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  TWENTY YEARS AT SEA
  OR
  LEAVES FROM MY OLD LOG-BOOKS

  BY
  FREDERIC STANHOPE HILL

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
  The Riverside Press, Cambridge
  1893




  Copyright, 1893,
  BY FREDERIC STANHOPE HILL.

  _All rights reserved._

  _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
  Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.




  TO MY WIFE,

  TO WHOSE SUGGESTION THE PUBLICATION OF THESE
  EPISODES IN A BUSY LIFE IS MAINLY DUE,

  I dedicate this book.




INTRODUCTION


In the old days, fifty years ago, when I first went to sea, it was the
custom in fine weather, in most ships, after supper had been leisurely
discussed and pipes lighted, for both watches to gather on the
forecastle deck to listen to the yarns of some old tar, or to join in
one of the many ballads with a rattling chorus, in which the exploits
of Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, or some other dashing knight of the road
were set forth in glowing terms and endless verses.

Many an evening, when a boy, I have coiled myself up on the deck,
close to the windlass bitts, with my jacket rolled up under my head
as a pillow, and have listened with eager interest to those tough
yarns, while the good ship, with every inch of canvas, from courses to
moonsails, drawing, gently rose and fell with rhythmic motion, as she
ploughed her way through the long rolling swells of the broad Pacific.

A hundred feet above our heads, the tapering point of the skysail mast
swayed; in the heavens about us blazed the brilliant constellations of
the southern hemisphere; beneath us the waves gently swished as the
sharp forefoot clave them asunder, and the story-teller droned on with
his tales of peril by storm and wreck, or, perchance, in a lighter
vein, dwelt upon the charms of that lass in some far-away port who
loved a sailor.

That was indeed the poetry of sea life! But like everything else that
is pleasant in this world, the hour in which we enjoyed it was brief
and it came to an end, often in the very midst of the most exciting
episode of a story, with the harsh cry from the quarter deck: “Strike
eight bells! Set the watch, and lay aft here and heave the log!”

I here propose, in my turn, as though sitting on the windlass bitts, to
give some chapters from my old log-books, which, however, are somewhat
more veracious than many of the stories often told in that way. For
barring a little--a very little--license, such as must be allowed any
old barnacle-back when he starts out to spin a yarn, these sketches
may be considered very truthful pictures of a sailor’s life fifty years
ago, and veritable experiences in the navy during our civil war.

Such as they are, then, I offer these sea stories to my young friends
for their approval, premising by saying that a few of the sketches
have already appeared in the “Youth’s Companion” and in the “Cambridge
Tribune.”

                                                 F. STANHOPE HILL.
  CAMBRIDGE, 1893.




CONTENTS


  PART I

  IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE                     PAGE

         I. HOW I WENT TO SEA                    3

        II. MY FIRST VOYAGE                     24

       III. THE MUTINY                          40

        IV. NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED              54

         V. A “SHANGHAEING” EPISODE             64

        VI. TO CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE GOLD
                DISCOVERY                       77

       VII. RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY               93

      VIII. CHASED BY PIRATES                  115


  PART II

  IN THE NAVAL SERVICE

         I. THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR      137

        II. A NIGHT ATTACK BY A CONFEDERATE
                RAM                            148

       III. THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS AND THE
                CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS         162

        IV. ON TO NEW ORLEANS                  178

         V. CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER          191

        VI. A NARROW ESCAPE                    205

       VII. A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT            220

      VIII. CATCHING A TARTAR                  230

        IX. THE NAVAL TRAITOR                  240

         X. HUNTING FOR BUSHWACKERS            254

        XI. THE END OF THE STRUGGLE            271




TWENTY YEARS AT SEA




PART I

IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE




CHAPTER I

HOW I WENT TO SEA


It was a blazing hot morning of the first week in September, 1842.
The sun was pouring down with the fierce heat that so often marks the
departing days of our Northern summers, and the evil smells in the
filthy gutters of the southern section of Brooklyn were more than
usually noxious.

A Knickerbocker ice-wagon had stopped at the corner beer saloon,
and the sturdy, blue-shirted driver was carrying in a great block
of ice, while the children of the tenement overhead were picking up
the fragments from behind the wagon. Across the street, half a dozen
frowsy, tow-headed boys were striving to drive an unwilling goat,
harnessed to a soap-box on wheels, in which was seated one of their
number, and the little wretches were cheerfully beating the unfortunate
animal with a piece of iron hoop, when it stopped, to bleat forth its
complaint.

A marine in blue uniform coat and white trousers, on duty at the Navy
Yard gate, hard by, walked his beat, keeping close to the grateful
shade of the high brick wall of the inclosure, and covertly watching
the struggle between the children and the goat. The corporal of the
guard lounged on a bench beneath the wooden porch of the guard-house,
deeply interested in the morning paper.

Two persons, evidently strangers, came down the street, stopped
hesitatingly at the gate, and asked a question of the corporal.

“The Bombay, is it?” said the marine. “You will find her at the
dock near the shears. Keep down that path to the right, pass the
commandant’s house, then take the first turn to the left, and you will
see her.”

The elder of the two strangers, who thanked the corporal, was a grave,
respectable, middle-aged man, with the general appearance of a trusted
bookkeeper in some mercantile house, as indeed he was; his companion,
evidently under his charge, was a bright-looking lad of thirteen,
dressed in a blue sailor suit, with a tarpaulin hat with long ribbons
hanging down his back. The boy’s fair skin and delicate appearance,
however, indicated very plainly that he could not have had a very
extended experience as a sailor.

Following the directions given them, the man and the boy soon reached
the dock, where a good-sized merchant ship was moored, taking on board
the cargo that filled the wharf.

Here we paused. I say we, for the boy was the writer, who is about to
tell you his life story; and his companion was Mr. Mason, my uncle’s
bookkeeper, sent over from New York to see me safely bestowed on board
the good ship Bombay for my first voyage to sea.

“Well, Robert,” said Mr. Mason, “here we are; and now, before I take
you on board, I am instructed by your uncle to ask you for the last
time if you still persist in your resolution of going to sea. It is a
hard life, lad, and I almost wonder that you should desire to undertake
it. Come! take my advice; it is not yet too late: hadn’t you better
turn around and go back? there is no harm done yet.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Mason, and I thank you for what you have said;
but I shan’t change my mind. We will go on board, if you please.”

But before leaving the wharf, as I shall have a long story of my sea
life to tell, suppose I go back a bit and explain how I came to be
starting out for myself in this manner at such a tender age.

I was always a delicate lad, and had never been very strong, after
I recovered from a fever that brought me well-nigh to death’s door
several years before, and I had never cared much for the usual out-door
sports of boyhood. Then I had an untiring passion for reading; and
when I could curl myself up in a big arm-chair with dear old “Robinson
Crusoe” or “Midshipman Easy,” I was perfectly happy, and forgot all the
world in the adventures of one hero and the frolics of the other.

I have no doubt that my favorite books had something to do with it;
for by the time I reached the age of thirteen and had been in the High
School a couple of years, I had firmly decided in my own mind that
I would be a sailor and nothing else. I had not lived in a seaport,
and knew nothing of ships or sailors except what I had gathered from
reading, and there seemed to be no very good reason for this decision.
But it was just possible that my old grandfather, who was a famous sea
captain in his day, had transmitted to me a strain of his sailor blood,
rather than my poet father; so instead of fitting for college or going
into a counting-room, my parents at last consented that I should go to
sea.

My seafaring books had prepared me to expect hardships in the merchant
service that I would not find in the navy, and I was boy enough to be
thoroughly alive to the attractions of a middy’s uniform and dirk, for
they wore dirks in those days; so when it appeared that a midshipman’s
warrant might possibly be obtained for me by family influence, I was
very anxious to enter the navy. This was before the establishment of
the Naval Academy in 1843, and when midshipmen were appointed and sent
at once to sea.

But my father wisely said: “No; let Robert try one year in the merchant
service, and then if he finds a sea life distasteful he can easily
abandon it, without any breach of good faith. But if he enters the
navy, he will not feel the same liberty to resign, nor indeed have the
opportunity of doing so, until after the expiration of a three years’
cruise.”

So it was settled that I should enter as a boy on board the ship
Bombay, Leonard Gay, master, bound from New York to Rio Janeiro with a
cargo of naval stores for the Brazil squadron. The ship was owned by a
relative of ours.

How well I remember one fine summer day, fifty years ago, going down on
Commercial Street in Boston with my father to order my outfit. I never
pass along there now and inhale the mingled odors of tarred rigging,
salt fish and New England rum, that seem perennial in that locality,
that this important visit to the outfitter is not recalled. The mist
of half a century of years rolls back, and I, a grave, gray-haired,
somewhat rheumatic old man, seem for a moment a light-hearted boy again.

My father had been directed to the establishment of an old sailor
turned tradesman, quite an original character in his way, and very
well known in those days for his good wares and honest dealing. He was
instructed to provide me with everything necessary for a voyage to the
tropics and a winter on the English coast; and while my father was
discussing the requisites for such a cruise with the proprietor, I was
taking in the strange surroundings of the shop, so novel to a boy just
down from Vermont.

It was a small, irregular shaped store, very low studded, which had
enabled the old fellow to avail himself of the beams, from which hung
specimens of his wares, all of them new to me. Upon one hook was a
complete suit of oil clothing, southwester (as the head covering is
called) and all, dangling and swaying about in the summer breeze and
looking very much indeed like some mutinous tar or heavy weather
pirate expiating his nautical crimes upon a gallows. Brilliant red
flannel shirts were stacked up in great piles upon the shelves,
and formidable sea boots overflowed from boxes ranged beneath the
counter; gay bandanna handkerchiefs and glossy black silk neckerchiefs
were temptingly displayed in the showcase; while on one side was a
miscellaneous assortment of ironmongery utterly strange to me at that
time, that I afterward came to know better as marline-spikes, prickers,
fids, palms and sail needles, and sheath knives and belts.

Jack’s lass had not been forgotten; for in the window were hung, as
a special attraction, certain printed handkerchiefs with pictorial
representations of the “Sailor’s Farewell,” the “Jolly Tar’s True
Love,” and other subjects of a sentimental character. In the rear
of the store was an old-fashioned desk, with a fly-blown calendar
hanging above it, and a ship’s chronometer ticking away in its case on
one side; while above it, hung a spy-glass in brackets, and upon the
shelf were an odd looking mahogany case and a ponderous leather-bound
volume. These I came to know better, subsequently, as a sextant and the
sailors’ _vade mecum_, “Bowditch’s Epitome of Navigation.”

This collection interested me amazingly, but I was soon called upon
to select my “chist,” as the dealer called the gayly painted box he
exhibited for my inspection. It was dark blue with vermilion trimmings,
and had green-covered “beckets,” as the handles are called. This one,
he said, “was neat and not gaudy, and had a secret till where a feller
could stow away his tobacco and his ditty box,” which he seemed to
think a very important consideration. This ditty box, by the way, is
not, as one might well suppose, a special receptacle for ballads, but
is for the thread, needles, buttons, etc., which are such necessaries
on a long voyage, where every man is perforce his own tailor.

Into my chest were packed, under the advice of the proprietor, an
assortment of red flannel shirts and drawers, with thick woolen
stockings for cold weather and blue drilling trousers and white duck
frocks for the tropics. Stout shoes and sea boots and a full suit
of oil-clothes were provided for rainy weather, and two suits of
blue cloth went in--one for ordinary wear of satinet, the other of
broadcloth, with brass anchor buttons, for a Sunday go-ashore suit.
These, with a tin cup and plate, a spoon, and fork for my mess, and a
belt and sheath knife, completed the outfit, to which the dealer added,
as a gratuity or “lanyap,” as he called it, a dozen clay pipes, a pound
package of smoking tobacco, and a bundle of matches, “to make the fit
out reglar.”

These gifts, rather scorned at the time, came in good play at a later
date, and gained me many desired favors with my future shipmates.

By the time my chest was filled, locked, and the key deposited in my
pocket, I was full of excitement and crazy to have it sent home for
my mother’s inspection. The business completed by paying the bill,
we returned home to Summer Street, where we were staying for a week
with my uncle, and I answered every ring at the bell myself until the
anxiously expected box was at last received.

Nothing then would do but I must try everything on for my cousin’s
delectation, and the entire afternoon was devoted to a series of dress
rehearsals with the different costumes. Poor, dear, little mother!
many a tear she shed that night as she repacked those strange, rough
garments that were to take the place in the future of the delicately
made clothing it had been her pride and joy to fashion for her dearly
loved boy.

The days now flew swiftly while I made my farewell visits to friends
and relations, and my chest was filled in every corner with their last
offerings. These, in most cases, took the form of rich cakes, mittens,
or comforters for my neck; but I well remember an eccentric uncle
bringing down a pair of dueling pistols as his parting gift, to the
great horror of my mother, but to my infinite delight, as all boys can
well understand.

Under the excitement of these preparations I had kept my courage up
very bravely, but I almost broke down when the time came for parting
and my mother clasped me in her arms in an agony of grief, exclaiming,
“I cannot let him go from me!”

But when I was at last in the cars and had really started off on my
journey, I felt that I must put aside all childish feelings and show
myself a man and an American sailor. I had insisted upon traveling in
full sea rig, and I wore my new blue suit, with white shirt and black
silk neckerchief tied in a sailor’s knot, and a shiny tarpaulin hat,
with long streaming ribbons hanging down my neck. I was, in fact, a
veritable nautical dandy.

As I was only thirteen and small for my age, I have no doubt I
presented rather a noticeable appearance. At any rate I know that
quite a number of passengers spoke to me very pleasantly on board the
Sound boat; and as I was walking through the saloon an old lady called
me to her, and, after asking me no end of questions, gave me a kiss and
a warm, motherly hug, rather to my mortification, I must confess.

The day after my arrival in New York I was sent over to the Brooklyn
Navy Yard with my uncle’s bookkeeper to report for duty, and here we
were.

As I walked up the Bombay’s gang-plank a rough looking man in his shirt
sleeves eyed me rather sharply, and said, “Well, youngster, what do
_you_ want?”

“I wish to see the captain, sir.”

“What do you want of him? The captain isn’t on board, but I am the
mate.”

“I am Robert Kelson, sir, and I am sent to go to sea in this ship. Mr.
Mason, here, has a letter to the captain.”

At this juncture my companion interposed and explained the matter to
the mate, giving him the letter to the captain, and then, evidently
very much disgusted at our reception, endeavored again to dissuade me
from my project; but I would not listen to him, and, shaking his hand,
bade him good-by and accompanied him on shore.

When I returned the mate said: “Go down in the steerage; you will find
your chest there; it came early this morning; get those longshore togs
off and put on your working clothes. Then come up here, and I will find
something for you to do.”

I looked about, not discovering anything answering at all to my idea of
a stairway, when the mate, evidently understanding my dilemma, shouted:
“You Jim! come here and take this greenhorn down into the steerage and
show him his chest, and be quick about it! do you hear? Don’t you two
boys stay loafing down there spinning yarns!”

I had never been spoken to so roughly before in my life, and for a
moment I half regretted that I had not listened to Mr. Mason’s advice;
but it was now too late, so I choked down a sob and followed Jim into
that portion of the between decks from the mainmast aft which was
called the steerage.

My companion informed me that I was to sleep and mess there with him
and the ship’s carpenter. After looking about for a time we discovered
my chest, half hidden beneath a pile of sails, and proceeded to pull it
out to the light.

“What in thunderation have you got in this dunnage barge?” said Jim, as
he sat down on the hatch coaming and looked at my beloved chest, half
in admiration at its brilliant coloring and half in scorn at its size
and weight. “Why, it weighs pretty nigh half a ton, and it’s big enough
to hold a fit-out for a three years’ v’y’ge!”

As I deemed it advisable to placate Jim at the outset, I unlocked
the chest, and hunting out one of the plum-cakes, divided it with my
comrade, who watched this proceeding with ill-concealed anxiety and
interest.

“Well, by gosh, you’re a lucky feller; how many more of these ’ere
you got, anyhow? Lem’me look at your knife,” as my new sheath knife
turned up; “what did you give for that knife? I got mine down by Fulton
Market for a quarter, and I’ll bet it’s as good as yours! Yes, sir!”
he shouted, in response to an imperative call from the mate above;
“I’m coming right along!” And he half choked himself in his effort
to swallow the rich cake as he said, “Look here, young feller, you’d
better hurry up too; old Bowker will give you rats if you don’t get on
deck mighty quick!”

I put on my second best suit, all too good, as it proved, for what
was expected of me, and hurried on deck. Mr. Bowker hunted up a
scraper, which is a triangular piece of steel with a wooden handle, and
initiated me into its use in scraping the pitch from a portion of the
decks that had lately been calked; and this, the first real work I had
ever done in my life, was also my first lesson in “the sailor’s art.”

At noon Jim and I were “knocked off,” as stopping work is termed, and
told to go to the galley and carry the dinner down into the steerage.
Jim seized the kid, a small wooden tub containing a rough piece of
boiled beef, and left me to bring the “spuds,” as he called the
potatoes. While the cook, who was as black as the ace of spades, was
fishing these out of the coppers, he looked me over critically and
said, “Wot’s yo’ name, boy?”

“Robert Kelson,” I replied.

“Look yere, boy, we don’t pomper no boys here wid no ‘Roberts.’ Yo’
name’s Bob ’board dis ship; you understand? Now, Bob, is dis yo’ fust
voyage to sea?”

“Yes.”

“Co’se it is; any one can see dat. Well, Bob, if you ’haves yo’se’f and
don’t cut up monkey shines, like dat boy Jim does, I no doubt you’ll
get on very well. But you mus’n’t ’spect to be pompered. I reckon you
done had too much ob dat a’ready by yo’ looks. Now you go ’long down
and eat yo’ dinner, and den you come up and pick dis chicken fer me,
and I gwine gib you dese tapioca puddin’ scrapin’s fer yo’ dessert. I
likes yo’ looks, and I gwine stand friend to you, boy!”

I had learned at boarding-school the lesson that it is a good thing to
be friends with the cook, so I assented to this proposal and went below
with the potatoes.

“Chips,” as the carpenter is called on shipboard, although we boys were
not permitted to take this liberty, was a gaunt, red-headed, surly,
opinionated Dane, a good mechanic and a splendid seaman, but anything
but an agreeable messmate. As I came down he hailed me: “Vot, in de
name of Heffen, you been doin’ all dis time wid dose potatoes, you
boy? You ’spose I am goin’ to wait all day for my dinner while you’re
gorming ’round the galley, you lazy hound? If you try any of your games
on me, my lad, I’ll warm you up wid a fathom of rattlin’ stuff!” and
so he grumbled on, while I endeavored to explain that the cook had
detained me.

“Vell, don’t you do it again; that’s all,” and he picked out the best
of the potatoes and cut off the choicest part of the beef, leaving me
the fat, which I detested, for my share.

After we had finished eating this meal, which nothing but a healthy
young appetite, strengthened by my morning’s unaccustomed work, could
have rendered endurable, I was instructed by Jim that it was the duty
of the new boy to carry up the pots and pans to the galley to be
washed, and Chips told me to hurry up and bring him a light for the
pipe he was then industriously filling for an after-dinner smoke.

I submitted to these orders with an ill grace; and when I had seated
myself on the spare spars lashed by the side of the galley, with the
cook, whom I instinctively felt was a friend, I put the case to him and
asked his advice.

“Now, Bob,” said he, “I tole you I gwine to be yo’ friend, and I means
what I said. I done tuck yo’ measure, my son, soon’s you come on board,
and I know’d you’se a quality youngster immegitely. You’se different
breed o’ dog fum dat low-down Jim, and dat’s why I tole you dat you
wasn’t gwine to be pompered here, cos I wanted to prepare you fer what
was comin’. Bob, you’se like a young bar; yo’ trouble’s all befo’ you.
But you des keep a quiet tongue in yo’ head, and watch out wid yo’ eyes
open, and learn all you can, and ’fore you know it you’ll be jest as
good as any ob ’em!”

