eight sections of iron steam pipe, and exploded in the stateroom on the port side, stripping the bulkheads of four rooms, and setting fire to the vessel ... 12 pieces of the fragments have been collected and weigh 58 pounds. The first sortie by Florida caused consternation. Captain Levin M. Powell, USN, in command at Ship Island — soon to be main advance base for the New Orleans campaign — wrote to Flag Officer William McKean, October 22; The first of the reported gun steamers made her experimental trial trip on the Massachusetts, and, if she be a sample of the rest, you may perhaps consider that Ship Island and the adjacent waters will require a force of a special kind in order to hold them to our use. The caliber and long range of the rifled cannon from which the shell that exploded in the Massachusetts was fired established the ability of these fast steam gunboats to keep out of the range of all broadside guns, and enables them to disregard the armament or magnitude of all ships thus armed, or indeed any number of them, when sheltered by shoal water. Protecting CSS Pamilico, in contrasting white dress and laden with some 400 troops, "the black rebel steamer" Florida on December 4 had a brush with in Horn Island Pass that caused jubilation in the Southern press. Commander T. Darrah Shaw of Montgomery, finding his 10-inch shell gun no match for Florida'''s long-range rifles, signaled Commander Melancton Smith for assistance, and when it was not forthcoming, ran back to safety under the guns of Ship Island. Shaw saved Montgomery and lost his command for fleeing from the enemy. Commodore McKean promptly sent Lieutenant James Edward Jouett to relieve him and forwarded Shaw's action report to United States Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, noting, "It needs no comment." Crowed Richmond Dispatch on December 14, quoting Mobile Evening News, "The Florida fought at great disadvantage in one respect, owing to her steering apparatus being out of order, but showed a decided superiority in the effectiveness of her armament. That gun which scared the Massachusetts so badly, and had nearly proved fatal to her, is evidently a better piece or must be better handled than any which the enemy have." Service as Selma With the advent of cruiser CSS Florida, she was renamed Selma in July 1862, Lieutenant Peter U. Murphey,