After the fall of Fort Fisher the Rebels retired to Fort Anderson, and offered a desperate resistance to our army and fleet.

Owing to the shallowness of the water the latter could not come into close enough range to do effective work.
Then the happy idea of this sham monitor suggested itself to some one.
It was prepared, and one morning before daybreak it was sent floating in on the tide.

The other monitors opened up a heavy fire from their position.

The Rebels manned their guns and replied vigorously, by concentrating a terrible cannonade on the sham monitor, which sailed grandly on, undisturbed by the heavy rifled bolts tearing through her canvas turret.

Almost frantic with apprehension of the result if she could not be checked, every gun that would bear was turned upon her, and torpedos were exploded in her pathway by electricity.