“Yes, cook, that’s all right, but I can’t let Jim impose on me, you
know.”

The old darky grinned from ear to ear. “Dat’s so, honey! Blood will
tell, sho’s you born, and you’se got some of what my ole marse used to
call ‘diwine ’flatus’; wotever dat is, dat belongs to quality folks
and always fotches ’em on top ob de heap. So if dat Jim runs you
_too_ hard, why I ’speck you’se duty bound to take yo’ own part.
You know wot de good S’marikan said: ’Ef de Farisee hit you on one
cheek, you hit him on de udder.’ Now Bob, here’s yo’ pudden’, and don’t
let de mate see you eatin’ it on deck.”

The doctor, as the cook is always called on board ship, had been a
plantation darkey, and possessed that keen insight peculiar to his race
in certain matters. He recognized at once that I was of gentle birth,
and attached himself to me from the first. He was my firm friend as
long as we were shipmates together, and many a surreptitious pot of
coffee in the morning watch and plate of “menavalins” from the cabin
table I owed to his kind offices during the voyage.

For the remainder of the week I was kept busily engaged from early
morning until dark, so that I was only too glad to crawl into my
hammock soon after our simple evening meal each day, and I was not
sorry when at last our hold was filled, our hatches calked down, and
a gang of riggers bent our sails, and we were ready for sea. Then one
afternoon our crew was brought down by a shipping-master, a tug came
alongside, we cast off our fasts from the Navy Yard wharf, and steamed
down the bay.

As all my good-bys had been made in Boston, I experienced no particular
feelings of regret as we passed down the harbor and bay, and at last
made sail, cast off the tug, dropped the pilot, and saw Sandy Hook
light sink away below the horizon. I had indeed no time for much
sentiment; for as the good ship began to rise and fall to the long
ocean swell, increased by the strong breeze that was blowing from the
southeast, I soon became oblivious to everything, for I was quickly in
the agony of seasickness.

Meanwhile the wind was freshening, and, the top-gallant sails having
been taken in, the ship was plunging into the head beat sea and
creaking and groaning in what seemed to me a very ominous manner. I had
already paid my _devoirs_ to Neptune several times until I was
fearfully weak; and the last time, as I came from the lee rail, I fell
prone into a convenient tub that contained a large coil of rope--the
main topsail halyards, as it proved, unfortunately.

Just then a stronger flaw of wind struck the ship, and the mate, coming
into the waist, shouted out: “All hands stand by to reef topsails! Let
go the topsail halyards! Clew down and haul out the reef-tackles! Be
sharp, men! Be sharp!”

The words were meaningless to me, but I saw a form near me casting off
a rope from a belaying pin over my head; there was a whizzing sound; I
was thrown from the tub into the air with great violence, and I knew
nothing further!




CHAPTER II

MY FIRST VOYAGE


When I returned to consciousness I could not at first imagine where I
was, but the creaking and groaning of the ship as she labored in the
heavy seaway and the abominable smell of bilge water soon brought me to
a realizing sense of the fact that I was in my hammock in the steerage.
After some mental effort I recollected that I had been thrown from the
tub in which I had been sitting on deck, though how or why this had
happened I could not understand. But I was too deathly seasick just
then to care to follow out this train of thought, and I languidly dozed
and wondered whether we should all go to the bottom together in this
gale. I fancy I rather hoped we might thus end the matter with the
least personal exertion, and that death under existing circumstances
would prove a happy release.

But I was recalled to myself by the cook, coming softly up to my
hammock with a shaded light and gazing down at me with evident interest.

“Robert,” said he, for the first and last time calling me by my full
name, “is you come to yo’se’f, honey, sure enough?”

I moaned, as a reply.

“Oh, I reckon you’se all right now, Bob! De ole man says dere’s no
bones broke, and ef dat is so I specs you come out first-rate soon’s
yo’ stummick’s done settle down. But you certainly did have a mighty
narrer squeak! Whatever put it into yo’ head, boy, to squat down into
dat topsail halyard tub? It’s a clean wonder you didn’t get carried
chock up to de main-top! Well, I don’t reckon you ever try dat seat
again in a hurry. Now, honey, you drink dis ’ere pot of cabin tea, and
den go to sleep, and by ter-morrow you’ll be as bright as a button.”

Any one who remembers a first voyage can imagine what I suffered in
that abominable hole, alone and uncared for, save for the friendly
ministrations of that poor negro cook, during the next three days. I
really believe I should have died from mere exhaustion if it had not
been for the little delicacies he smuggled down to me. But fortunately
there is an end to seasickness, and on the third day the captain
condescended to remember that I was on board, and that he had not seen
me since he had examined me after my involuntary feat of ground and
lofty tumbling. So down he came into the steerage, and by his order I
was carried up on deck into the pure, fresh air, where I soon rallied;
and before another day I was myself again, or nearly so, at any rate.

During my illness the ship had been prepared for sea by work that is
always done by the crew the first few days out from port. This consists
in securing the anchors in board, lashing the spare spars on deck, and
clearing away all rubbish that has accumulated in port. Then there is
“chafing gear” to be put on aloft and a thousand odd jobs to be done
that no one but a sailor can understand, all of them very necessary on
a long voyage, however.

The Bombay was, for those days, a good sized ship of about six hundred
tons register, but she would seem a mere tender by the side of the
marine monsters of the present time. Her crew included twelve men and
two boys, with captain, two mates, carpenter, cook, and steward. The
men had been, as usual, divided into two watches, and I had fallen into
the mate’s, or port watch. “It was Hobson’s choice” in my case, as Mr.
Bowker delicately remarked in informing me of my station. It was very
evident that I was not, as yet, considered a very valuable acquisition
to his force.

“Now look here, you Bob,” said the mate one fine afternoon when I was
barely convalescent, “you’ve been playing seasick passenger about long
enough. It’s time you began to be of some use on board and to earn your
grub. I’m going to be doctor myself! Look up aloft there, my lad; do
you see that royal yard?”

I looked up, as he bade me, at the royal masthead, where the yard
seemed to me to be about five hundred feet above the deck where we
stood.

“Yes sir, I see it.”

“Very well, now suppose you waltz up there and take a closer look at
it! It’s going to be a very familiar road for you this voyage, and
you had better make yourself acquainted with the way at once;” and he
smiled at his wit, which I failed to appreciate just then.

The ship was on the wind, with all sail set and drawing well, and she
was reasonably steady; but as I gazed aloft the mast was sweeping about
in a very dazing manner, and the rigging away up there seemed to me
about the size of a fishing line. Remember, I had never been aloft in
my life! I hesitated.

“Well, Bob, I am waiting for you, but I shan’t wait very long, my son;”
and he picked up a piece of rattling stuff, a cord about the thickness
of one’s finger, and ostentatiously swayed it to and fro.

I saw that he meant business, and I started on the trip at once. I
have been aloft, since that beautiful afternoon, many times in howling
gales of wind to close-reef topsails. I have crawled out to storm furl
a sail in a typhoon in the Straits of Sunda when the force of the wind
pinned me to the yard and I felt that every moment might be my last. I
went through that hell of fire in the old Richmond, astern of Farragut
in the Hartford, when we passed Forts Jackson and St. Philip below New
Orleans, but I am sure that I have never since experienced the abject
fear I endured that day before I reached the Bombay’s royal yard!

But I stuck to it and I accomplished the task at last, and my first
lesson in seamanship, and the severest one, was past. Perhaps some
of my readers may think that I magnify the undertaking, but, as I
have said, I was a country lad, and in those days boys did not have
gymnasiums, as they have now, to prepare them for such tests.

“Very well done, Bob, for a first attempt,” said the mate laughingly,
as I reached the deck and busied myself in getting my trousers pulled
down my legs after my frantic struggle aloft; “but I thought you would
have squeezed all the tar out of the royal backstay, you gripped it so
savagely. Oh, you’ll make a sailor yet, lad, or I’ll know the reason
why. Now go forward and turn the grindstone for the carpenter.”

From that day on I was kept constantly in practice in going aloft, and
was soon given the main royal to loose and furl; so that in my watch on
deck no other person was ever sent aloft for that purpose, and what had
been but a few weeks before such a terrible task, became mere play to
me.

Meanwhile we were making our southing all the time, and in due course
we approached the equator. Here both Jim and I were subjected to the
usual horse-play that in those days marked the event of “crossing the
line,” a custom now almost obsolete.

Neptune, represented by one of the men, came on board over the bows
rigged out in a wig of tow, with a long beard, carrying as a trident
a pair of grains, a kind of four-pronged fish spear. He asked us
neophytes if we would promise never to eat brown bread when we could
get white, unless we liked it better; never to kiss the maid when we
could kiss the mistress, unless she were the prettier, and a lot more
of such nonsense. As we attempted to reply one of the attendants forced
a brush dipped in tar and ashes into our mouths, and they ended up
by pulling away the board on which we were seated, thus giving us a
ducking in a large tub of salt water.

However, the mate would not permit the men to go too far with us;
so we at last escaped from our tormentors, and from that time were
forever “free of the line” and at liberty to exercise our ingenuity in
torturing other greenhorns when we had the opportunity.

I have failed to mention that our only passenger was a young
passed-midshipman going out to join the Brazil squadron. His name was
Clemson, and he was a general favorite fore and aft. Some years later
he was drowned while striving to rescue one of his brother officers at
the time of the loss of the United States brig Somers, capsized in the
Gulf of Mexico. A handsome monument was afterward erected to his memory
in the grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

As the days slipped along I was steadily gaining in the knowledge of my
profession. On fine days, when there was little wind, I was sent to the
wheel and taught to steer; at odd times I learned the mystery of making
short and long splices and the various knots and “bends.” From the
drudgery of turning the winch I was gradually promoted to making spun
yarn myself, as well as plain and French sennit and other stuffs used
in such quantities on board ship. Sometimes I was set at work ripping
up old sails with the sailmaker’s gang; again at cleaning out paint
pots and brushes in the paint-room, and I was taught how to handle a
brush and lay on paint evenly. A boy at sea thus really serves an
apprenticeship at several trades, and a good sailor is, or should be, a
seaman, a rigger, a sailmaker, and a painter; he is in reality a “Jack
of all trades.”

Kept busily engaged in this way, it was not strange that the time
slipped by so quickly, and it did not seem long when, on the
fifty-eighth day from New York, we made the land on the starboard bow,
which proved to be Pernambuco, and five days afterward we sighted the
Sugar Loaf, which rises abruptly twelve hundred feet from the sea at
the entrance to the bay of Rio de Janeiro, one of the finest and most
picturesque harbors in the world.

As soon as our anchor was dropped in the lower bay, we were surrounded
by a fleet of boats of curious construction filled with jabbering
negroes and native Brazilians, but none were permitted to come on board
until after we had been inspected by the customs officer. He was a very
great man indeed, who came alongside in a barge, with a wooden awning
over the stern, flying a large Brazilian flag. This boat was pulled by
twelve coal-black Congo negroes, naked from the waist up, who rose to
their feet at every stroke, and fell back on the thwarts with a kind of
rhythmic grunt that they gave in unison.

The officer was a shriveled-up little Brazilian, looking like a cross
between a chimpanzee and a parrot, with his wizened face and gorgeous
uniform of green and yellow--the bilious colors of the Brazilian
Empire. After satisfying all the formalities, we were permitted to have
the natives on board, and they came with great bunches of bananas, bags
of luscious oranges and fragrant pineapples, and other tropical fruits
in bewildering variety, and at what seemed absurdly low prices.

Every one on board, fore and aft, invested in fruit, and we sat up
late into the night to devour it, for it seemed that we could never be
satisfied. Fifty years ago tropical fruits were not hawked about the
streets of Boston as they are to-day, and I do not think that I had
ever seen a banana before. So that after two months of salt-beef diet
these delicacies were thoroughly appreciated.

The day after our arrival was Sunday; and after washing down decks in
the morning and cleaning all the brass-work about the ship, a duty
that especially devolved upon Jim and myself, we were informed by the
mate that the port watch was to have liberty on shore for the day.

How I did crow over Jim when this order was promulgated, for Jim was in
the starboard watch, who were to remain on board, while we fortunate
“larbowlins” were to pass the day amid the wonders of the strange city
that looked so attractive from our deck.

Jim took occasion to upset some dirty water over my newly cleaned
shoes while I was getting dressed, and then laughed spitefully at my
discomfiture. This was by no means the first unpleasant trick Jim had
served me since we left New York, and I had heretofore borne everything
patiently; but this was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. So
we decided, after considerable mutual recrimination, to settle the feud
then and there comfortably in the retirement of the steerage.

I had gained immensely in physical strength during the past two months,
yet Jim was still rather the larger boy of the two; but I sailed in and
succeeded, at last, in giving him about the most thorough trouncing
he had ever had in his life. When he cried “enough” and I hauled off
to repair damages, I caught a glimpse of the old cook gazing in an
interested manner down the hatchway at the affray. He grinned and shook
his head approvingly. “Didn’t I tole you so?” he said as he vanished.

After re-cleaning my shoes and effacing all evidences of the passage at
arms from my face, I arrayed myself, for the first time since I came
on board, in my best blue suit, and, topping it off with a new white
sennit hat, I took my seat in the boat and was rowed on shore with the
others of the port watch.

We passed through a great fleet of ships of all nations at anchor,
gayly dressed in flags, among which the bright American ensign largely
predominated,--for in those days our flag was found in every foreign
port,--and were speedily deposited upon the landing stage, and made our
way on shore.

Here a strange scene was presented. The plaza was filled with people
of all shades of color, from the Congo African to the pure white
Europeans, scattered here and there. All were in their Sunday best,
and with the fondness of the negroes for the most brilliant colors, the
brightest reds and yellows were everywhere seen. All were chattering in
Portuguese in the most animated manner; and as every one seemed to be
talking at once it was indeed a very babel.

While I looked about me a tall, willowy mestizo girl came along
carrying a tray upon her head, which at first I supposed contained
some very elaborate confectionery; but to my astonishment, upon closer
inspection I found she was bearing a little dead infant, dressed in
white and covered with flowers. She was on her way to the Campo Santo,
as I learned, to have it buried, and carried it, as they carried
everything, very naturally upon her head. At the cemetery the bodies of
the poor were piled each day in a long pit, which at night was filled
with quicklime and closed up.

Strolling about, I came to a square with a large cathedral, near the
Imperial Palace. While I looked around me a gay carriage, with six
horses and outriders and a brilliant cavalry escort, came dashing up,
and the youthful Emperor, Dom Pedro II., then scarce twenty years
old, alighted and passed into the church. This was the same Dom Pedro
who a few years since visited the United States so unostentatiously
and who was such an admirer of our country and of our countrymen and
countrywomen. He died in exile a year or two ago, poor fellow!

As this was my first glimpse of royalty, it was, of course, very
interesting, and I deemed myself quite fortunate at having seen this
spectacle on my first day ashore. After the grandees had passed into
the church, I continued on my tour of inspection, and soon came to the
Rua de Ouvidor, where the jewelers had their shops. Here the show of
diamonds so lavishly displayed recalled to my mind the stories I had
read in the Arabian Nights; and as I passed into the adjoining Rua
Direta I was equally charmed with the wondrous feather flowers, for
which Brazil was then so noted.

But by this time, boylike, my appetite was asserting itself, and
I began to look about for something more satisfying than diamonds
and feather flowers. I had been eating oranges and bananas in the
market-place, but these trifles didn’t count for much, and I felt an
overpowering desire for a good square meal. But I could not speak a
single word of Portuguese, and those now about me evidently spoke no
English, so I was in rather a bad way.

I walked on and on; but as I had passed into the residential quarter of
the city I could see nothing looking at all like a restaurant, and I
became a little uneasy for fear I might lose my way. At this juncture
I saw a very sweet-looking old lady standing in a doorway watching me
as I approached her. I hesitated, half paused, and she spoke to me in
Portuguese.

I shook my head to indicate that I could not understand, and, in
despair resorting to pantomime, pointed to my mouth to show that I was
hungry.

“Poor little fellow!” said she in English to a little girl by her side;
“he must be dumb!”

Oh, what a relief it was to hear those words! Did my own language ever
before sound so sweet! I hastened to convince the lady of her error,
and to ask her where I could find a restaurant.

“Why, bless your soul, you dear little midget, come in and dine with
me! Whatever brought such a wee fellow as you all alone to Brazil?”

I attempted to decline this hearty invitation of my countrywoman, as
she proved to be, but it was of no avail, and I was taken in and dined;
and later, when it turned out that Mrs. ---- was an old friend of my
uncle in Boston, I was given a very charming drive in the suburbs, and
finally returned in great state, soon after sunset, to the landing
stage with my new friends. Before leaving the kind lady made me promise
to call upon her again when I next came ashore.




CHAPTER III

THE MUTINY


I had been kept so late by my kind entertainer that I found, by inquiry
of the boat-keeper of a man-of-war cutter at the landing stage, that
the Bombay’s boat with the liberty men had been gone for nearly an
hour; and the coxswain, seeing my dilemma, called in a shore boat
pulled by a couple of darkeys, who agreed to take me off to my ship for
a few reis.

As we neared the Bombay I saw evidences of unusual commotion on board,
and observed a signal of distress hoisted in the mizzen rigging. We
pulled alongside, and scrambling on deck I discovered what was the
trouble.

Among the naval stores which composed our cargo were six hundred
barrels of whiskey. In those days liquor was served out as a daily
ration in the United States Navy, but the practice did not prevail in
the merchant service, liquor being allowed on board but few ships, and
it was served as a ration in no American vessels.

Sailors have always been noted for their ingenuity in stealing liquor;
and to keep this out of his men’s reach, our captain had stored the
barrels in the fore and after runs, or lowest part of the lower hold.
The sailors were aware of this, and on this Sunday had found their
opportunity.

Mr. Bowker, the chief mate, and the port watch were on shore, and
Captain Gay had gone on board another ship, the Angier, to pass the day
and dine with her commander. This left Mr. Daniels, the second mate, in
charge. He was a rather easy-going young man, and soon retired to his
stateroom to enjoy the quiet day in reading an interesting novel.

Chips, the carpenter, after smoking a pipe, went to sleep in his bunk,
and the crew found little difficulty in taking from his chest such
tools as they wished. With these the starboard watch proceeded to cut
a hole through the forecastle deck, and succeeded so well that by
dinner-time they had broken out the upper tier of stores and exposed
the barrels of whiskey.

The cargo they removed they piled up carefully in the quarters of
the absent port watch, filling their side of the forecastle up to the
carlines.

Not satisfied with broaching one barrel for immediate use, they
providently decided to lay in a stock for future consumption, and to
this end hoisted three barrels of whiskey up into the forecastle, and
concealed them underneath their berths.

They then restored the remainder of the cargo to its place, and
refitted the deck planks so carefully as scarcely to leave a trace of
their work.

After dinner the watch settled down to the business of drinking and
carousing. When at five o’clock in the afternoon Mr. Daniels, having
finished his novel, came forward to call away the boat to bring the
liberty men on board, he was startled at finding the entire watch drunk
and inclined to be very quarrelsome.

He at once sent the carpenter and the boy Jim in the dingey on board
the Angier to state the case to our captain, and he accepted the offer
of Captain Edson to send the Angier’s boat for our liberty men. The two
captains then came at once on board the Bombay, in the dingey. The
arrival, an hour later, of the liberty men, who were also drunk, made
matters worse, instead of better, for the two watches fell to fighting
in the forecastle.

This was the disturbance that was going on when I arrived on board.
Captain Gay, who was one of the old-time sea captains and a very “taut
hand” with his crews, ordered the second mate to go down into the
forecastle and bring up any rum he might find there. He supposed, of
course, that the liquor the men had obtained had been smuggled on board
from the bumboat.

Mr. Daniels went down with a very ill grace, I thought. The forecastle
was just then a very lion’s den, and he did not stay long, but came up
with a rush through the hatchway with a bleeding nose and puffed eyes.

