It is said that the unarmed tug Mozier, under her heroic commander, Sherman, while towing a fireboat alongside a heavy ship, was sunk by a broadside delivered at short range, all on board perishing.
"The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner"
John Wilkinson
I learned that they had made a "fireboat."
"Indian Boyhood"
[AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
A fireboat was brought down and moored under the drawbridge which connected the Tourelles with our boulevard; wherefore, when at last we drove our English ahead of us, and they tried to cross that drawbridge and join their friends in the Tourelles, the burning timbers gave way under them and emptied them in a mass into the river in their heavy armor-and a pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death as that.
"Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens"
Albert Bigelow Paine Last Updated: February 20, 2009