June 23, 1863, The New York Herald
Our Port Royal Correspondence.
PORT ROYAL, S.C., June 17, 1863.
The great rebel bugbear, which had for so many months previous to the advent of the Monitor fleet into our waters thrown the military and naval communities into a state of alarm and anxiety, is at last in our possession. The rebel, or rather Anglo-rebel ram, Fingal is captured. I am unable to give you details, as we have just received a despatch from Fort Pulaski announcing simply the facts, and the people must wait until the next steamer to hear particulars.
As near as I am able to learn she was taken in Warsaw Sound, while attempting to run out. It no doubt was the intention of the officer in command of the Fingal to attack the negro troops at St. Simons, or the Forty-seventh New York, on Ossabaw Island. Had she succeeded in eluding the vigilance of our naval officers she might have done an immense amount of damage to the department, especially at the many points where we have but comparatively few troops.
Later intelligence from the South is to the effect that the Fingal fired only four shots and surrendered. The […..] were disloyal to the rebel navy, which accounts for so little fighting.
A day or two since a blockade runner was run ashore just north of Lighthouse Inlet, on the Morris Island shore, by our naval vessels. The batteries on Folly Island immediately opened with their James guns, putting over seventy shells into the vessel. By some misunderstanding between the commanding officer of the picket and the officer in command of the battery, the entire crew escaped with all the mails and documents. I am unable to learn the name of the vessel. She is a total wreck. From the above I am indebted to Lieutenant Hees, of the Third New York artillery.
Since the firing upon the steamer the enemy’s batteries on Morris island have been engaging our batteries on Folly Island continually, up to the present hour, but no one man has been wounded on our side. One battery on Morris Island has been silenced.
THE LATEST.
Another despatch from Fort Pulaski to General Gilmore states that one hundred and eighty prisoners were captured on board the Fingal. Only five shots were fired by the enemy. She ingloriously struck her colors to our invulnerable and invincible Monitors. The Weehawken was one of the Monitors engaged.