When he could regain his breath, he exclaimed: “Captain Gay, they’ve
got a barrel of whiskey there on tap, and they are fighting over it
like a lot of wild Indians! It was all I could do to get out of the
forecastle alive!”

“A barrel! What do you mean?”

“It’s just so, sir; there is a barrel on tap, and they are drinking it
out of their pint cups! I am almost sure it is one of the barrels from
the hold, but how on earth they got it out I can’t imagine. The hatches
haven’t been opened to-day; that I will swear to!”

This was certainly a very bad state of affairs, and Captain Gay felt
that he must take summary action. Going to the cabin, he returned with
four revolvers and gave one each to the officers and to the carpenter.
Then looking down the hatch, he shouted, “Men, come on deck at once,
every one of you!”

A howl of derision was the only reply.

“I will give you five minutes to get up here, or I’ll come down there
and find out the reason why!” he cried.

They simply yelled defiantly in drunken chorus.

“Come along, Mr. Bowker,” said the captain. “You and I will start these
fellows up. Mr. Daniels, you and the carpenter put the irons on them as
they come up the hatchway!”

The captain and mate bravely started down the hatchway, revolvers in
hand. They were taking desperate chances. It was no small thing for two
men, even with arms in their hands, to face a dozen sailors, maddened
with drink, at close quarters, in a hand-to-hand encounter such as
this must needs be. But those old-time skippers were accustomed to
rough-and-tumble fights, and they never shirked an encounter of the
kind, even at long odds.

Jim and I had gone forward to see the outcome of the affair, and we
were, of course, in a high state of excitement as the captain and mate
disappeared below.

For several minutes there was a terrible confusion of voices in the
forecastle, and then a sound of blows and oaths, followed by the sharp
crack of a pistol shot. Then a brief pause, followed by a renewal of
the uproar. Another shot was fired, and almost immediately the captain
appeared on the ladder, struggling with a stalwart fellow who had
grasped the pistol by the barrel, and was striving to get possession of
it.

The carpenter leaned over the scuttle and struck the sailor a heavy
blow on the head with a pair of iron handcuffs, whereupon the fellow
let go his grasp of the pistol and fell heavily down the ladder. The
captain then came up, bleeding from a cut on the side of his face,
evidently the result of a blow, and with his clothing fairly torn to
shreds. Mr. Bowker quickly followed, in an even worse condition, and
without his pistol, which he had lost in the affray.

Mr. Daniels pulled over the scuttle and slipped in the hatch-bar; and,
feeling that the wild beasts were at least caged, our side called a
parley.

“I shot one of the scoundrels in the arm,” said the captain. “Did your
shot take effect, Mr. Bowker?”

“I think so, sir; but I am not sure of it. They closed in on me so I
could not very well see.”

I happened just then to glance through a port and saw a boat coming
alongside. “Here’s a boat with some officers, sir,” I reported.

The captain went to the gangway and received a Brazilian officer who
came on board. Looking curiously at the captain’s disordered condition,
he said, “I am sent by the port captain to inquire what trouble you are
in, as you have a distress signal flying.”

The captain explained and the lieutenant went forward to investigate.
Mr. Bowker opened the scuttle, and the officer called down in his
broken English, “Mariners, I command that you come on deck at once!”

“Who are you, monkey-face?” shouted a man from below. “Get out of this,
or we will serve you worse than we did old Bowker!” At the same time
a pistol shot whistled ominously past the young lieutenant, while a
chorus of oaths and yells saluted him.

“But, captain,” said the young man, “this is truly a mutiny! I must
report to my commanding officer and obtain further assistance.” And he
hurried to his boat and left the ship.

By this time it was growing dark, and affairs were in a very bad state
for the night. The two captains consulted together as to the best
course to pursue. As discipline had now become almost a dead letter
in the ship, we all gathered aft, having first secured the forward
hatchway, and several propositions were discussed by the officers.

“Captain Gay,” said Captain Edson, “if you take my advice you will not
allow the authorities to interfere in the matter, at this stage of the
mutiny at least. If they undertake to settle it they will put you to
no end of trouble and expense, and possibly delay your voyage. I have
had some experience with them in a similar affair. I would at least
exhaust my own resources first.”

“That is good advice, as far as the Brazilians are concerned,” replied
Captain Gay, “but what shall I do with those wild men down in the
forecastle?”

“Come below and we will talk over a plan by ourselves, where we haven’t
quite so many listeners,” said Captain Edson, as he glanced at my
companion Jim, who, with mouth and ears both wide open, was pushing
forward to catch every word.

They went below, and Mr. Bowker, now that the excitement was over for
the moment, found time to give us his attention; and we were set at
work cleaning up the decks, securing the boats, and making all snug for
the night.

In a short time the steward brought up an order to the mate to take the
Angier’s boat and go on board the Brazilian man-of-war Independenzia,
with Captain Gay’s compliments, and to say that we should not require
any assistance that night, but should be glad to have the police boat
sent in the morning to take the prisoners on shore. Before going the
mate was directed to see that the forward hatch was well lashed down
and that a kedge anchor was put on it as an additional precaution
against its being lifted off by a combined effort of the men below.

As the “prisoners” were as yet a long way from being secured, we were
all very much mystified by this message from the captain, and the mate
remarked to Mr. Daniels in my hearing that he “thought the old man had
better catch his chickens before he counted them.”

But all the same, he obeyed the order, and we went down into the
steerage to supper, there to discuss the mutiny in all its various
aspects. When the Angier’s boat returned, Captain Edson went back to
his own ship.

That night the mates and the carpenter kept the anchor watches between
them, and the crew long before midnight succumbed to the effects of the
liquor, and were all quiet in the forecastle.

The next morning we were aroused at daylight, and for once found the
captain on deck as early as any one. Jim and I were sent off at once in
the dingey to bring Captain Edson on board, who came, bringing with him
a mysterious package of something that smelled very much like matches.

Captain Gay received him at the gangway; and after they had drunk a cup
of coffee, they both went forward with the mates and the carpenter,
who to his and our surprise was ordered to bring: his broad-axe with
him. The captain then looked about carefully, and at last directed the
carpenter to cut a hole through the deck planks something more than a
foot square, between the beams. The carpenter was rather astonished,
but obeyed orders, and the chips at once began to fly.

The captain then went to the galley and returned with an iron pot, to
which he attached a line, and Captain Edson poured the contents of his
package into the kettle. By this time the hole was cut through the deck.

“Stand by to open the scuttle, Mr. Bowker,” said the captain. “Now,
men,” he called down, as the hatch was opened carefully, “are you
coming up like men, or shall I make you come up like sheep?”

The crew greeted this request with shouts and oaths. Many of them had
waked and were again drinking the liquor.

The captain closed the hatch and called out, “Cook, bring me a
shovelful of live coals here!”

The cook came with the hot coals, which he put, as directed, into the
pot.

As the dense white smoke of the burning brimstone in the vessel curled
up, the captain lowered the pot through the hole in the deck, keeping
it close up to the beams and out of reach of the men below, and then
placed two wet swabs over the hole, so that none of the fumes could
escape above.

Flesh and blood could not endure the suffocating vapors that
immediately filled the forecastle. In less than five minutes there was
a terrific rush up the ladder, and a violent effort was made to raise
the hatch, which was prevented by the lashings and the heavy kedge
anchor.

“Stand by, now, all of you!” cried the captain to the mates, “and clap
the handcuffs on them as I let them through, one at a time!”

He opened one door of the scuttle, through which the first man
precipitated himself. He was at once secured and the door was closed.
Then it was re-opened, and the crew were let out one by one until the
whole twelve lay handcuffed on the deck in a row. The last men were
scarcely able to crawl up, so dense were the noxious fumes in the
forecastle.

When the work was completed, Captain Gay walked up and down the deck
in a high state of glee at the entire success of his experiment, and
addressed the captives as he passed:

“Oh, you are a precious lot of scoundrels, aren’t you? You thought you
had the weather-gage of me, did you? I think you will sing a different
tune when you find yourselves in the calaboose! I have more than half a
mind to give you a round dozen apiece before I send you there, just to
warm myself up this morning! But I won’t soil my fingers with you, you
drunken brutes, much as I should enjoy it! Mr. Bowker, signal for the
police boat, and send these fellows off as quickly as possible and let
us be rid of them!”

He turned aft, and went down to breakfast with Captain Edson.

When the police boat came, the officer was greatly surprised at
finding so large a number of prisoners awaiting him. They were taken
on shore; and after remaining in the city prison until we sailed, they
were, as we subsequently learned, released, and were shipped by a
whaler who came in short of hands.

Our captain picked up another crew without much difficulty, and we went
on unlading. We then took on board a cargo of coffee and carried it to
New Orleans, where we loaded with cotton for Liverpool.




CHAPTER IV

NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED


The next voyage of the Bombay was to Mobile for a cargo of cotton, to
be carried to Liverpool. It was the custom in those days for ships of
any great size to discharge and take in their cargoes in the lower bay.
The city is on the Mobile River, fully twenty-five miles above the
entrance to the lagoon-like bay, cut off from the Gulf of Mexico by a
narrow isthmus, upon the point of which the lighthouse stands.

The Bombay came to Mobile in ballast, so there was no cargo to
discharge, very much to our satisfaction, as everything had to be
loaded into large lighters, which made hard work for the crew.

Captain Gay, as was the custom, went up to the city as soon as the
ship was safely anchored, to superintend the work of the brokers in
obtaining freight, and to forward the cotton to the ship with all
possible expedition. The chief mate remained on board in charge of the
ship.

Of all the dismal holes I had ever seen, the lower bay of Mobile was
the worst. The low shores are either alluvial mud or clear sand; there
were no trees, no inhabitants but a very few ignorant fishermen, and
absolutely nothing to relieve the monotony of life on shipboard,
divested even of the excitement that is found when at sea in the
changes of wind and weather, and the making and taking in sail that
follows calm or storm.

We were supposed to be in port, and Jack dearly loves his “Sunday
liberty,” with its attendant run ashore; but here no one cared to go on
shore on Sundays or any other day, merely to wander about in the sand,
half devoured by mosquitoes, and without a living soul to exchange
a word with. Then, to make it even more disagreeable, as the bay is
unprotected, and it was in the winter season, we were compelled to
stand anchor watches at night, and keep our sails bent in readiness to
slip our anchors and work off shore if a norther should strike us.

I have since lain at anchor off some very inhospitable and
uninteresting shores, but I do not remember anything more detestable
than life in Mobile Bay in 1844, unless, indeed, it was my blockading
experience outside of that same bay in 1862, of which you will hear
before you finish this volume.

Our only relaxation was crabbing. For this sport we took old iron
hoops and wove upon them coarse nets of heavy twine, the meshes being
very open. In these nets we fastened three or four pounds of the
most ancient and malodorous salt beef we could find in the harness
casks,--and these pieces could be scented the length of the ship. At
night, the nets, heavily weighted, were thrown overboard with a stout
line attached to them, and allowed to sink to the bottom.

The next morning we hauled the nets in, and rarely failed to find from
one to half a dozen enormous hard-shelled crabs entangled in the meshes
of each net and viciously fighting with each other. The result of these
contests was frequently seen in an unfortunate crab minus half of his
legs.

But the pleasure of crab-fishing soon palled upon us, and not even
a hardened sailor’s stomach could endure a steady diet of these
crustaceans. So, after the first week the crab nets were neglected,
and we were forced into spending our few hours of leisure in sleep, an
unfailing resource for a sailor.

However, the first lighter laden with cotton soon came down from
Mobile, and with it a gang of stevedores who were to stow this precious
cargo. At that time freights to Liverpool were quoted at “three
half-pence a pound,” which represented the very considerable sum of
fifteen dollars a bale. So it was very much to the interest of our
owners to get every pound or bale squeezed into the ship that was
possible.

The cotton had already been subjected to a very great compression at
the steam cotton presses in Mobile, which reduced the size of the bales
as they had come from the plantations fully one half. It was now to
be forced into the ship, in the process of stowing by the stevedores,
with very powerful jackscrews, each operated by a gang of four men,
one of them the “shantier,” as he was called, from the French word
_chanteur_, a vocalist. This man’s sole duty was to lead in the
rude songs, largely improvised, to the music of which his companions
screwed the bales into their places. The pressure exerted in this
process was often sufficient to lift the planking of the deck, and the
beams of ships were at times actually sprung.

A really good shantier received larger pay than the other men in the
gang, although his work was much less laborious. Their songs, which
always had a lively refrain or chorus, were largely what are now called
topical, and often not particularly chaste. Little incidents occurring
on board ship that attracted the shantier’s attention were very apt
to be woven into his song, and sometimes these were of a character to
cause much annoyance to the officers, whose little idiosyncrasies were
thus made public.

One of their songs, I remember, ran something like this:--

        “Oh, the captain’s gone ashore,
         For to see the stevedore.

  CHORUS: Hie bonnie laddie, and we’ll all go ashore.

        “But the mate went ashore,
         And got his breeches tore,
           Hie bonnie laddie,” etc.

As Mr. Bowker had returned to the ship the day before, after a visit to
the lighthouse, with his best broadcloth trousers in a very dilapidated
condition, this personal allusion to the unfortunate incident, shouted
out at the top of their hoarse voices by “Number One” gang was, to say
the least, painful. We boys, however, thought the sentiment and the
verse equally delightful.

The second lighter of cotton was towed down to us by quite a large
high-pressure steamer, the Olive Branch, that was going on to Pass
Christian with passengers. After dinner that day, Mr. Bowker, who was
in an unusually amiable mood, called out, “You, Bob, take Charlie with
you in the dingey, and go on board that steamer, and see if you can’t
get me some newspapers.”

Charlie was the new boy, the successor to Jim, who had unostentatiously
departed from the ship, “between two days,” in Liverpool, last voyage.
As Charlie was my junior, I took a great and not unnatural pleasure in
making him as uncomfortable as possible when an opportunity presented.
So I hauled the dingey up at once to the gangway, and, rousing
Charlie up from his unfinished dinner, started off for the steamer.

I had already become quite a good boatman, but this was a novel
experience for me, and indeed it was quite a delicate matter to lay
a small boat safely alongside one of those great side wheel steamers
while she was still in motion,--for the Olive Branch had not anchored,
but had only stopped her engines and was slowly drifting.

As I approached the steamer I saw a man standing well forward of the
wheel-house with a line ready to throw to us, and I headed the boat for
him. As we came within good distance we tossed in our oars, the line
was thrown, Charlie caught it, but stumbled and fell, and in a moment
the dingey had capsized, and we were in the water and under the wheel
of the steamer!

Unfortunately I had never learned to swim; and as I was heavily clad I
went down in the cold salt water of the bay like a stone, and for a few
seconds experienced all the agonies of drowning!

Then I rose and, as I came to the surface, found myself among the
“buckets” of the great wheel of the steamer, which were green and
slimy with river moss, and as slippery as ice. By a tremendous physical
effort I succeeded in getting astride of one of these buckets, and
obtained a precarious position of comparative safety, as I thought at
first.

But, to my horror, I was scarcely out of the water when the wheel
commenced very slowly revolving. The terror of that moment I shall
never forget. The recollection of it returns to me now, after all these
years, and in my bad attacks of nightmare I sometimes fancy myself
clinging again with desperation to a slowly revolving wheel, drenched,
shivering with cold, and expecting each moment a horrible death!

In my agony I shouted aloud; but, inclosed on all sides as I was by
the wheel-box, I felt sure that my cries could not be heard. In the
darkness of this prison box the wheel slowly, very slowly revolved,
carrying me up toward the top of the cover, where I fully expected to
be ground to pieces; or if perchance I escaped that fate, I knew that
I would be drowned when I was drawn under the water in the fearful
suction beneath the wheel.

Escape seemed impossible, but frantic with fear I again shouted at the
top of my shrill young voice till my lungs seemed ready to burst. Then
the wheel stopped. There was a pause; I heard the noise of hurried feet
upon the wheel-box above me, a trap door was opened, and the blessed
light of day came struggling in.

I saw a man looking earnestly down into the darkness of the space
beneath him, and I tried to call out, but my voice seemed paralyzed,
and, for the moment, I could not make a sound.

Neither seeing nor hearing anything, the man rose from his knees and
was about to close the trap-door, when I made another effort, and,
thank God, a faint cry burst from my parched throat.

The man paused, then sprang upon the wheel, picked me up in his arms,
and I fainted dead away!

After what seemed a long time, although, as I was told, it was but a
few minutes, I recovered consciousness to find myself stretched out
on a mattress, covered with a blanket, and surrounded by a number of
kind-hearted women. The passengers had seen the boat upset and noticed
my sudden disappearance. Charlie, who could swim like a fish, was
picked up, and declared that I was drowned. Indeed, he “saw me go down
and never come up again.”

By the merest chance the captain had not started the steamer ahead. If
that had been done I should, of course, have been killed.

My clothes were soon dried in the engine-room, the dingey and her oars
had been recovered, a generous bag of fruit and cake was packed for me
by the sympathetic ladies, and we returned to the Bombay.

As I came up over the side, Mr. Bowker greeted me with, “Where have you
been all this time, Bob?”

I explained to him my narrow escape from a dreadful death, to which he
cheerfully responded:--

“Well, Bob, you certainly were not born to be drowned; look sharp to
it, lad, that you do live to be hanged!”




CHAPTER V

A “SHANGHAEING” EPISODE


The next three years of my life at sea were but a repetition of the
first three months of my experience, with a slight change in the scene
of the incidents and a natural increase in my knowledge of seamanship.
For when I returned to Boston in the Bombay from Liverpool, at the end
of my first year of probation, and the opportunity was again presented
to me of going into the navy as midshipman, I declined the offer of my
own free will.

My views had changed during the past year, for I had learned how slow
promotion was in the naval service, and I had seen in our squadron in
Brazil gray-haired lieutenants who were vainly hoping for one more step
before going on the retired list. In fact, Farragut, who entered the
navy as a midshipman in 1810, had passed through the War of 1812, and
after thirty-one years’ service was still a lieutenant in 1841.

During my year at sea my dear mother had died, my home was broken up,
and when my cousin, who owned the Bombay, promised me that I should
have the command of one of his ships when I was twenty-one, if I proved
myself competent, I decided to stay where I was.

I received my first promotion to the position of second mate, when I
was barely seventeen years of age, and a very proud youngster I was
when I heard myself called “Mr.” Kelson, for the first time on the
quarter-deck of the old Bombay, where less than four years before I had
made my appearance as a green boy.

We were lying at this time at the levee in New Orleans, not far from
Bienville Street, and abreast of the old French Market. The Bombay was
the inner vessel of three in the tier, and formed a portion of the tow
just made up by the tugboat Crescent City, and we were only waiting for
our crew, soon to be brought on board by the boarding-house runners and
the shipping-master.

There was a fine old custom that prevailed in New Orleans in those
days of bringing the crew on board at night, at the last moment,
comfortably drunk, counting them as received, and bundling them into
their berths in the forecastle, to sleep off the fumes of their
debauch. And by the next morning, when the ship would be down the river
at the Belize, the tugboat was cast off, and then, and not until then,
would the ship’s crew be needed to make sail and clear up the decks for
sea.

It was the duty of the junior officer to receive and count the men
as they came on board ship in every stage of intoxication. Some were
brought over the gangway, absolutely helpless, by two stalwart runners;
and when the ship’s quota had been duly delivered in the forecastle the
shipping and boarding-house masters received a month’s advance pay for
each man.

Whatever else might be said against this system, it certainly had the
merit of simplicity; for as the voyage to Liverpool rarely exceeded
thirty or thirty-five days, it was quite customary for the men to “jump
the ship” in Liverpool as soon as she was docked, and, having little or
no wages due them, they were cared for by another set of boarding-house
sharks, who kept them during a very brief carouse in the “Sailor’s
Paradise,” as Liverpool was then called, and then quietly bundled them
on board of another ship, bagging their advance pay, after the fashion
of their New Orleans brothers in iniquity.

