[7] Artur Silveira da Mota, commander of Barroso, narrated the crossing of the mouth of the Tebicuary, where they arrived at 2:20 PM on 23 July:[6] "we anchored the three moorings a little further down the Tebicuary; the other two ships anchored on the shores of the Chaco; everyone let go of the monitors, and these, closer to the battery, also anchored; during the rest of the day it was a relentless bombardment and, as a rule, during the night, every quarter of an hour, we fired our shot [...] the following morning Bahia with a monitor tied to the port side and Silvado went upriver at full speed.”Executing the passage, the Brazilian ironclads were attacked by several projectiles coming from the fortifications and, as in Curupayty and Humaitá, the ships had to steam at slow speed in order to get around the sudden turn of the river; this forced them to advance close to the batteries, which caused them much damage due to the close proximity of the enemy cannons.

[8] Despite the difficulties, the ironclads managed to dash past the defenses until they reached the bottom of a stream called Recodo which was a channel of the Paraguay River.

[9] In that region, the ironclads saw the funnels of two Paraguayan steamers that were anchored in San Fernando, which, according to Brazilian officer Antônio Luís von Hoonholtz, commander of Bahia, was a huge encampment.

The role of Alagoas would be to protect the port side of Bahia by entering the channel, attacking the Paraguayan steamers and disrupting the camp, but the monitor had suffered a malfunction in its propulsion system that prevented it from carrying out the mission.

In the words of von Hoonholtz: "two successive shots hit and shook this ship, causing frightening depressions and a lot of damage”; after advancing, still under fire from the first battery, they faced a second one.

Alagoas was berthed at Monte Lindo for one day for repairs; this prevented the ship to fulfill the role assigned to it by Delfim, commander of the Brazilian flotilla in Humaitá: after crossing the batteries, they reached a stream (actually a branch of the Paraguay River) called Recodo, where they sighted enemy vessels.

Silvado should guard the lower part, Bahia the upper one, while Alagoas should enter the stream and sink the enemy ships, but the latter could not carry out the task, as its propulsion system was damaged; Delfim recorded about Alagoas: “I carried out a continuous bombardment directed at the place where you could see the smoke coming from the steamers, whose sides were hidden by an island that forms the creek, at the same time as the drivers on board helped by Silvado's crewmen took care of repairing the machine".

[12] Hoonholtz's report followed: "at 04:10 we faced the upper redoubt which received us with a horrible fire from its batteries at close range, causing the most serious damage this time and immediately killing the brave and distinguished pilot, second lieutenant Luiz Reppeto and a man at the helm, seriously injuring another”.