At a quarter before four the yelling, which had gone on continuously for more than two hours, suddenly died away, the fire slackened, and three rousing cheers went up from the fort. A few minutes later the _Winona_ came down and opened fire, and at half-past four the _Kineo_ hove in sight. The fight was ended. "The smoke clearing away," says Woolsey, "discovered the American flag flying over the fort. Gave three cheers and came to anchor." Yet the same sun rose upon a ghastly sight--upon green slopes gray with the dead, the dying, and the maimed, and the black ditch red with their blood.
Green puts his loss at 40 killed, 114 wounded, 107 missing, in all 261. However, during the 28th, the _Princess Royal_ and the _Kineo_ received on board from the provost-marshal 124 prisoners, by actual count, including 1 lieutenant-colonel, 2 major, 3 captains, and 5 lieutenants; and Lieutenant-Commander Woolsey says the garrison buried 69 Confederates and were "still at it." Among the Confederates killed was Shannon, and among the missing Phillips. Of the garrison, 1 officer, Lieutenant Isaac Murch, of the 28th Maine, and 7 men were killed, 2 officers and 11 men wounded--in all 21. The _Princess Royal_ had 1 man killed, 2 wounded. The vessel was struck in twenty places by grape-shot.
Green has been sharply criticised for the apparent recklessness with which he delivered his assault, even after having announced to Mouton his intention of waiting; yet it is clear that he was sent there to attack; if he was to attack at all, he had nothing to gain by waiting; an assault by daylight would have been wholesale suicide; while, on the other hand, the garrison would unquestionably be reinforced by troops and gunboats before another night. Having paid this tribute to his judgment, and to his daring and the intrepidity of his men the homage that every soldier feels to be his due, one may be allowed to quote without comment this passage from Green's report of the affair, in naked frankness hardly surpassed even among the writings of Signor Benvenuto Cellini:
"At daylight I sent in a flag of truce, asking permission to pick up our wounded and bury our dead, which was refused, as I expected. My object in sending the flag so early was to get away a great number of our men, who had found a little shelter near the enemy's works, and who would have been inevitably taken prisoners. I must have saved one hundred men by instructing my flag-of-truce officer, as he approached the fort, to order our troops to steal away."