All this, however, is but the prelude to my little story. That
Christmas eve in 1845 I, as second mate, stood at the starboard gangway
of the old Bombay, crammed to her upper deck beams with cotton, and
with a deck load beside, and had checked off thirteen men drunk and
semi-drunk, as they came on board in squads of two and three.

“Now then, Mr. Kelson,” said the chief mate, as he came up from the
cabin, “have we got these men all aboard yet?”

“Only thirteen yet, Mr. Ackley,” I responded, looking at my list by the
light of the lantern hanging in the main rigging. “But here comes the
shipping-master, sir.”

“Where in thunder is that other man, Thompson?” said the mate. “The old
man is as savage as a meat-axe down in the cabin, and you had better
not see him till we have got our full complement on board.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Ackley,” replied the shipping-master.
“Here’s Dago Joe, now, coming with his man. Well, Joe, you almost
missed your chance. They are just ready to cast off the breast lines.
What have you got in your handcart?”

“Oh, Mis’ Thompson, he reglar ole’ shellback, he is. He boad wid me
six week. Came here bossun of de Susan Drew. You’ll ’member dis feller
soon’s you see him. He say he won’t ship less’n sixteen dollar mont’.
Dat’s de advance I giv’ him, ’cos I know Mis’ Ackley like good sailor
man.”

“Why, he looks as though he were dead,” said I, peering at the prone
body in the cart.

“Who, he? Oh no, sir; he been takin’ lil’ drop too much dis evenin’,
but he be ol’ right ’fore mawnin’. Oh, he sober fust-class sailor man.
’Sure you of dat, Mis’ Ackley!”

At this moment our towboat gave an impatient whistle, and Captain Gay
came up from the cabin, two steps at a time.

“Mr. Ackley, what _are_ we waiting for? The tow has been made up
for an hour, and we ought to have been a dozen miles down the river by
this time!”

“The last man has just come on board, sir,” replied the mate, “and I
shall cast off at once.”

“Be sharp about it then, sir!”

“Aye, aye, sir. Go forward, Mr. Kelson, and see to those head lines;
take the cook, steward, and carpenter with you to haul them in. You,
Joe, tumble that man of yours into the forecastle and get ashore
yourself, or you’ll have a chance to take a trip down to the Southwest
Pass! Let go the breast lines! Stand by forward!”

We cast off, the tugboat steamed ahead, the strong current struck us
on the starboard bow, we slowly turned, and went on our way down the
river, leaving the long line of twinkling lights of the Crescent City
behind us.

The next morning at daylight the chief mate and I, after serious
difficulties, succeeded in “rousing out” our befuddled crew, and then
commenced clearing up decks and getting ready for making sail, for we
were nearly abreast of Pilot Town, and would soon be over the bar.

Thirteen hard-looking subjects presented themselves from the
forecastle, after some little time, but where was the fourteenth? A
diligent search of the men’s quarters was at last rewarded by the
discovery of the missing man--but such a man! A wretched-looking,
frowsy-headed little creature, bandy-legged and narrow chested, a most
unmistakable landsman, dressed in thin, blue cottonade trousers with
a long-skirted, threadbare alpaca coat, buttoned over a calico shirt;
with no waistcoat, or hat, and with well-worn lasting shoes on his
feet. Trembling, blear-eyed, wild with evident astonishment at his
surroundings, this unfortunate wretch was haled up before the mate by
the carpenter, who had found him still asleep under one of the berths,
hidden behind a large sea chest.

“Who the devil are you?” said Mr. Ackley roughly, looking
contemptuously at the man, shivering in the chill of the early morning.

“Vere you vos takin’ me?” inconsequently replied the man, staring about
him. “I want to go by my home. Lisbeth must ogspect me. Please stop the
boat, lieber Herr; I must go home!”

“He’s got ’em bad, sir,” said the carpenter; “that New Orleans whiskey
is mean stuff, sure. He’s got the ’trimmins, sir!”

“Who shipped you, you measly dog?” shouted the mate, paying no
attention to the carpenter. “Come, speak up, or I’ll lather the hide
off of you! Who shipped you I say?” raising a rope in a threatening
manner.

“Please, goot gentleman, don’t strike me! I vant to go home. Lisbeth
must ogspect me long ago. Why did you bring me here, goot gentleman?”

“I’ll ‘goot gentleman’ you! Here, Chips, take this fellow and put him
under the head pump. Freshen him up a bit, and then I’ll warm him with
a rope’s end and see if I can’t get some sense into him!”

The carpenter and one of the crew dragged the struggling man forward,
and held him while one of the boys, delighted at the opportunity,
pumped the cold river water over the poor creature, whose screams were
drowned in the rough merriment of the sailors.

I look back at this scene now, as I record it, and at many others,
even worse, that followed during the next month, and wonder if we were
all--officers and men--brutes, in “those fine old days” of the Black
Ball liners and the Liverpool trade!

Poor Shang--that was the name that fell to him in playful allusion to
the fact that he had been made a victim to the “Shanghaeing” process,
as it was called--had been drugged and brought on board helpless by
Dago Joe to make up our full complement.

When we came to choose watches that evening Shang fell to me; he was
left until the last, and Mr. Achley said, “Well, Mr. Kelson, you
allowed Joe to bring this duffer on board, and its only fair that you
should take him in your watch. _I_ don’t want him!”

Shang, as I found out by questioning him, had gone out that
Christmas Eve in New Orleans to buy a few little presents for their
Christmas-tree. He was a poor journeyman tailor, a German who had come
to this country from his native village of Pyrmont, several years ago,
had married a fellow-countrywoman, Lisbeth, and they had one child,--a
crippled girl, Greta,--whom the little man loved with his whole heart;
and for her he had gone out to purchase something with his scanty,
hard-earned wages, paid him that day.

He had stepped into a beer saloon for “_ein glas bier_,” as he
said, had drunk it, felt drowsy, and--“Gott in Himmel, gnädiger Herr,
nothing more know I more till I find myself in this strange ship! When
think you, sir, we will get there--where we go--is it perhaps far?”

When I told poor Shang the real facts of the case, and that it would be
months before he could again see his Lisbeth and Greta, the poor fellow
was dumb with horror, and I almost feared he would make away with
himself.

I did the best I could to make life endurable for the poor wretch. An
old thick suit of mine he deftly made over for himself, and some of his
shipmates helped him out with a few other clothes. But, even with the
best intention, I could not make a sailor of poor Shang,--it was not in
him, for he was a most helpless lubber,--and that was the misery of it.

He had been shipped and entered on our ship’s articles as an able
seaman, and Joe had received sixteen dollars of monthly wages on his
account. Our crew was short, at best, the winter voyage was a stormy
one, and poor Shang could not be favored.

Mr. Ackley seemed to have taken an unconquerable dislike to the man
from the first, and led him a dog’s life, beating him unmercifully
several times for his shortcomings. Aloft he must go, though he clung
helplessly to the ratlines in an agony of terror.

“You alone are goot to me, lieber Herr,” said the poor fellow. “I
know you cannot help me more, but how can I live it? I know that I
shall perish before we get there! Ach, lieber Gott, vot become of my
lieblinge! Aber des Himmels Wege; sind des Himmels Wege!”

At last the long voyage was nearly at an end. Cape Clear was in sight
one night as I came up to take the watch at midnight, and a very
pleasant sight it was to all of us. There was a stiff all-sail breeze
from the southward, and we were laying our course fairly up channel.
I was looking over the quarter-rail at the light, now well abeam, as
Shang came aft and drew near me.

“Is it then true, mein Herr, as they say, that we are almost there?”

“Yes, Shang, we are now almost there. If this breeze holds we will be
in Liverpool day after to-morrow. And then,” I added, as I saw how
anxiously he listened to me, “you can ship as a landsman, perhaps, and
get back to Lisbeth and little Greta.”

“Gott sei dank,” he murmured, as he reverently lifted his hat, “if they
have but live all this time.”

I endeavored to reassure the poor fellow, and then, as the breeze was
freshening, I took in the topgallant sails, and later, finding the wind
still increasing, called Captain Gay, who ordered all hands called and
a single reef put in the topsails.

The watch below tumbled up, the yards were clewed down, reef-tackles
hauled out, and both watches went aloft to the fore-topsail. As my
station as second mate was at the weather earing, I was, of course,
first aloft, and had just passed my earing and sung out, “Haul out
to leeward,” when I noticed, to my great surprise, that the man next
inside of me on the yard was Shang, who usually on such occasions was
discreetly found in the bunt.

“Why, Shang,” said I, “you are really getting to be a sailor.”

“Ach, mein Herr,” said he cheerfully, “ich bin so glücklich und so
frölich, now that I am really so near there and that I shall so soon
see Lisbeth”--

A strong gust of wind struck us; there was a vicious slat of the sail
that sent the heavy canvas over our heads; the ship made a desperate
roll and a plunge into the rising sea, and then, as we all clung
closely for our lives, the sail bellied out and filled again,--but the
man next me was gone from the yard!

In the pitchy darkness of the moonless night he had fallen into the
sea, and without a cry he was swept into eternity.

Poor Shang’s earthly troubles were forever ended!




CHAPTER VI

TO CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERY


In 1846, while the Mexican War was in progress, it was decided by
President Polk, acting upon the advice of Secretary of the Navy George
Bancroft, to send a volunteer regiment around Cape Horn to California
for the occupation of that country, then a province of Mexico. In
pursuance of this scheme a commission as colonel was given to a Mr.
Thomas Stevenson, a well-known New York politician and a stanch
Democrat, and he was authorized to raise and equip a full regiment
of one thousand men, to be known as the First Regiment of California
Volunteers.

It was found that three ships would be required to transport the
regiment with its commissary stores and ammunition; and the Thomas H.
Perkins, of which I was at the time second mate, was one of the three
vessels chartered for the purpose. Accordingly we hauled into a berth
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in September, 1846, and commenced taking in
a cargo of military stores in the lower hold, while the between decks
were fitted up with berths to accommodate three hundred and fifty men.

Having completed this work, we were towed into the East River, and
there three full companies, H, I, and K, with a portion of Company F,
were sent on board from their camps on Governor’s Island. We were also
notified that Colonel Stevenson and his headquarters staff would take
up their quarters on board our ship for the voyage out, which gave us
the distinction of being the flagship.

The men of the regiment were a tough lot of fellows. “Stevenson’s
Lambs,” as they had been nicknamed, were recruited in and about the
Five Points and the worst purlieus of the notorious Fourth Ward, and
from the very first they gave their officers no end of trouble.

The officers, moreover, were but a shade better; for with the exception
of the colonel’s son, Captain Matthew Stevenson, who was a West
Pointer, and the staff officers, who were of the better class, the
great majority of the company officers were mere ward politicians,
elected by their men to their positions, and having little idea of
military discipline.

The colonel had to come on board secretly at night to avoid arrest for
debt, and one energetic deputy sheriff actually chased us down the
harbor in an ineffectual attempt to serve a writ upon this impecunious
officer.

We sailed, after many delays, very suddenly at last, under imperative
orders from Washington, on the last day of September, in company
with the ships Loo Choo and Susan Drew, carrying the remainder of
the regiment, and all of us under the convoy of the United States
sloop-of-war Preble. As she was a very dull sailer, however, we never
saw her after the first day, as we ran her out of sight that night.

We had a pleasant run down to Rio Janeiro, where we put in for water
and fresh provisions. Here one of the wild freaks of the Lambs was
displayed.

Captain Lippitt, of Company K, was, in contrast to the other officers,
quite a disciplinarian. He was not a New Yorker, but came from
Vermont, where he had superintended a military school; and neither of
these facts commended him to the consideration of his men, with whom he
was very unpopular. His company had abused their uniforms shamefully
during the voyage, and had been especially careless in losing their
dress hats overboard.

These hats were not so comfortable as the fatigue caps, and there
was little doubt that, in many instances, the men lost the hats with
intent. In preparation for making a suitable appearance in Rio, Captain
Lippitt had found a couple of hatters in the regiment, and with
infinite labor had managed to have ninety new dress hats made for his
company, and they had been served out a few days before we made the
land. He took great pride in the success of this effort, and bragged in
a mild manner to his brother officers of the fine appearance his men
would make.

The day we entered the bay of Rio the entire company appeared on deck
in their new headgear, rather to the surprise of the captain, who had
not given orders for full dress; but, attributing it to a desire on the
part of his men to appear well, he made no comment.

As we passed under the walls of the fort which guards the entrance to
the bay, where all ships are hailed as they come in, Company K at a
concerted signal sprang into the rigging or upon the rail, and, giving
three wild cheers, every man threw his new hat overboard!

The Bay of Rio de Janeiro was alive with nearly one hundred military
hats bobbing about in a most absurd manner, while the walls of the fort
were at once crowded with Brazilian soldiers attracted by this most
astonishing performance.

Captain Lippitt was speechless with rage and amazement, the colonel and
the other officers could not restrain their laughter; and as they could
not very well punish an entire company for a bit of fun, the matter was
allowed to pass with a reprimand and a stoppage of the value of the
hats from the men’s pay. But Captain Lippitt was not permitted to hear
the last of the “battle of the hats” for the remainder of the voyage.

In Rio the three ships of our fleet met for the first time since we had
parted company after leaving New York. One company of the regiment from
each ship was given liberty on shore daily, and the Brazilian police
probably never had such severe duty before in their lives. Fancy three
hundred New York Fourth Ward roughs adrift in a quiet foreign city,
entirely unprepared for their proper reception!

It was little wonder that at last a formal protest was entered with the
American Minister, Mr. Wise, against the depredations of these reckless
fellows, and a request was made that no more shore liberty be granted
them. It was doubtless an immense relief to the authorities, who
afforded us every facility for expediting our work, when the supplies
were all on board and they had seen the last of the “_Soldados Norte
Americanos_.”

We parted company with our consorts with the understanding that we
should rendezvous at Valparaiso. Off the Rio de la Plata we had a very
heavy blow, but after that enjoyed unusually pleasant weather until we
got into the latitude of Cape Horn, where, although it was December,
which is summer at the antipodes, we encountered a succession of severe
gales from the northwest, right in our teeth, which drove us far to the
southward, and against which we could make no headway.

On Christmas Day we were in latitude 60° 05′ S. The cold was intense,
it was blowing heavily, and we were plunging into a headbeat sea,
close on the wind, under double reefs, when the thrilling cry, “Man
overboard!” was heard. The ship was at once hove to, every one rushed
on deck, and there, on the weather quarter, the figure of a man
was seen rising and falling on the crest of the dark green waves.
Fortunately as he passed astern some one had thrown an empty chicken
coop overboard, which, drifting near him, he had managed to get hold
of, and to this he was clinging for dear life.

Captain Arthur at once called for volunteers for the whaleboat, which
swung on the port quarter, and a good crew was speedily selected. I was
put in charge, and, watching a favorable opportunity, she was partially
lowered, with us seated in her, and then the falls were let go by the
run, so that as she struck the water they unreeved, for it would have
been impossible in such a seaway to unhook the blocks.

We drifted clear of the quarter overhang, which was the great danger,
and then, directed by signals from the ship, pulled in the direction
of the unfortunate man, who more than half the time was out of sight to
us in the boat, as he went down in the hollow of the great waves.

It was severe work forcing the boat through the rough water in the very
teeth of the gale, for the ship had drifted well to leeward of the man
before we got the boat lowered; but my men gave way with a hearty good
will, and we at last had the satisfaction of reaching the man, who was
almost exhausted, as well as frozen, and dragging him in, he fell prone
in the bottom of the boat.

It was not so difficult to return to the ship, as we had the wind
astern; but it was an exceedingly delicate and dangerous operation to
hook on and hoist the boat in, and we were nearly swamped in doing it.

Loud cheers greeted us from more than three hundred throats as we came
alongside, and the boat falls were stretched out and manned by all the
men that could get hold of the ropes. The surgeon of the regiment was
at hand, and poured nearly a gill of raw brandy down the man’s throat,
and he was taken below, wrapped in a blanket, and thoroughly rubbed
until the suspended circulation was once more restored. The next day
he was up and about the decks again, very thankful for his escape from
a great peril.

Within twenty-four hours the wind veered around to the southward, and
we soon passed the Horn and ran up into the South Pacific, exchanging
the Antarctic ice for the blue skies and summer weather of the tropics.
In a couple of weeks we reached Valparaiso, where we remained until, a
few days later, we were joined by our consorts, when profiting by our
experience in Rio Janeiro, but a small number of men were permitted to
go on shore each day.

We left Valparaiso January 15, 1847, and, after an uneventful run up
the coast, sighted the Farallones, off the Bay of San Francisco, on the
5th of March.

Then all was excitement; for we had heard nothing of the condition of
affairs in California since leaving New York six months before, and we
did not know what reception we might encounter.

We stood in past the heads, since known as the Golden Gates, and ran
up the lower bay, when suddenly we saw displayed, from a staff, on
the Presidio, the American flag, and we then knew that we were among
friends. A few minutes later we sighted the fleet at anchor, with our
country’s flag flying from the peaks of the ships, and we ran up and
anchored off the little hamlet of Yerba Buena, as what is San Francisco
was then called, after a voyage of one hundred and fifty-five days.

Commodore Stockton, in the frigate Congress, was then in command of
the naval forces, and the sloop-of-war Portsmouth, Captain Montgomery,
was also in the harbor. A few weeks later Commodore McKean came over
from China in the Razee Independence; and as our two consorts arrived
a week after us, and General Kearney reached Monterey with a force
of dragoons, overland, it will be seen that the United States was in
overpowering force in California.

We discharged our government stores, carrying them ashore in our
boats and landing them on the beach near Clark’s Point, in the manner
described by Dana in his “Two Years Before the Mast;” for everything
was very primitive at Yerba Buena in those days, and it would have
required a very vivid imagination to conceive that the bay would within
a lifetime be lined with wharves, and that a superb city of several
hundred thousand inhabitants was to replace the cluster of half a dozen
adobe houses we saw before us.

Our cargo out, we took in a sufficient quantity of sand ballast, and in
June sailed for Manila. Within a week after getting off the coast of
California, we struck the southeast trades, and had a most delightful
run across the Pacific Ocean, the wind scarcely varying a couple
of points for six weeks, when we sighted Guam, one of the Ladrone
Islands. As scurvy had made its appearance among our crew, Captain
Arthur decided to anchor and lay in a supply of fruit and vegetables.
The natives soon came off to us with quantities of limes, yams, and
cocoanuts, which they gladly exchanged for any articles of hardware we
could spare.

The following day we got under weigh and stood to the westward for the
Straits of St. Bernardino. At midnight breakers were seen close on the
weather bow. We wore ship instantly to the eastward and hauled close on
the wind for an hour and a quarter, the wind not permitting us to lay
better than east half south. At 1.45 A. M. we tacked to the
southward, and hoped to weather this reef, which we had not found set
down on our chart; but at 3.15 breakers were again seen on the weather
bow too near to allow us to tack. We accordingly wore, and when before
the wind the ship struck under the forefoot and remained stationary.
The wind was S. S. E., and fortunately the water was as smooth as a
mill-pond.

We furled all sails, and I was sent by Captain Arthur in the cutter to
sound around the ship. I found the eastern edge of the reef on which we
lay to be very steep, with shelves projecting beyond each other as it
deepened. These edges were of very sharp and ragged coral, descending
so rapidly as scarcely to allow room to lay an anchor on.

The reef was about one mile and a quarter in length from north to
south, and perhaps one hundred and fifty yards in breadth from east to
west, and in the form of a crescent. Its concave side to the eastward
was that on which we lay, nearly in the centre, with our bow pointing
directly over the reef. Under our jib-boom there was but five feet of
water; under the stern eleven feet; under the fore chains fifteen feet
on the port side and thirty feet on the starboard side, and under the
main chains four fathoms on one side and eight fathoms on the other.

Returning and reporting these facts, Captain Arthur had all our boats
hoisted out and a kedge anchor laid under the port quarter in deep
water, and a hawser attached to it and taken to the capstan and hove
taut. The stream anchor was next laid on the starboard bow and its
cable hove taut. All three boats were manned and attached to a tow-line
from the bowsprit end. The jib, spanker, and staysails were loosed
ready for hoisting.

