, the cockpit was filled with wounded, whom it would be impossible to succour, for the ship was sinking fast. Meantime the men stuck to their posts, powder was still served out, and the firing kept up steadily, several of the crew lingering so long in the after shell-room, in their eagerness to pass up shell, that they were drowned there. The water had now reached the main gun-deck, and it became evident that the contest was nearly over. Still the men lingered, anxious for one last shot, when their guns were nearly under water. “Shall we give them a broadside, my boys, as she goes? Shall we send yet another to tell, In iron-tongued words, to Columbia’s foes, How bravely her sons say ‘Farewell?’” The word was passed for each man to save himself. Even then, one man, an active little fellow, named Matthew Tenney, whose courage had been conspicuous during the action, determined to fire once more, the next gun to his own being then under water, the vessel going down by the head. He succeeded, but at the cost of his life, for immediately afterwards, attempting to scramble out of the port-hole, the water suddenly rushed in with such force that he was washed back and drowned. Scores of poor fellows were unable to reach the upper deck, and were carried down with the vessel. The _Cumberland_ sank in water up to the cross-trees, and went down _with her flag still flying from the peak_.(19) The whole number lost was not less than 120 souls. Her top-masts, with the pennant flying far above the water, long marked the locality of one of the bravest and most desperate defences ever made “By men who knew that all else was wrong But to die when a sailor ought.”