Lieutenant William T. Glassell refused to reiterate an oath of allegiance to the Union after returning to the U.S. as officer abourd the U.S.S. Hartford. The war was already in full swing and Glasell was held in Ft. Warren, Boston for eight months before being sent South, where he was commissioned in the Confederate navy. Glassell, who later was one of the three crewmen of the C.S.S. David, was posted as first division deck officer aboard the ironclad C.S.S. Chicora, a Richmond Class ship based in Charleston, South Carolina. Years after the fact Glassell penned his rememberances of the events, the following from his account of the Confederate attack on the Federal shipping blockading Charleston Harbor on January 31, 1863. The C.S.S. Chicora was part of the attacking force.

"On the occasion of the attack upon the blockading squadron (making the attack at night), if I could have had any influence, we should not have fired a gun, but trusted to the effect of iron rams at full speed. It was thought, though, by older and perhaps wiser officers, that this would have been at the risk of sinking our ironclads together with the vessels of the enemy. I have ever believed there was no such danger to be apprehended; and if there was, we had better have encountered it, than to have made the fruitless attempt which we did, only frightening the enemy and putting them on their guard for the future."