By eleven o’clock the wind veered to the southwest and became squally,
the tide began to flow and the swell to heave. At 11.30 the ship began
to move, but just then the hawser parted. Captain Arthur immediately
ordered the boats to pull away about forty-five degrees abaft the
starboard beam; the breeze freshened and gave a greater impulse to the
strain of the stream cable, and, to our delight, the ship launched off
and got sternway, which, the boats assisting, swung her around on her
heel with her head to the northward.

“Cut away the stream cable, Mr. Kelson!” shouted the captain, half wild
with excitement.

The ship swung so as to bring the wind on the starboard quarter.

“Hoist away on the spanker, put the helm down!” She came to on the
starboard tack. “Hoist away jib, main and main-topgallant staysails! Be
lively, sir!”

Every one bent to the work with a hearty good-will; the good ship
gathered headway; the boats came alongside.

“Aloft, men, and loose topsails and courses!” called out the captain.

The topsails were mastheaded, and the courses set as rapidly as
possible, and we just shaved the reef, not more than five feet from its
knife-like edge. Had we struck broadside on, it would have been the
last of the ship, and, for the matter of that, of us also.

Thank God! we were clear of the reef, losing in the effort our stream
and kedge anchors and a couple of hawsers, which we gladly relinquished
in our joy at this narrow escape from wreck.

We steered N. N. W. between two other long reefs, which broke white as
we passed them, and at last emerged to clear water, and again shaped
our course for the straits. A week later, we anchored at the mouth of
the Pasig in the beautiful Bay of Manila.

The city of Manila, on the island of Luzon, is the capital of the
Philippine Islands, one of the most highly cherished of the Spanish
possessions. It is the residence of the viceroy, who, at this great
distance from home, is in everything but name a reigning monarch, and,
indeed, supports almost as much state as his royal master in Madrid.

The bay is superb, almost as fine as that of Rio de Janeiro, and the
city itself is much more curious and interesting to the traveler than
Rio. The River Pasig divides the city, one portion, which is walled,
being devoted almost exclusively to the palaces of the viceroy and
the archbishop, the Hall of Audience, the military barracks, and
innumerable churches and convents. Outside of the walls, along the
shore of the bay, is the beautiful drive, the Calzada, where all the
fashionable world drive in the cool of the evening, while the bands
play choice selections of operatic music.

On the other side of the river is the residential quarter and the
shops. The population was then about one hundred and fifty thousand, of
which more than three quarters were natives, the ruling class and the
aristocracy being of Spanish birth.

One of the many sights in Manila was the enormous government cheroot
factory, where nearly twenty thousand people, mostly women, are
employed.

We loaded here with hemp and sugar, which we carried home to Boston by
the way of the Cape of Good Hope, having an uneventful passage of one
hundred and sixty-five days to Boston Light.




CHAPTER VII

RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY


I did not long remain as second mate, for the very next voyage
the chief mate was lost overboard one morning from the top of the
poop-house. The watch were about to set the spanker, and Mr. Brown, who
had the watch, was standing very imprudently to leeward of the boom,
when the last turns of the gasket were thrown off and the gaff flying
over struck him in the head with great violence and knocked him over
the quarter-rail.

The ship was at once hove to, and a boat was lowered, but nothing was
seen of him, and the supposition was that he was stunned by the blow
and sunk at once, to rise no more.

So I was promoted to his place; and although full young to assume the
responsibilities attendant upon the position, I managed to satisfy the
captain so well that when we arrived in port I was confirmed in the
place. About a year later I was sent for to go as chief mate in the
Laodicea, another ship belonging to the same firm. In this vessel I
made a voyage to the East Indies.

Early in 1848, while in New York, I received a letter from the owners
requesting me to come on to Boston and take command of the Mystic, a
fine new ship of nearly one thousand tons, lately launched at East
Boston and fitting out for a voyage to Valparaiso.

So my cousin, the owner, had fulfilled his promise, and before I was
twenty-one years of age I was to have command of a fine half-clipper
ship. I wasted no time, but went on to Boston as speedily as possible,
where I found my ship at Commercial Wharf and work already commenced on
her lading.

I at once assumed the command; and as the owners were very anxious to
get the ship to sea in the shortest time possible, I pushed things to
the extent of my ability and secured as officers a Mr. King, whom I had
known for several years as an experienced and thoroughly trustworthy
man, as chief mate, and a Mr. Robinson, whom I did not know personally,
but who brought me such excellent recommendations that I engaged
him on the strength of them, as second mate. That I did not more
closely examine into the character of this man was a very unfortunate
oversight, as it afterward proved.

In due time our cargo was all in, and in addition, seventy thousand
dollars in Spanish dollars, packed in kegs, came on board, which was
to be used on owner’s account for the purchase of a cargo of copper at
Coquimbo. These kegs were stowed away under the immediate direction of
Mr. Robinson, who was in charge of the work, well down in the after run.

As one of the frequent South American revolutions was then in progress
in Chili, my orders from the owners were that if I could not get a
cargo of copper I should go over to China and report to Russell &
Sturgis, who would invest my silver in a cargo of tea for Boston.

On the 5th of December we were ready for sea; and after clearing at the
Custom House and receiving my last orders from my owners, I went on
board and proceeded to sea.

Our run down to Cape Horn was prosperous and very uneventful, and we
had remarkably fine weather. After passing through the Straits of Le
Mar, however, we fell into a heavy gale from the westward, and for
several days laid to under close sail. By the third day of the gale the
sea was running heavily. That day just before noon the clouds lifted,
and Mr. King sent a boy into the cabin to tell me that he thought there
would be an opportunity to get a meridian altitude.

As we had not been able to get an observation for several days, I
hurried on deck with my sextant. Just as I had braced myself against
the port rail, the man at the wheel carelessly let the ship yaw, and
a great wave that must have weighed tons came aboard, smashing the
starboard quarter boat to flinders, dashing in the cabin skylight, and
sweeping the decks in a terrible manner.

By great good fortune I had taken a turn of a rope about my waist to
steady me for getting a sight; and by clinging on with both hands I
managed to retain my position, but Mr. King, who was quite near me, was
washed away and thrown with fearful violence across the deck and into
the lee scuppers.

Fortunately no one was washed overboard, but on investigation we found
that poor Mr. King was seriously injured. Two of his ribs were broken,
and it was evident that he had also received some severe internal
injuries, the extent of which I could not then determine.

He was carefully taken below to his stateroom, and I did all I could
to relieve his sufferings, which were very great. That night the wind
veered and moderated, and we made sail and were soon in the waters of
the Pacific, standing to the westward with favoring winds and smooth
seas.

On the 2d of March, at 9 A. M., we made the Point of Angels,
and, bearing up for the entrance to the Bay of Valparaiso, stood in
and anchored close to the lower batteries. I at once went on shore and
reported to the Aduaña, and then made arrangements to have Mr. King
sent to the hospital.

Going on board again, I told him what I had done and assured him
that it would be necessary to have such careful medical and surgical
attention as he could receive only in a hospital.

“I am perfectly aware of that, Captain Kelson,” said he. “I know that
I can’t stay here on board, and I doubt if I shall ever be much more
use as an officer of a ship; but there is one thing I must do before I
leave the ship, and that is to warn you against putting too much trust
in Mr. Robinson!”

“Why, Mr. King! what is the matter with him? He is a good sailor, and
he appears to carry on the duty very well!”

“Oh yes, sir, he is a good sailor-man; no one can deny that; but I
don’t trust him. He has too much palaver with the men. I am sure there
is something wrong about him. What it is, unfortunately, I don’t
know; I wish I did. But you are a younger man than I am, captain, and
more confiding in your nature. Now I beg of you not to put too much
confidence in Mr. Robinson!”

I thought it quite possible that this was merely prejudice on the part
of my mate, increased by his anxiety at leaving the ship, so to ease
his mind I said: “Oh, well, Mr. King, I will keep my eye on him, and I
shall hope that you will soon be able to return to duty again. Now keep
yourself perfectly quiet and get well as quickly as possible.”

After sending my mate on shore, I made Mr. Robinson, who seemed to be
doing very well, chief mate temporarily, and put one of my best men in
charge of the second mate’s watch. Engaging lighters, I then commenced
discharging my cargo, which, as the goods I had happened to be in
demand, sold rapidly and to excellent advantage. But when it came to
arranging for my cargo of copper, I found that it would be necessary
for me to make a visit to the capital, Santiago, to confer with the
authorities in regard to a permit for export.

Accordingly I made arrangements with my consignees in Valparaiso to
keep an oversight on my ship; and after leaving very strict orders
with Mr. Robinson in regard to the care of the vessel, I started on
horseback for Santiago.

With the positive genius for delay that characterizes Spanish American
officials, I was detained at the capital for several weeks, badgered
about from one department to another; but at last I succeeded in
obtaining the desired permit, and returned to Valparaiso.

As I dismounted from my horse in the courtyard of my hotel, I met my
good friend Don José Altimara. “Ah!” said he, “I am glad that you have
returned. All your goods are sold and well sold. Have you obtained your
permit to export copper?”

I told him of my various trials and final success.

“That is well. But tell me, why have you sent your ship away so
suddenly? I fear you will have trouble with the authorities, as you had
no clearance papers.”

“What do you mean? The Mystic sailed!”

“I mean,” said Don José, “that the Mystic left this port a week ago at
night, and with no notice given at the Aduaña.”

I did not stop for another word, but hurried to the mole to convince
myself that my friend was mistaken, as I was sure he must be. Eagerly I
scanned the bay, searching for my ship, but she was not there! She was
gone; of that there was no manner of doubt. But _where_ could she
have gone? and why should Mr. Robinson have taken such a strange course?

Beyond the slight suspicion created by the vague impressions of Mr.
King, I had found no reason for doubting the probity of this officer.
But I was soon to be enlightened; for as I stood gazing out over the
bay, a rough-looking fellow dressed like a sailor, with a half-healed
scar running transversely across his face, that looked like the mark of
a recent knife wound, touched me on the shoulder to rouse me from my
reverie, and said, “Is this Captain Kelson?”

“Yes, my man,” I replied; “what do you want of me?”

“Well, sir,” said he, with a half sneer, “I think it’s more than likely
you will want something of _me_!”

“What should I want of you, then?”

“Don’t you want to find your ship?”

“Why, what do you know about her?”

“Well, captain, I know _all_ about her, and I am ready to tell you
the whole story; and what is more, I’ll help you to find her.”

“I will pay you well for it, my lad, if you can indeed do so,” I
replied eagerly.

“Well, I don’t object to that, but I shall do it, not so much for love
of you or your money, as to get even with Jack Robinson for the dirty
trick he played me!”

“Jack Robinson! Do you know Mr. Robinson?”

“Aye do I! We were shipmates together in the old Palmetto, of Boston,
three years ago. He didn’t have a handle to his name then. We were both
in the forecastle. You never heard of the Palmetto getting into port,
did you, captain?”

“No; it was supposed that she was lost off Cape Horn, with all hands;
she was never heard from.”

“No; and she never will be. When I have helped you to find the Mystic
and have got square with Jack Robinson, perhaps I may tell you what
became of the Palmetto.”

“Well, never mind about her; what can you tell me about my own ship?”

“I’ll tell you, sir, if you will give me time. Three weeks ago Jack
met me here ashore. I had been beach-combing for six months and I was
dead broke. Jack was flush and paid for the _aguardiente_ like a
man. One day he said, ‘Look here, Charlie, I’ve got a devilish sight
better lay here than we had with the old Palmetto, and an easier job;
do you want to go in with me?’ Naturally I was ready for anything that
promised well; and when Jack took me on board ship, showed me those
kegs down in the after run, and told me they were all full of silver
dollars, I was red hot to get hold of them and ready for anything!”

“You are frank, at any rate.”

The fellow laughed and continued: “Jack told me his plan. It was simple
enough. He wanted me to pick up half a dozen reckless fellows like
myself, who could be depended upon, and who would join us for a fair
price. Then, on the first dark night, we would slip the cable, put to
sea, and carry the Mystic to an island we both know of, that has water
and cocoanuts but no inhabitants,--well, if you must know, the same
place where we laid the old Palmetto’s bones,--and then get rid of the
rest of the crew, according to a clever plan he had, and divide the
spoil between us two!”

“And how comes it, then, that you are here and the ship gone?”

“That is the deviltry that I am coming to. A week ago yesterday we had
everything ready. I had sent aboard half a dozen fellows who were ready
for anything that would put a handful of doubloons in their pockets.
Jack told the old crew that you had ordered these men shipped to help
in loading copper at Coquimbo, and they were pleased at the prospect
of more help in the work. Jack and I were ashore for the last time,
waiting for night to come, so that we could cut the cable and run.
We had both taken our share of grog, but Jack had taken a deal less
than I. That I had noticed, and it ought to have made me suspicious.
At eleven o’clock we started from the _pulqueria_ for the beach;
but as I turned the first corner, Jack dropped a bit behind, and at
the same moment I felt his knife running in between my ribs, and as I
turned he gave me this slash over the head, and I fell in the street
with a shout of ‘Murder!’

“The patrol came along and Jack scuttled off! Well, sir, I was carried
to the hospital, where I have been ever since, and I had a narrow
squeak for it; but I pulled through at last, and now I am ready to
pilot you to Amatavi Island, as soon as you can get something to go in,
to hunt up your ship!”

The fellow’s story carried conviction in the telling; it was verified
by the police, so far as they were concerned, and by old Francisco, in
whose _pulqueria_ all the nefarious business had been planned.

My good friend Altimara, to whom I went with the strange tale, was now
of the greatest assistance in various ways. He found, at my suggestion,
a fast-sailing schooner with a good armament, that had lately returned
to Valparaiso from a smuggling voyage up the coast. She could be
chartered just as she was, manned and all ready for sea, excepting her
stores.

I made the round of my customers; and after stating my desperate
case, they at once settled their various bills for the goods they had
purchased, paying me in silver, in all nearly sixty thousand dollars. I
then laid in a sufficient supply of stores for a voyage of four months;
and obtaining the necessary papers for my vessel from the government
officials, who were all very sympathetic, I took Charlie on board as
pilot, and sailed from Valparaiso with a fair wind, on the 6th of May,
in search of my runaway ship.

I found my schooner all that I could have wished: she was very fast
and easily handled; and the crew, which was largely made up of runaway
men-of-war’s men, were familiar with the use of the great guns and well
drilled in small arms.

I explained to them the object of our voyage and what I hoped and
expected to accomplish, and assured them that if we succeeded in
overhauling and capturing the Mystic, they should receive one hundred
dollars each as prize money, in addition to their wages. But I told
them at the same time that very possibly we might have a sharp fight,
for I knew Mr. Robinson was a desperate man and had everything at stake.

The men cheered at the end of my speech, and promised to go wherever I
led them, and I saw that they meant what they said.

From the description Charlie gave of the island where he said Robinson
had intended taking the Mystic, I found that it laid in latitude 2°
21′ S., longitude 146° 04′ E., and that it was doubtless one of the
Admiralty Islands, which were little known to navigators at that time.

We made an excellent run, and at noon on June 30 I found by a good
observation that we were probably about forty miles to the southward
of the island we were seeking; and as we were then making about seven
knots an hour, I felt sure we should sight the land before night. The
excitement of the chase and the preparation for a possible fight had
thus far kept me up, but now that I was so soon to know the result
of this attempt I was making to recover the property of my owners,
and should either reinstate myself in their good opinion or return to
Boston a ruined man, I acknowledge for the first time my courage almost
failed me.

What if, after all, I should be on the wrong track! This fellow might
have deceived me, or, in his turn, might have been deceived by that
craftier villain, my former mate! However, I should soon know the
worst--or the best!

By three o’clock we raised the land bearing N. 31° W., a cluster of
low, flat, woody islands. By four o’clock a large, high island bore N.
18° W., its outline forming a hollow like a saddle. It appeared to be
surrounded with smaller islands on the south and west sides. At the
same time an extensive reef was observed stretching to the southward.

I decided to haul to windward of the south-eastern islet then in sight,
and, by Charlie’s advice, to pass between it and the next island to
the northwest, which he recognized, and where the channel was to all
appearances, perfectly clear and about four or five miles wide.

At 6 P. M. I anchored in six fathoms of water about two miles
from the land, as I did not dare to run in the midst of these reefs at
night. As soon as the men had eaten their supper, I ordered three boats
cleared away and armed, and with muffled oars we all started from the
schooner, my boat, with Charlie as pilot, ahead.

The moon did not rise until late, but there was sufficient light for
us to make our way, and, after four hours’ steady work at the oars,
we gained the entrance to a little land-locked bay at the head of the
channel between the two easternmost islands.

Here we laid on our oars until about three o’clock in the morning, and
then pulled in shore. As we opened up the entrance to the bay I almost
set up a shout of joy; for there, swinging quietly at her anchor, a
cable’s length from shore, was my old ship!

I gathered my three boats together and asked my men if they would
stand by me in an attempt to board the ship. They assured me of their
readiness, and seemed to look upon the whole affair as a good joke.

I warned them not to fire a shot until we were fairly on board, and
then to trust mainly to their cutlasses; for I felt sure we could
surprise the ship at this early hour when the crew would be in their
deepest sleep, and I knew if we once succeeded in getting on board, we
could carry her.

I divided the boats, giving them orders to pull one for the bow,
one for the starboard quarter, while I would board on the port side
amidships, thus taking them in flank if there should be any resistance.
We then pulled quietly into the little bay, and as the tide was running
flood, quickly approached the ship. As I had anticipated, there was no
lookout kept, as they evidently fancied themselves entirely safe from
an attack by sea and the island was uninhabited.

We all kept in range until quite near, then made a dash alongside, and
most of us had actually gained the deck before any alarm was given.
Then it was too late for any organized resistance. I shot the first man
who came up the fore hatch. Charlie cut down another as he appeared
from the cabin companionway, and we then clapped the hatch bar on the
fore scuttle, and, after closing the companionway, we had the whole
party fast as rats in a trap.

In the first moments of exultation that followed our victory I thought
our work was practically accomplished, but I soon learned that although
I had scotched the snake I had not yet killed him. For as I came
aft from seeing the forward hatch barred down, I was saluted by a
well-aimed musket shot that passed through my hat and grazed my scalp,
while at the same time another shot from the same quarter struck poor
Charlie full in the chest, bringing him to the deck with a mortal wound.

“Jack Robinson has made a sure thing of it with me this time, captain.
I saw him as he fired from the skylight,” whispered the poor fellow, as
I kneeled down by his side. “But I have got even with him, Cap., and I
brought you here as I promised you I would!”

But the bullets were flying too thick to spend much time with a
dying man, so I drew him forward out of range of the skylight, from
which they were keeping up a fusillade. As the magazine was in the
after-cabin the pirates, for such of course they were, had the command
of an unlimited supply of ammunition and plenty of arms, and were in a
very difficult position to dislodge.

To add to our annoyance they opened fire on our boats from the ship’s
stern windows. Indeed, it seemed to be a veritable case of capturing
a Tartar, and for a time I was rather nonplussed as to the manner in
which I should reap the fruit of my incomplete victory.

The first thing to do was evidently to protect ourselves from this
galling fire from the cabin skylight. So I stationed two men in the
mizzen rigging with orders to fire down the skylight at any one they
could see, and I then sent two other men aloft; and after cutting the
spanker adrift we let the peak and throat halyards go by the run, and
the heavy sail tumbled down on the skylight, very effectually shutting
the occupants of the cabin out from a sight of the deck.

By this time the men who were barred down in the forecastle were
pleading to be released, shouting out that they surrendered. So we
opened one side of the hatch and allowed them to come out, one at a
time, slipping handcuffs on each man as he appeared.

