Retiring Downstream After Being Outgunned
On 10 October 1864, as troops debarked at Eastport, Mississippi, from three transports Key West and Undine had escorted from Clifton, Tennessee, a hidden Confederate 6-gun battery at Eastport and a 3-gun battery near Chickasaw opened fire on the Union ships. After the Southern guns had set two of the transports on fire and damaged Key West with two rifle shots, the Union ships reluctantly retired downstream out-of-range.
Read more about this topic: USS Key West (1862)
Famous quotes containing the words retiring and/or downstream:
“It is not enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the stretch, retiring to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle, looking forward to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Building up a family’s fortune is like moving earth with a needle, but losing a family’s fortune can be as swift as a boat rushing downstream with the current.”
—Chinese proverb.