Captain Chatfield is blockading the western coast of Florida and tense over the threat of an attack:
“We also knew that she was commanded by that fighting fellow Catesby A. Jones, the same that commanded the Merrimac in the fight with the Monitor in Hampton Roads: and the rumor reached us that he had sworn to clear out the blockade at West Pass, and open that port to commerce: and that with his gun boat and three river steamers, protected with cotton bales and hundred riflemen on each, he could easily do it: and I am sure he would have stood a good chance to succeed.”
Yellow Fever sweeps the East Gulf Squadron, and a hurricane wrecks the Union fleet at St. Mark’s. Good stuff that proves men are more dangerous than whales. Chatfield and the Somerset are patrolling and blockading the river mouth of the Chattahoochee River, which is navigable up to Atlanta, south of Tallahassee.
Catesby ap Jones