By the time this had been accomplished the sun had risen, and we felt
the need of some breakfast after our all-night work. The cook was one
of those who came up from the forecastle; and when he found that his
old captain was once again in command of the ship, he was loud in his
expressions of delight. Mr. Robinson, as he said, had led him and the
members of the old crew a dog’s life since he had run away with the
ship, and moreover they had a well-grounded belief that he purposed
dealing foully with them now that he had got the ship safe in this
unknown bay.

The cook bustled about and soon had a savory breakfast ready for us of
fresh fish, of which they had caught an abundance in the bay, with hot
coffee and ship bread, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

I went with a pot of coffee to poor Charlie, thinking he might perhaps
take some; but he was already dead, and I covered him up with a boat
sail and left him at rest.

After breakfast I sent the cook below as a messenger to Mr. Robinson,
offering terms for his surrender. The fellow was intrenched in such a
way as to be able to cause us great annoyance, so I agreed to give him
the ship’s cutter, with her sails and oars, and provisions for himself
and the Valparaiso men. I also offered to land him and these men on the
island unharmed. He was to take no arms with him, but I agreed to leave
a couple of muskets and some ammunition on the reef at the entrance of
the harbor, where he could get them after our departure.

At first he was disinclined to accept these terms and blustered a great
deal, threatening to blow up the ship, with all of us on board, unless
I made a more liberal offer; but I was firm and gave him to understand
that I did not fear his threats and that all the old crew had already
surrendered at discretion. This last news settled the matter, and he
consented to my terms.

I then addressed my old crew and gave them their choice, either to
remain in the ship or to go on shore with the mate. They at once, to a
man, decided to stay by the ship, assuring me that they would be only
too glad to be rid of Mr. Robinson and his Valparaiso beach-combers,
who had tyrannized over them completely.

That afternoon, after giving poor Charlie a sailor’s burial, I got the
schooner into the bay and alongside the Mystic, and transferred the
specie from her hold to my ship’s run, where it was placed by the side
of the other treasure, which had not yet been tampered with.

I then settled the charges for the schooner, paid the men I had hired
their prize money, and, after thanking them for their brave support, we
parted company, the schooner standing to the southward for the coast of
Chili, while I laid my course in the Mystic N. N. W. for Hongkong.




CHAPTER VIII

CHASED BY PIRATES


We made an excellent run over to China after striking into the
southeast trades, and sixty days after leaving the Admiralty Islands we
anchored off Hongkong.

I at once went on shore and reported to Russell & Sturgis, and learned
that we had arrived in a good time. There were very few ships in port,
teas were low in price and very good in quality, and the consignee
said that he could secure me some very desirable chops at reasonable
rates, and that if we had any room remaining after investing my
owner’s silver, that he could fill me up with cargo, on freight, at
remunerative rates.

This was indeed good news, and I proceeded to land my specie, which the
firm at once invested; and after thoroughly cleaning out and fumigating
my hold, a quantity of sampan wood was sent off for dunnage, and we
commenced receiving and storing our cargo of tea.

Soon after my arrival I was visited by Captain Archer, late in command
of the ship Essex, of Salem. Captain Archer had lost his ship a few
months before on a reef while trading among the Fiji Islands, and he
was anxious to obtain a passage home for himself, officers, and crew.

As I was very shorthanded, having lost both my mates, Mr. King and Mr.
Robinson, whose places I had temporarily supplied from my crew, I was
very glad to ship his two officers, and I arranged for his crew to work
their passage home in the Mystic. I had a spare stateroom in the cabin,
which I placed at the disposal of Captain Archer.

He was a veteran shipmaster, and had been in command before I was born,
but he had decided, since his late misfortune in losing his ship, that
this should be his last voyage. He had had many years’ experience in
the Indian Seas, and particularly in the Fijis, where he had traded for
_bèche de mer_, a marine delicacy which the Chinese esteemed so
highly that it was not infrequently sold for its weight in silver.

The captain was full of stories of Thakombau, the savage chief of Bau,
one of the Fiji group. This chief was a most terrible old cannibal,
who, not satisfied with devouring the enemies captured in his raids
on the neighboring islands, frequently ordered the massacre of his
own people, when he was desirous of having a grand feast, and they
were baked and eaten. “Long pig” he facetiously designated his human
sacrifices.

The captain assured me that these dreadful orgies were not, as I had
supposed, religious rites, but were simply for the satisfaction of a
depraved appetite, and that in the gratification of this taste nothing
was sacred.

And yet the captain had succeeded in inspiring a friendship in the
breast of this old savage that had caused him to issue an edict making
the captain strictly taboo, and no native dared to harm him, while the
choicest canoe loads of _bèche de mer_ were brought off to him
for trade. Thakombau actually proposed to make Captain Archer a chief
and to give him the island of Viti for his very own, but the captain
declined the tempting offer.

It must be confessed, however, that this gentle treatment had had
its effect upon the captain, who did not seem to think the cannibal
chief was nearly so much of a brute as he was generally considered by
Europeans.

I can scarcely realize that since that time such a marvelous change
has taken place in the condition of the Fijians. The missionaries
managed to gain a foothold in the islands soon after the time of which
I am writing, and now there are Christian churches in every island of
the group, several thousand professing Christians among the natives,
absolute safety for white residents everywhere, and cannibalism is
utterly unknown!

While the loading of my ship was progressing, in company with Captain
Archer I made a visit to Canton, which is about one hundred miles above
Hongkong. This was only a couple of years after the siege of Canton
by the Triad rebels, and the breaches that had been made by them in
the wall that surrounded Canton, six miles in extent, had not yet been
repaired.

We passed a week at Russell & Sturgis’s hong, and had a very pleasant
time exploring the curious city under the charge of one of his native
clerks, who took us into many of the labyrinths of the “Old City”
not usually penetrated by the Fanquis, as they called their foreign
visitors.

We made many purchases of curios, at prices that would now seem
marvelously low, and returned to Hongkong, at the expiration of our
visit, loaded down with presents for our friends at home.

Our lading was completed and the hatches calked down early in October,
and we sailed on the 10th of the month, in time to take advantage of
the northeast monsoon. We were favored with light winds from N. N. E.
to N. E. after passing the Great Ladrone, and on the 30th entered Banca
Straits, where the wind veered to the southeast and fell very light.

At night we anchored; and as that part of the Malayan coast in those
days bore an unenviable reputation for pirates, I not only maintained
a regular sea watch, but divided the time with Captain Archer, so that
one of us in turn should be on deck all night. And to this precaution,
as it turned out, we owed our subsequent preservation from a great
peril.

Just before daylight Captain Archer came to me, where I was sleeping
on the break of the poop, and aroused me, saying that there were some
suspicious looking sails in sight.

I sprang up, and although it was not yet light I could readily see with
my night glass two proas coming out from under the land a few miles to
the northward.

I at once ordered all hands called, and as the wind had got round
northeast, although still light, I immediately got under weigh and made
all sail. Meanwhile the proas were standing down toward us, and as the
daylight broke it was evident that they were full of men.

The Mystic, as was quite common in those days, carried a couple of
24-pounders, with a fair amount of ammunition, and we had, in addition
to the ship’s muskets, the rifles I had purchased in fitting out the
schooner at Valparaiso, when I started in pursuit of my runaway ship.
So we were unusually well prepared in that direction, and, having
Captain Archer’s crew, we were nearly doubly manned.

Still, so far as force was concerned, we were outnumbered by the Malays
in the proas five to one. For we could see that they fairly swarmed
with men, and it was evident that in a hand-to-hand fight we should
have much the worst of it. It would never do to let them get on board
of us.

“We shall have to fight those devils, Kelson,” said Captain Archer,
“unless the breeze freshens pretty quickly. They are gaining on us hand
over hand; and they are getting out sweeps now, I believe. Yes; by Jove
they are!” he exclaimed, looking through his glass. “It won’t do to
let them get alongside; there are two of them, and they will take us
on both sides and carry us by sheer force of numbers! Hadn’t we better
open the ball?”

“Yes; I think that fellow ahead is already within safe range. You look
out for the ship, and I will try my hand at a shot or two. Now, sir;
luff her up carefully, but don’t get her aback, and I will bring this
gun to bear!”

The old gentleman went aft and took his stand by the wheel. “Put your
helm down, my man; look out, Captain Kelson! Let draw the head sheets!
Meet her with the helm; meet her!”

The Mystic came up in the wind, the head sails flapped; I watched my
chance, got a good sight with the gun, which was loaded with a solid
shot, and pulled the lock-string!

As the smoke blew to leeward I sprang on the rail, and as our ship
payed off and the sails filled, the foremast of the leading proa
snapped off a few feet above the deck and fell overboard with a great
crash, dragging with it the heavy lateen sail!

“Good shot, Kelson!” shouted Captain Archer from the poop; “that fellow
has got his hands full of work and is out of the game for the present!”
And our men set up a hearty cheer at this sudden and unexpected
discomfiture of our adversary.

We supposed that the other proa would heave to and go to the assistance
of her companion, but that evidently was not her intention, for she
passed her without pausing, and with her sweeps out and heavily manned
she bore rapidly down upon us.

I ordered the starboard gun run over on the port side and tried several
shots at the approaching proa, but, although I hit her once, I did not
seem to inflict any very serious damage, so I had both guns loaded with
shrapnel and langridge, and determined to have the fight out at closer
quarters.

Stationing both my officers and the carpenter, who was a splendid shot,
on the quarter-deck with rifles, I ordered them to pick off the men who
seemed to be the leaders, and then waited for the approach of the proa.

When she had crept up within easy rifle range, I luffed the ship up, as
before, and getting a deliberate aim at the crowded deck, depressed the
guns and fired them at the word, both at once, point blank, reloading
and repeating the dose before the smoke of the first discharge had
cleared away.

The effect of this murderous fire, at such close quarters, upon the
crowd massed upon the proa’s deck was terrific, and the slaughter
was frightful. Yet, by some strange chance, the captain, a tall,
vicious-looking Malay, stripped to the waist and waving a naked kreese
to encourage his followers, had escaped uninjured, and was shouting to
his men, to rally them, with the evident intent of boarding us.

Captain Archer had meanwhile filled our ship away, but the wind was
light, and before we had fairly gained headway the proa, with sweeps
out, shot under our starboard quarter, and a grapnel thrown from her
caught in our mizzen channels.

The pirate captain at once sprang forward, and, with his kreese in
his mouth, scrambled up our side, followed by a score of his men, and
gained the poop deck of the ship!

Abandoning our battery, we gathered in the waist, and I called to
the carpenter to pick off the Malay captain. He nodded, and, taking
a careful sight, fired, and the Malayan fell dead among his men. Our
other riflemen were meanwhile dropping those of the proa who had
followed their captain.

Just then the wind freshened, and by great good fortune the proa’s
grapnel disengaged itself and she dropped astern.

Calling upon my men, we made a dash upon the few remaining Malays and
fairly drove them overboard. I then put the helm down, and as we came
round on the other tack and gathered headway, I stood down on the proa,
a good wrap full, and striking her fair and square amidships cut her to
the water’s edge.

Our victory was now complete, and as the first proa, having
disentangled herself from the wreck of her foremast, was coming down,
with sweeps out, to rescue the survivors of her consort, I made all
sail and kept on my course, leaving them to their own devices.

The next day we fell in with a Dutch man-of-war brig, lately out from
Batavia. I reported the affair to her, and she made all sail for the
straits in hopes of capturing the pirates, who, if they were caught,
would have received a short shrift, for the Dutch were very active in
the suppression of piracy in those waters.

The 15th of November we passed through the Straits of Sunda and laid
our course to the westward. The wind continued generally from the
southeast, but it was extremely variable, and on the 18th it increased
to a brisk whole sail breeze, attended with showers and occasional
squalls.

That night the barometer went down in a most astonishing manner and the
sea rose without any seeming cause, for the wind was not heavy, while
the air was close and the temperature unusually sultry.

“What do you think of it, Captain Archer?” said I, as we both looked at
the barometer in the cabin.

“I think we are about to have some nasty weather. It would not
surprise me if we caught the tail end of a typhoon.”

“That is exactly my idea, captain, and I hope you won’t laugh at me
when I tell you that I am going to take in sail and prepare for it!”

“Not a bit of it, my dear fellow. An ounce of prevention may be
worth tons of after care. With such a low barometer as that, you are
justified in doing anything for the safety of your ship.”

I went on deck at once. “Mr. Ireson,” said I to the chief mate, “call
all hands, send down all three of those royal yards, and house the
masts. Take in the main-topgallant sail, close-reef the topsails, and
put a reef in both the courses. And don’t waste any time about it, sir.
The glass is very low and still falling, and I believe that we shall
have some heavy weather before morning.”

The mate looked rather surprised at these orders, but he saw that
I was in earnest and proceeded to carry them out. The wind soon
commenced freshening, but with our double crew the work was speedily
accomplished, and by the time that all was snug the wind had chopped
round and came out howling from the southward and eastward. In
consequence of our timely preparation, however, we were ready for it.

The gale continued to increase, and on the third day we hove to under
close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, under which sail the
ship made good weather, although the sea was running very heavily
indeed.

Just before midnight the wind suddenly fell, and for a few minutes it
was almost calm. It was intensely dark, the sky was as black as night,
not a star was seen through the dense clouds, and the sails flapped in
an ominous manner.

Then, in a moment, as though all the powers of the wind-god had been
loosed, the gale struck us with infernal force, accompanied with
torrents of rain and the most vivid chain lightning, which played about
the ship till it seemed as though she must be on fire; the thunder
pealing like a park of artillery!

The two sails we had set bellied, and with one flap fairly blew out of
the bolt ropes. For a moment I thought the ship would surely founder,
for she went almost on her beam ends, trembled like a live thing, and
then, relieved by the loss of the sails, slowly recovered herself and
came up again to the wind.

I had been in many severe gales in these latitudes, but I had never
experienced anything like the tremendous power of this wind: the waves
were fairly beaten down, which had been running half mast high after
the three days’ heavy gale.

With the aid of a dozen men we succeeded with great difficulty in
getting a stout tarpaulin in the weather mizzen rigging, and this was
quite sufficient to keep the ship’s head to the wind.

One by one every sail in the ship was blown from the yards, although
they were furled, and, in some cases, storm-furled with extra gaskets.
But the wind seemed to cut like a knife, and we could see by the
lightning flashes the long ribbons of canvas streaming out and then
disappearing to leeward. Had I not seen this I would not have believed
it possible.

All of us, officers and men, were lashed to the weather rail,
absolutely helpless, so far as our own exertions were concerned, and
utterly unable to communicate with each other, as no trumpet could
be heard above this wild discord of the winds and waves. No man dared
leave his place lest he should be washed or blown overboard.

At about two o’clock in the morning we shipped a heavy sea, and two
large, full water casks lashed amidships broke adrift and dashed from
side to side, with every roll of the ship, with appalling violence,
threatening to stave in our bulwarks.

It seemed certain death for any one to attempt to secure these casks,
and yet it was equally certain they would do us great mischief if they
were permitted to dash about in this manner.

At last one of them became temporarily blocked by some spare spars and
coils of rope in the lee scuppers, and the carpenter, with a life-line
attached to his waist, succeeded in staving in one of the heads of the
cask, thus rendering it harmless. Watching his opportunity when the
other cask came over to leeward, he was equally fortunate and staved it
also, to our great relief.

The ship, meanwhile, was laboring very heavily, straining and groaning
as she pitched and rolled, as helpless as a log in the heavy trough of
the sea, and it was evident that her seams were opening, as we found on
sounding the well that there was more than a foot of water in the hold.

“Pray God the gale may break with daylight, Kelson,” said Captain
Archer, who was lashed close to me, as he saw the sounding rod drawn up
from the pumps.

“Yes, sir, the old barkey won’t stand many more hours of this hammering
and twisting. If the gale doesn’t break with daylight I fear we shall
never see Boston again!”

With difficulty I worked my way into the cabin, to look at the
barometer we had been consulting so anxiously all night. It had
certainly stopped falling! Yes, and better still, the surface of the
bulb was at last convex! That was at least hopeful. I returned to the
deck and reported the news to my companion.

“Yes,” said he; “I really believe the wind has gone down a bit. It is
scarcely perceptible yet, but I think I can notice a slight difference
for the better. Can’t you sound the pumps again?”

The carpenter again got the sounding rod down, and we anxiously
watched his face by the light of the lantern as he measured the wet
place on the iron.

“The water has only gained a scant inch, sir,” he reported.

That was reassuring; so we waited more hopefully for morning, and as
the first gray light of dawn showed in the east the gale began to
moderate, and by eight o’clock we were able to get about the decks
again and commence to clear up the wreck.

We found, on inspection, that all our sails were blown away with
the exception of the jib and main-trysail. In addition, the three
topgallant masts had been carried away, the head of the mizzen topmast
was gone, and the fore yard was badly sprung in the slings, while the
starboard, or lee quarter boat, had been washed from the davits.

Fortunately we had a new suit of sails below, that I had been keeping
for use in coming on our coast in the winter season. These we got up
and bent; new topgallant masts were fitted and sent aloft from our
spare spars; the fore yard was fished, and by night we were standing on
our course all a-tanto again.

We passed the Cape of Good Hope a couple of weeks later, and on
Christmas Day we anchored in the roads off the island of St. Helena.
Here we sent down the fore yard and bought a new spar on shore and had
the bends calked by carpenters, while we overhauled and refitted our
rigging with the ship’s crew. This work detained us for a week at the
island.

As this was my first visit to St. Helena, I made the usual pilgrimage
to Longwood and to Napoleon’s grave. The remains of the great Emperor
had been removed to France by the Prince de Joinville a few years
before, in 1840, but there were several people on the island who
remembered him perfectly during his residence at Longwood, and it was
very interesting to listen to their stories and personal reminiscences
of General Bonaparte, as they usually called him.

Our repairs completed, we sailed and had a fine run till we came on the
coast, when we encountered some heavy weather and head winds, but at
last we got a favorable slant, and on Washington’s Birthday, February
22, we sighted Cape Ann Light, and the following day anchored off
Commercial Wharf after a voyage of fifteen months, which had been full
of adventure and had more than once promised to be most disastrous in
its outcome. But thanks to divine Providence, I had been enabled to
finish it in safety and with success for myself and my employers.




PART II

IN THE NAVAL SERVICE




CHAPTER I

THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR


In 1859, after seventeen years of almost continuous sea service, for
during all that time I had never been on shore more than two months at
any one time, I determined to abandon the sea and pass the remainder of
my life on shore.

The fact that I had just taken to myself a wife was, no doubt, a very
potent factor in bringing me to this decision, which was strengthened
by a favorable opportunity being presented just then for investing my
savings in a safe commercial enterprise in Boston.

So I fell in with it, rented a nice little house in a pleasant suburb
within sight of the gilded dome of the State House, and there set up my
lares and penates.

At first this radical change from the free and easy habits of a sea
life to the more rigid conventional routine of a mercantile career
rather irked me, but by the end of a year I had shaken down into my new
rôle, and should probably have become reasonably well contented to pass
the remainder of my days in a ’longshore life, had it not been for the
march of events, which, in bringing about the upheaval of a nation,
sent me off on salt water again.

Early in April, 1861, the North was startled by the news of the attack
upon Fort Sumter by the Southern forces, which followed so quickly
after the secession of South Carolina, and on the 19th of the month
the excitement in Boston was sent up to fever heat by the telegrams
announcing the cowardly attack upon the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment by
the Baltimore roughs, on its passage through that city.

The youngsters who are living in these peaceful days cannot possibly
realize the state of public feeling in New England at that time.
Business was practically suspended, and the sole thought of the people
was to avenge the insult to our flag and the murder of our soldier
boys. The enrolling officers worked day and night, and companies and
regiments were raised, equipped, and hurried to the front with amazing
alacrity.

In common with all my friends and neighbors, I, too, was full of
patriotic zeal, and should probably have enlisted in one of the
numerous regiments forming, had not my attention been directed to an
article in the “Boston Transcript” which referred to the great number
of resignations of Southern naval officers that were pouring in on the
Navy Department, and expressed a fear that our navy would be hopelessly
crippled, as the Southern officers predominated so greatly in that
branch of the service.

