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:
“Like to the Pontic Sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er knows retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts with violent pace
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“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.