This gave me an idea, and I at once called upon the late Robert Bennett
Forbes, the public-spirited merchant and shipowner, whose wise counsels
in this exigency had been sought by Mr. Welles, President Lincoln’s
newly appointed Secretary of the Navy.

Mr. Forbes was in his private office, deeply immersed in his private
correspondence, when I called, but he courteously listened to me when
I asked him why the vacancies in the navy could not be filled by the
intelligent and experienced officers of the mercantile marine.

“I have already made such a suggestion to the Secretary of the Navy,
Captain Kelson,” said he, “and I have also sent him a list of a number
of gentlemen whom I consider competent to fill the position of ‘master’
in the navy.”

“Mr. Forbes,” I responded, “will you not include my name in your list?
You know something of my qualifications, I think.”

With the promptitude that was a very notable characteristic of the man,
he turned to his desk and wrote a brief letter to Mr. Welles, which he
handed to me unsealed. “Take that on to Washington, yourself, Captain
Kelson, and to supplement it, get half a dozen others from Boston
shipowners who know you.”

I did as he suggested, and within twenty-four hours was on my way
to Washington. My interview with the Secretary was brief, but to
the point. He read all my letters, asked me a half dozen pregnant
questions, and then, writing a few words on a slip of paper, rang for
a messenger and sent me with him across the corridor to the Bureau
of Detail, where Captain Charles Henry Davis--afterward Rear Admiral
Davis--prepared my appointment as an Acting Master in the United States
Navy.

While the document was sent back to the Secretary for his signature I
took the oath of allegiance, and my orders were at once made out to the
United States steamer Richmond.

Thus quickly was I transformed into an officer in the navy and assigned
to a ship, a fact I could not realize as I walked down the steps of the
building, which I had entered less than an hour before as a private
citizen. But events, both public and private, moved quickly in those
stirring days.

On my way up Pennsylvania Avenue I stopped in at an outfitter’s and
purchased a naval cap, and found an undress blue navy flannel blouse
which fitted me. Upon the shoulders of this garment the tailor attached
the straps of my grade, and, with trousers to match my coat, I returned
to the hotel in time for dinner, a full-fledged officer, rather to the
surprise of the clerk, who had seen me go out a few hours before in
citizen’s costume.

The next morning, in company with a friend, I hired a horse and buggy,
and, obtaining a pass, drove over the “long bridge” and out about ten
miles, to the encampment of our army.

This was but a few weeks before the disastrous battle of Bull Run, but
at the time of the visit our troops were in high feather and felt very
confident that the war was to be only an affair of a few months; a mere
military promenade to Richmond.

All the officers I met seemed so confident of the result that I became
half converted to their theory, and feared that I had made a mistake in
going into the navy for such a brief period as the war was to continue.
The real awakening from our dream came sharply when these same troops,
a month later, were pouring into Washington a beaten, disorganized
rabble!

The following day I went on to New York, where I found the Richmond at
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and, by a most curious coincidence, at the very
wharf where I had gone on board the Bombay nearly twenty years before.

The Richmond had just arrived from the Mediterranean, whence she had
been recalled by cablegram. After reporting to the executive officer I
obtained a week’s leave of absence and returned to Boston.

During that brief time I made such arrangements as were necessary for
the comfort of my little family and for the proper continuance of my
business, in which there was very little doing just then, and at the
end of the week reported again on board my ship at Brooklyn.

The Richmond was rated as a second-class steam sloop-of-war. She was
pierced for twenty-six guns, but mounted twenty-two 9-inch Dahlgren
guns in broadside. She was almost a new vessel, a good stanch ship
of her class, which included the Hartford, the Brooklyn, and the
Pensacola. She was rather slow, making with favorable conditions about
ten knots under steam. Before the wind or at anchor in a seaway she had
a capacity for rolling beyond that of any ship I ever saw, before or
since. Her performances in that direction a year later, when we were
on the blockade of Mobile, afforded a constant source of interest and
admiration to the entire fleet, but were exceedingly unsatisfactory to
us who were compelled to endure them. She was commanded by Captain John
Pope, and had a complement of nearly four hundred officers and men.

I am thus particular in describing her, for she was to be my home for
the next eventful two years.

Not long after I received my appointment, on June 30, 1861, news
came to Washington of the escape from New Orleans of the Confederate
privateer Sumter, under the command of Captain Rafael Semmes.

This steamer, originally the Havana, had been fitted out by the
Confederate authorities, and although the mouth of the Mississippi was
closely blockaded by the United States steamer Brooklyn, with two other
ships, Semmes watched an opportunity when the Brooklyn was chasing a
decoy vessel off shore, and dashing out, by her superior speed escaped
our fleet.

Three days later, she captured and burned at sea the ship Golden
Rocket, and by July 6 seven more prizes had been taken by this dashing
privateer.

This, of course, created a tremendous excitement throughout the
country, and our government sent every available ship they had in
pursuit of her.

Orders also came to Captain Pope to hasten his preparations for sea,
and on August 3 we sailed under sealed orders, which, when opened at
sea, proved to be directions to make a thorough search for thirty days
through the West India islands for the Sumter, and, failing to fall
in with her, to join the West Gulf Squadron, then commanded by Flag
Officer Mervine.

So we started on what proved to be a wild-goose chase, but which gave
us an opportunity of making a very agreeable cruise, with the constant
excitement of a possible capture that would have brought us no end of
glory.

Among other incidents, we fell in one day with the wreck of Her
Britannic Majesty’s ship Driver, piled up on a reef off Mariquana
Island, with her crew living ashore under tents they had improvised
from the ship’s sails.

We were boarded by her commanding officer, who bore the historic name
of Horatio Nelson. He seemed to be a kind of nautical Mark Tapley,
exceedingly jolly under very trying circumstances, and perfectly at
ease, notwithstanding his ship was a total loss.

In fact, he appeared to look upon that as a mere incident of the
cruise, and declined our offers of assistance, saying he “was all
right, barring the blasted mosquitoes, don’t you know!” He was every
day looking for the arrival of a British man-of-war to take them off,
as he had sent a launch down to Port Royal for assistance.

At last, having nearly exhausted our coal, we steamed into Port
Royal, Jamaica, on August 21, to obtain a fresh supply. Here we met
the Powhatan, Commander David D. Porter, homeward bound after an
ineffectual hunt after the Sumter.

After coaling, our thirty days having expired, we ran down to Key West
and the Dry Tortugas, and stopping for a day off Pensacola at Fort
Pickens, we received orders from the flagship to relieve the Brooklyn
off the Passes of the Mississippi.

We anchored off the Pass à L’Outre, September 13, and soon after, the
Brooklyn and St. Louis sailed for home, and the Niagara for Pensacola,
leaving us with the Vincennes and the Preble to blockade the entrance
to the river.

A week later, we were joined by the little steamer Water Witch, a
vessel that had distinguished herself some years before in the ascent
of the river Amazon. We then settled down to the monotonous and
wearying routine duty that was to be our lot for nearly a year on this
blockade.




CHAPTER II

A NIGHT ATTACK BY A CONFEDERATE RAM


From the time of the Richmond’s arrival at the Bélize we found
ourselves the object of deep interest to a black, snaky-looking steamer
that fell into the way of coming down the river daily to take a look at
us and see what we were doing.

If she had confined her attentions to a mere reconnaissance it would
not have so much mattered, but she frequently varied the monotony of
this proceeding by throwing a rifle shot at us from a long range.
We soon learned that this persistent and pestilent visitor was the
Confederate steamer Ivy, in charge of Lieutenant-Commander Fry.

The Ivy was a converted tugboat, a technical term to be understood in a
temporal, not a spiritual sense. She mounted a rifle gun, evidently a
new acquisition, and she was testing it on us.

Fry was a former officer in our service and had been shipmates with
our executive officer, Lieutenant-Commander Cummings, which may have
accounted for his unremitting efforts to make things lively for us.
To be sure he never succeeded in hitting us, but it is very far from
amusing to be potted at daily with a 30-pound rifle gun, and with no
opportunity of returning the compliment, as she kept discreetly out of
the range of our smooth bore Dahlgrens.

However, after the Water Witch joined our fleet, we had a little easier
time, as she was always signaled to chase whenever the Ivy annoyed us
too much. This arrangement was a great relief to us, and at least had
the merit of keeping the Water Witch in a high state of efficiency.

To render the blockade more effectual and to obviate the necessity of
guarding the three mouths of the river, it was at last decided to cross
the bar and take the ships up to the Head of the Passes, some twenty
miles above our present station.

At the point where the river branches off, forming the Southwest,
Northeast, and L’Outre passes, it was proposed to erect a battery on
shore and there establish a depot, if possible, in anticipation of a
movement against the rebel forts and the city of New Orleans in the
near future.

To this end we had brought round from Fort Pickens, Lieutenant
McFarland, United States Engineers, to superintend the construction
of the battery, and we also had on board a quantity of sand-bags,
pickaxes, and intrenching tools, but as we found no sand, as there was
only mud in the vicinity, a schooner was ordered to Ship Island for a
supply.

On September 26 the Richmond steamed around to the Southwest Pass and
endeavored to cross the bar, but we grounded and were kept hard at work
for three days in forcing the ship over. At last we succeeded, and
anchored off Pilot Town, six miles above. The next day we captured a
small schooner, the Frolic, coming down the river with a Confederate
flag flying, and from her we obtained a supply of late New Orleans
papers.

October 1 we ran up to the Head of the Passes and anchored, where we
were shortly joined by the Vincennes and the Preble, both old-fashioned
sailing ships of war, the little Water Witch and a merchant schooner
carrying the 8-inch guns for our proposed shore battery.

We had long discussed in the wardroom the many advantages of this
coveted position in the river, as compared with the discomforts of
our anchorage outside the bar, and now that we had achieved it, with
nothing to annoy us but occasional visits from the Ivy, we settled down
to the placid enjoyment of our environments.

In fact we discovered that we even had “society” at our present
station. This consisted of the family of a precious old scoundrel,
half-fisherman, half-pirate, I imagine, when opportunity presented, who
had a wife and a brace of buxom daughters.

In default of anything better presenting itself, some of our younger
officers used to visit this fellow’s cabin, ostensibly to purchase fish
for their messes, but really with the hope of gleaning some information
from him as to the condition of affairs at the forts above.

The family always seemed glad to see our officers, especially when they
brought offerings of coffee or tobacco, and, posing as “an original
Union family,” spun them some very tough yarns. Meanwhile, as we later
discovered at our cost, they were quietly selling us to their rebel
friends up the river.

On October 12 a schooner arrived with coal, and the Richmond took her
alongside to fill her bunkers. During that day we got one of our 9-inch
guns on the topgallant forecastle, where it could be given a greater
elevation than in broadside, hoping thus to increase its range for the
special benefit of the Ivy on her next visit.

At sundown, as we had not yet taken in our full supply of coal, Captain
Pope decided to continue coaling at night, that we might the sooner
dispatch the schooner back to Pensacola for some needed material for
the battery,--which was fated never to be built.

That night I was officer of the deck from eight to twelve o’clock. When
I was relieved at midnight we were still coaling, with the two guns of
the midship division run in on the port side to facilitate the work.

The night was very dark, the moon had set, and the mist, hanging low
over the river, shut in the hulls of the other ships of the fleet near
us, their masts and spars only being visible. Of course, the Richmond,
from her size, must have been the most conspicuous object from the
river, while the noise made in shoveling and hoisting the coal marked
our position most admirably. A more favorable opportunity for a night
attack could scarcely have been desired.

But a tired watch officer whose responsibilities have been turned
over to his relief does not usually lose much time in reflecting upon
possibilities; and I was soon sleeping the sleep of the just. For what
transpired during the next four hours I have to depend upon the reports
of others.

Master’s Mate Gibbs, in charge of the Frolic, anchored astern of us,
says that at about 3.40 A. M., seeing a long, black object
moving stealthily down the river, he hailed, “Richmond ahoy! There is a
boat coming down the river on your port bow!”

He says that he repeated the warning, but the noise of the coaling
probably prevented its being heard on board of our ship, as he received
no response.

Commander French of the Preble reports that at 3.45 o’clock a
midshipman rushed into his cabin, exclaiming, “Captain, here is a
steamer right alongside of us!” When Captain French reached the deck,
he says he “saw a ram, that looked like a large whale, steering toward
us; but it changed its course to avoid us and made directly for the
Richmond, and in an instant huge clouds of the densest black smoke
rolled up from the strange vessel and we all expected to see the
Richmond blow up!”

I, meanwhile, had been soundly sleeping, when I was rudely awakened by
a tremendous shock, followed by the sound of the rattle we used as a
signal to night quarters.

Jumping into my trousers, with my coat in one hand and my sword in
the other, I, with the other wardroom officers, rushed on deck, fully
expecting to find that we were boarded by the enemy,--as we very
readily might have been in this moment of surprise!

Emerging from the hatchway, I saw on the port side amidships a
smokestack just above our hammock nettings from which belched streams
of black smoke! The vessel, whatever she was, was then slowly dropping
astern, scraping our side, and at that moment she threw up a rocket,
doubtless as a signal that she had accomplished her work!

I had but a moment to take in the condition of affairs, as I found
sufficient occupation in getting the guns of my division run out.

Meanwhile, the ram had cleared herself from us and dropped slowly
astern in the darkness. She soon reappeared again, however, steaming
up stream as though preparing to give us another blow. As she came
within range we depressed our guns and fired at her as best we could
in the darkness. But as she was so low in the water and the mist was
so thick she was a most difficult object to distinguish, and she soon
disappeared.

By this time the Head of the Passes was in a state of tremendous
excitement. The signal from the ram had been followed by the appearance
of a line of fire-rafts up the river, drifting ominously down upon
us, while by their light the spars of a bark-rigged vessel, and the
smokestacks of two other steamers, could be seen in their rear. It was
evidently a well planned attack in force.

Our little fleet, meanwhile, had all slipped their cables, and the
Preble came standing across our stern under sail, her commander
hailing: “What are my orders, sir?”

This was the critical point of the whole affair. Of course, it is very
easy to say now what the orders should have been. But just at that
moment things looked very squally for us. We had a hole five inches in
diameter knocked clean through us and three planks were stove in two
feet below the water line.

This was the result of the first blow from a ram that might, for all we
knew, at any moment repeat her blow and send us to the bottom of the
river. We had no idea then that she had disabled herself in her first
essay, as proved to be the case, and might readily have been captured
by us when daylight came.

We did know, however, that with the Richmond out of the way, our two
sailing consorts in that swift-running river would prove an easy prey
to the rebel steamers.

Oh no; it was not an easy question to decide in a moment. Farragut, as
we all know, when in a tight place in Mobile bay, a year later, and
the ship ahead of him answered his question why she had stopped with
a reply, “Torpedoes ahead!” sang out: “Torpedoes be d--d; go ahead
full speed!” But unfortunately in our navy in 1861 we did not have
Farraguts “enough to go ’round.”

After hastily consulting with his executive officer, Captain Pope gave
the order by night signal: “Proceed down the river.”

And down the river we all went, the Preble ahead, followed by the
Vincennes, and we in the Richmond bringing up the rear. Captain Winslow
of the Water Witch appears to have understood our signal as, “Act at
discretion;” as he reports that he steamed over to the other side
of the river, then northerly, easily clearing the fire-rafts, which
drifted harmlessly ashore. At 5.30 A. M. he says “he made out
our fleet three or four miles down the river and no enemy in sight
above; although he could see the smoke of three or four steamers four
or five miles up the river.” He then steamed down after us, picking up
the Frolic on the way.

At early daylight I was directed by the captain to go up to the mizzen
topmast crosstrees and report what was in sight. I found the Water
Witch and Frolic steaming down to us, and far up the river I could
distinguish the smoke of the Confederate steamers.

We soon came to the bar, and the Preble passed over safely, the
Vincennes followed, but struck the bar with her stern up stream, and we
came last and also took the bottom, fortunately swinging broadside up
stream.

Meanwhile, with the daylight, the Ivy, the McCrea, and another rebel
steamer came down, and, keeping at a very safe distance commenced their
old game of firing at us at long range. It was very evident that they
had a wholesome objection to our 9-inch guns at closer quarters.

Their shells passed over us and fell near us, but only one, a spent
shell, came in through an after port, but fortunately it failed to
explode, and Lieutenant Edward Terry calmly picked it up and threw it
overboard.

The usual signal, “Chase the enemy,” was made to the Water Witch, and
like a bantam rooster she steamed up toward the two steamers, and they
withdrew out of range.

We now piped to breakfast, and made a signal to two coal ships anchored
outside the bar to “get under weigh.” I was officer of the deck at the
time, and, to my surprise, the quartermaster came to me at 9.30 and
reported, “The Vincennes is being abandoned by her crew, sir!”

“Abandoned! What do you mean, Knight?”

“They are filling up her boats, sir, as fast as they can. Just look for
yourself, sir!”

I hurried aft, as she lay somewhat on our port quarter, not more than
three hundred yards distant, and sure enough, her boats were at her
gangway and were being filled with men.

I sent the orderly down to report the matter to Captain Pope, and in a
few moments the first boat reached us, and I received Captain Robert
Handy, who came over the side with a very anxious face, and with a
large American flag tied about his waist.

As he met Captain Pope he said: “In obedience to your signal, sir,
I have abandoned my ship, leaving a slow match, connected with the
magazine, burning!”

I shall never forget the expression of poor old Captain Pope’s face as
he listened to this astonishing report. He was anything but a profane
man in his daily habit, and I am sure that the Recording Angel dropped
a tear over the swear words with which our commander emphasized his
reply.

Meanwhile the important consideration in _our_ minds was, how
long that “slow match” might be expected to burn, and what effect the
explosion of all the powder on board the Vincennes might have upon
us,--perilously close neighbors as we unfortunately were.

By some fortunate chance, however, the match went out, and after
waiting a proper time Captain Handy and his crew were sent back to
their ship, one of her officers being detached, and sent in the Frolic
to Barrataria, to bring the South Carolina to our assistance.

At 1 P. M. a steamer was seen coming out of Pass à L’Outre
which proved to be the transport McClellan from Fort Pickens. She had
supplies for us, and, best of all, our long-desired Parrott rifle gun,
and had actually been almost up to the Head of the Passes in search of
us.

It was a miracle that she had not been captured by the Confederates.
Late that night the South Carolina, Captain James Alden, arrived.

Our Comedy of Errors is nearly ended. The following morning, with the
aid of the two steamers, our fleet was all got afloat. All was saved
but our honor, and that we felt very anxious about, for as the news of
our affair got around to Pensacola, the other ships seemed to think we
had made too good time down the river, and they spoke of our brush as
“Pope’s Run.”

The outcome of this was that our ship sent a special request to be
allowed to join in the coming attack upon Fort McCrea at Pensacola. Our
request was granted and we joined with the Niagara on November 24 in
that fight.

We were the inside ship, were struck several times, and had several
killed and wounded. This made us all feel better, and during the next
two years the Richmond was in all of Farragut’s fights. She was at New
Orleans, twice passed the batteries at Vicksburg, was at Port Hudson,
with a battery of our guns on shore during the siege, and was finally
in the glorious Mobile fight. So that the Richmond made a record that
placed her among the historic ships of the navy.




CHAPTER III

THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS AND THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS


Early in March, 1862, while the Richmond was at Ship Island, where
ten thousand troops had been brought together, Captain David Glasgow
Farragut came out from New York in the United States steamship Hartford
and took command of the West Gulf Squadron.

On the 20th of the month Major-General Benjamin F. Butler and his staff
arrived at Ship Island, in the transport steamer Mississippi, and on
the 25th the fourteen hundred troops on board of her were landed, and
General Butler established his headquarters on shore.

Meanwhile from day to day, the vessels comprising Captain David D.
Porter’s fleet of twenty-one bomb schooners were dropping in and
anchoring in our vicinity, adding to the formidable appearance of the
preparations now being actively made for the coming attack upon New
Orleans by the army and navy.

There was at last no doubt that we were going at our work in good
earnest, and although in the New Orleans papers, of which we
occasionally obtained copies, the most exaggerated accounts were given
of all that they were doing “to welcome the invaders to hospitable
graves,” we of the navy were anxious to bring the matter to the test of
battle as quickly as possible.

Of certain facts we were assured. We well knew that Forts Jackson and
St. Philip mounted one hundred and twenty-eight heavy guns; that they
were admirably situated in a bend of the river where it is but half a
mile wide, and were calculated with their cross fire to repel a foe
ascending the Mississippi against the current, which in the spring runs
with great rapidity. We also knew that one, if not two heavy chains
had lately been stretched across the river at this point; and we of
the Richmond knew, from our own experience, that the rebels had at
least one iron-plated ram capable of knocking a hole through any of the
wooden vessels of our fleet.

Such of us as had read the history of the war of 1812 were also aware
that the British fleet in 1815 ineffectually threw over one thousand
13-inch bombs--exactly such as we were now preparing to use--into Fort
Jackson during a nine days’ siege of that work, which was then vastly
inferior in strength to the present fort, and was the only defense of
the river, where there were now two forts.

These facts we knew, but we were also informed by such deserters as
came in to us, and also by the New Orleans papers, that a line of
fortifications had been constructed all the way from the Forts to
English Turn, just below the city, and also that two very large and
very formidable iron-clad floating batteries were just being completed,
to aid in making New Orleans impregnable against any force we could
bring to bear upon it.

Against all this known and unknown force we had, under command of
General Butler, fifteen thousand troops, most of them as yet untried in
battle, and forty-seven vessels of war,--all wooden ships,--of which
the Hartford, Richmond, Brooklyn, and Pensacola were the largest and
heaviest armed ships, while seventeen of them were small gunboats of
the Kennebec and Katahdin class, three were old-fashioned sailing
vessels, of no particular value for the desired service, and twenty-one
were mortar schooners, carrying one 13-inch mortar each, which threw
shells weighing two hundred and fifteen pounds.

With this force Flag Officer Farragut was expected to accomplish a feat
which up to that time had never yet been performed successfully,--to
reduce two forts situated in swamps on the banks of a rapid stream,
where there was no possibility of coöperation by the land forces, and
then to pass seventy-five miles up a river guarded, as we believed, by
earthworks bristling with guns, to the conquest of a city garrisoned by
fifty thousand troops and defended by formidable iron-clad batteries!

Decidedly this was not to be child’s play, and although, as I have
said, we of the fleet were eager for the coming fight, we were by no
manner of means over-confident of success.

We were not to meet Indians nor Chinese; our battle was to be set
against men whom we respected as foes, and who were quite as fertile
in plans for defense as we possibly could be in our scheme of attack.

But during the next month, although we talked these matters over in the
wardroom in the evenings, our days were too busily occupied for such
thoughts. The first difficulty that confronted us was to get our fleet
over the bar that jealously guards the delta of the Mississippi, and a
full month of really hard work was required to accomplish this first
step.

At last, however, on the 1st of April, all the vessels of the fleet
were gathered something more than two miles below Fort Jackson, the
bomb schooners moored close in to the right bank of the river.

The coast-survey officers at once went to work to establish marks
and to construct a map for the purpose of getting the bomb vessels
in proper position and in correct range for their attack upon the
forts, and on the 18th of April the regular bombardment opened and was
continued, almost without intermission, until our passage of the forts.

This bomb fire at first, to us of the fleet, was a matter of constant
interest, and the topmast heads--we had sent down our topgallant and
royal masts in stripping for the fight--were thronged with anxious
spectators. But as no perceptible effect was produced on the forts by
the bombardment, we soon lost our curiosity and came to the conclusion
that after all this was simply to be the overture, but the real work
would remain for us to accomplish.

Meanwhile the enemy were by no means inactive, and they soon resorted
to one of their cherished plans of offense, from which they evidently
hoped great things.

One night three enormous fire-rafts appeared bearing down upon us,
blazing high with burning pitch and turpentine and sending out dense
clouds of smoke. But for these we were prepared with an organized naval
fire brigade, and before they came dangerously near our ships a fleet
of boats was sent out with grapnels, which they fastened to the rafts
and then quickly towed them into the middle of the river, where they
drifted harmlessly past the ships, affording us an illumination on a
grand scale.

The night of April 20 it was determined to make an attempt to cut the
chain cable in preparation for our ascent of the river. This chain was
stretched across the river from a point abreast of Fort Jackson to
the opposite side of the river, where a small land battery had been
constructed to cover it. The cable was supported by passing over a line
of seven hulks anchored in the river.

Our plan was to blow up one of these hulks by a petard, to be exploded
by an electric wire, and a “petard-man,” one Kroehl, was on board the
flagship to work the apparatus.

This delicate and dangerous duty was placed in charge of Captain Bell,
with the gunboats Pinola and Itasca, supported by the Kennebec, Winona,
and Iroquois.

It was a wild night selected for the expedition, dark, rainy, with half
a gale of wind blowing down the river. But few of us in the fleet went
below that night, for we were all impressed with the importance and
danger of the work, and we peered out into the darkness as the hour of
ten drew nigh and the two leading vessels steamed noiselessly past us,
every light concealed and their low hulls only visible by the closest
observation.

To cover the attack the bomb schooners kept up a terrific and
continuous fire upon the forts; five, seven, and once I counted nine
of these enormous shells, with their trains of fire, in the air at the
same time.

Anxiously we waited for the expected explosion of the petard, but time
passed and nothing was seen or heard of our brave fellows! At last a
signal rocket was thrown up from the left bank of the river, which was
immediately answered by one from Fort Jackson, and then both forts
opened fire.

Evidently our attack had been discovered. But had it failed? Not a
sound came from our little fleet! A half hour lengthened out to an hour
of fearful expectation. Where were our ships, were they all captured or
destroyed?

Our men were frenzied with excitement, and murmurs went up, even from
our well-disciplined crew, at our seeming inactivity!

At last a light was seen coming down the river, and then another, until
one by one our gunboats appeared in the darkness and passed us to
their anchorage. We counted them and found none missing, but we were
compelled to possess our souls in patience, for not until morning
could we learn the story of their gallant exploit.

The Pinola, with the petard-man on board, ran up to the cable,
and, selecting a hulk near the middle of the line, the petard was
successfully thrown on board, but in backing the ship off the wire
became entangled and broke before the exploding current could be turned
on.

The Itasca, under command of Captain Caldwell, had singled out her
schooner, and running alongside, a party of men was thrown on board,
and while they were endeavoring to unshackle the cable, the signal
rocket was thrown up, warning the forts of our attack.

But nothing prevented Caldwell from accomplishing the work he had come
to do. For, notwithstanding the fire of the fort, our boys deliberately
cut the large cable, using a cold chisel and sledge hammer, and as the
chain was severed and fell overboard, the line of schooners, with the
Itasca fast to her prize, swung down stream, and our ship found herself
grounded on the eastern shore!

Fortunately, the Pinola discovered the Itasca’s condition and came
to her assistance, tugging at her for over an hour and parting two
hawsers before she got her afloat; but at last she succeeded, and our
little fleet returned triumphant, having removed the famous barrier and
successfully accomplished one of the most gallant feats recorded in
naval history.

As a token of their disgust the rebels sent down, toward morning, the
very largest fire-raft they had yet constructed. In fact, it was so
large that the Westfield, a former Brooklyn ferry boat, now armed and
attached to our fleet, was sent out to tackle it.

She quietly put her nose under the raft, and turning on her steam hose,
quenched the fire sufficiently to prevent taking fire herself, when she
pushed it ashore, where it made a superb blaze until daylight.

On April 23 each ship of our fleet received an order from Farragut
announcing that the passage of the forts would be attempted that night,
and notifying all the commanding officers of the proposed order of
battle.

The mortar boats were to remain in position and keep up a continuous
fire. The six steamers attached to the mortar fleet were to join in
the attack, but were not to attempt to pass the forts. The other ships
were to pass in three lines, Farragut leading in the Hartford, we
following him in the Richmond, with the Brooklyn astern of us, forming
one division and passing on the Fort Jackson side.

Captain Theodorus Bailey led the line on the Fort St. Philip side, in
the Cayuga, followed by the Pensacola, Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna,
Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon.

Captain Bell was to take the middle of the river in the Scioto, with
the Iroquois, Pinola, Winona, Itasca, and Kennebec following. The order
to all the ships was to keep in line and to push on past the forts as
best they might.

We had not been mere idle observers during the past month on board the
Richmond, but had been devising every method possible to strengthen our
means of offense and defense. Among other ideas, we originated, through
the suggestion of our first assistant engineer Hoyt, a plan that was
adopted by other ships in the fleet, of protecting the boilers against
shot by hanging our spare chain cables in lengths outside, in the
line of the boilers, thus improvising an armor that was found quite
effectual against solid shot as well as shell.

After receiving our final orders, Lieutenant-Commander Cummings, our
executive officer, who was afterward killed at Port Hudson, directed
that our decks should be whitewashed, a novel conceit, but one that
enabled us to distinguish in the darkness any loose articles on deck,
such as might otherwise have been difficult to find in the excitement
of action.

When hammocks were piped down that evening, it was with the
understanding that the men might sleep until midnight, when all hands
were to be called quietly, without any of the customary noisy signals.

That was indeed a solemn time for us all as we gathered at the evening
meal in the wardroom. We now had immediately before us a task the
outcome of which none could predict; but, even if we were successful,
it was highly improbable that the little band of eighteen officers
who had now been together for two years, in the close and intimate
relations that can only be found in the wardroom of a man-of-war, would
ever again meet at the table in an unbroken body. Who would be the
missing ones the next morning?

There was none of the merry jesting that usually marked our meals,
and when the table was cleared every officer went to his stateroom,
and I think each of us wrote some lines to his nearest and dearest in
anticipation of what might happen before we saw another sun. I know,
at least, that I wrote such a letter. Then lights were extinguished
and all was quiet throughout the ship; such absolute quiet as is never
found except just before a battle.

It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed my eyes when the
quartermaster, with his hooded lantern, touched me, and said quietly,
“All hands, sir!”

I hastened on deck. The night was dark and the air was chill. Officers
and men were hurriedly but quietly going to their stations for action,
which in our case was at the port battery.

My own division was amidships, where I had four 9-inch guns. My men
came to their stations stripped for work, some of them without their
shirts, their monkey-jackets knotted by the sleeves, hanging loosely
about their shoulders.

Guns were at once cast loose and provided, and then all stood quietly
awaiting developments. In the mean time our anchor was hove short,
and we only waited the order to trip it and steam ahead. Down in the
engine-room I could see, by the hatch near one of my guns, that the
engineers were also on the alert, and the indicator showed that we had
a heavy pressure of steam on.

Ah! here comes the Hartford, steaming up on our starboard quarter. As
she comes abreast of us, our anchor is tripped, hove up, and we fall
into place, a cable’s length astern of her, and steam ahead.

The other two divisions are dimly seen moving up in echelon. Everything
is done with the utmost silence, save for the thunder of the mortar
fleet, which has now gone at it, hammer and tongs, and the air above us
is filled with the hurtling shells, made visible in their passage, like
comets, by their trains of fire.

As yet our movement has not become known to the enemy, and every
instant we are getting nearer to the forts, as yet unharmed.

Ah! they have seen us at last; and Fort Jackson belches out upon the
Hartford a hail of shot and shell. We go ahead at full speed! Now we
are ourselves under fire, and “Load and fire at will” is the order from
the quarter deck!

Our ship throbs with the beat of the engines below and trembles with
the shock from the continuous fire of our great guns.

For the next hour it is all madness! The captain of one of my guns is
struck full in the face by a solid shot and his head is severed from
his body; as he falls the lockstring in his hand is pulled and his gun
is discharged! “Hurry the body below and load again!”

I call my junior officer to take my place while I go to my forward gun,
and as I turn a shell explodes and tears his right arm away!

A young master’s mate hurries past me bearing a message to the captain,
who is on the topgallant forecastle; as he goes up the ladder and
touches his cap to his commander a rifle ball from the fort, whose
walls we are close abreast of, strikes him in the forehead, and the
poor boy falls dead, his message not yet delivered!

Now we are so close to the fort that we can look in at the lighted
portholes; a solid shot passes between two of my men and buries
itself in the mainmast not six inches above my head! I am covered with
splinters, but unharmed.

The early dawn is breaking, and by its dim light and the blaze of
a fire-raft drifting down past us I see just abreast of us a light
river-boat crowded with rebel troops. As I look at her the captain of
my No. 5 gun loads with grape and cannister, and depresses his gun as
he trains it point blank upon the crowd of trembling wretches.

I dash at him and catch the lockstring from his hand, just in time to
save them from an awful fate! We are all savages now, burning with the
passion to kill, and the man looks at me resentfully as I frustrate his
plan for a wholesale _battue_!

The fire upon us slackens, then ceases; I glance through a porthole; we
are past the forts; both of them are astern of us, and, thank God, the
battle is won!




CHAPTER IV

ON TO NEW ORLEANS


When Flag Officer Farragut--soon to be made Rear Admiral for this
night’s work--looked about him from the quarter deck of the Hartford
that glorious morning of the 24th of April which had made his name
immortal, he counted fifteen of the seventeen vessels in his three
divisions that had started with him the night before to pass the forts.

The Kennebec, as we learned later, had been disabled and had dropped
back out of the fight; and the Varuna had run into a nest of rebel
gunboats above the forts and had been sunk on the left bank of the
river. Barring the loss of two of his smallest ships, his victorious
fleet was now above the dreaded forts, and practically intact and ready
for anything he might require of them at a moment’s notice.

So we all steamed up two or three miles above the forts and anchored,
and the flagship signaled the fleet, “Go to breakfast.”

We gathered at the morning meal in the wardroom of the Richmond with
very different feelings from those of the night before, for by a great
providence death had not come to our mess and our little circle was
unbroken, although two junior officers were among the dead and wounded.
But in the hour of victory one does not stop to mourn for those who
have gone on before; it is accepted as the fortune of war!

We had, of course, many personal experiences to relate and to compare,
and there were some who said that the worst was yet before us; but
as a rule we were very happy, and so well satisfied with our success
that we did not think much of the future as we enjoyed our well-earned
breakfast.

Coming up from the table and looking along the shore with my marine
glass, I espied a large Confederate flag flying from a flagstaff on
the river-bank where there was evidently a camp. As we all felt just
then as though we owned the earth and the richness thereof, I went
to Captain Alden and, on the ground of priority of discovery, asked
permission to go on shore with my boat and pull down the flag.

The captain laughed at my eagerness and gave me leave to take the
second cutter and go to the flagship and present my petition for
permission to pull the flag down to Commodore Farragut.

I had the boat called away at once and started for the Hartford. I was
taken into the cabin and there stated my case. “Why, certainly, Mr.
Kelson,” said Farragut good-naturedly, “go ahead and pull down all the
Confederate flags you can find. And, by the way, make my compliments to
Captain Alden and tell him we shall proceed up the river at once.”

As I went over the side, Captain Boggs of the Varuna came on board to
report the circumstances attending the loss of his ship.

Off I went in great glee. I landed, left a single boat-keeper in the
boat, and with my eleven men walked up to the staff and was just
hauling down the flag when my coxswain said, “Good Lord, Mr. Kelson,
here comes a regiment of rebs!”

I looked, and sure enough, not quite a regiment, but a large body of
Confederates in gray were marching down toward us and were already
within easy gunshot. I supposed, of course, that we were to be called
upon to surrender, and gathered my little body of men close together,
hoping to be able to make a successful retreat to the boat, when the
Confederates halted and I saw that they were all officers, about forty
in number.

One stepped out from their midst and approached us; and as I came
forward to meet him he saluted and said, “Whom have I the honor of
addressing, sir?”

He was a fine looking fellow and his uniform was as fresh as though
it had just come out of a tailor’s shop, while I was unshaven and was
wearing my very oldest fatigue suit, that was powder stained after last
night’s fight.

I informed the officer of my name, rank, and to what ship I belonged
and he responded: “I am Colonel ----, in command of the ---- Regiment,
Louisiana Home Guards, and am commanding here at Camp Chalmette. With
the guns of the Federal fleet bearing upon us, I consider it my duty to
surrender my command to the forces of the United States!”

Never in all my varied experiences, before or since that morning, have
I been so embarrassed as on the occasion when this remarkably spruce
and very fluent gentleman tendered me his sword, and the other officers
in their turn, in strict seniority, also handed me their side arms
in token of their surrender “to the forces of the United States,” as
represented by me and my boat’s crew!

I did my very best, however, to preserve my dignity and to give a
strictly official air to the whole proceeding. But there was something
so supremely ridiculous in these forty officers loading me down with
their weapons, when I had come on shore merely for a flag, that I could
scarcely conceal my mirth.

I informed them that I should duly present the matter for consideration
to our fleet commander, and saluting with great solemnity retired to
my boat, making the best show of my twelve sailors possible under the
circumstances.

I carried my boat load of swords off to the Hartford, and Farragut
sent Captain Broom with a file of marines to parole the officers and
to return them their side arms. I held on to the flag, however, and I
should have had it to this day had it not been lost at a church fair,
where it had been borrowed for decorative purposes, some years later.

By ten o’clock the fleet got under weigh and steamed slowly up the
river, keeping a careful lookout at every bend for the “line of
batteries” of which we had so long heard but which we never discovered.

As a matter of fact we did not find a gun placed in position to oppose
us until we came to Chalmette, three miles below the city, where half a
dozen old 32-pounders opened upon us, but were at once silenced by the
leading ship before the fleet could get within range.

All day of the 24th we steamed quietly up the river, past the sugar
plantations, where sheets were hung out as flags of truce, and the
only people visible were negroes who waved their hats to us in joyous
welcome as we passed.

That night we anchored, getting under weigh early the next morning, and
just at noon we rounded the bend in the river below the city, and New
Orleans was in sight!

We steamed up close in to the levee, which was alive with people, and
where great heaps of cotton bales were blazing that had been fired by
the authorities to prevent them from falling into our hands. At the
same time the unfinished iron-clad Louisiana came drifting down stream
all ablaze.

Just at this time a sudden thunder-storm burst upon us, and the rain
fell in torrents as we dropped our anchors in the stream nearly
opposite the mint. It was, altogether, a scene not easily to be
forgotten.

The fruitless negotiations which followed between Farragut and Mayor
Munroe, that came so near terminating in the bombardment of the city
by the fleet, are all matters of history, and could not here be even
intelligently summarized, except at great length.

As is known, on May 1 General Butler and his troops came up to New
Orleans and took formal possession of the city we had captured; and
from that time it was fully restored to the Federal government, from
which it had been alienated for more than a year.

A portion of the fleet, with the Richmond as the flagship, soon after
ascended the Mississippi, receiving in turn the surrender of Baton
Rouge and Natchez, but meeting with the first check at Vicksburg,
where, in response to our demand, the city government by a bare
majority of one vote declined to surrender; and as we, unfortunately,
had no co-operating troops, we could not well enforce our demand, or,
indeed, have held the city if we had been able to capture it.

Two regiments of troops at that time would have prevented the necessity
for the terrible campaign of Vicksburg and the sacrifice of fifty
thousand lives in the prolonged struggle which was to come.

The morning we sighted Vicksburg, as we were carefully feeling our way
up the river, where ships of the size of ours had never before been
seen, I had the morning watch, and while yet a few miles below the city
we saw a curious-looking boat drifting down stream with two negroes
as its occupants, who were directing their frail craft with rude
paddles. As they came near us the darkeys made signs that they wished
to communicate, so I slowed our engines and the men paddled alongside,
and, catching the rope that was thrown to them, to our surprise both
climbed on board, setting adrift their little craft, which was merely
an old mortar-box.

The men were brought to me, and proved to be two very intelligent
negroes, who, hearing by underground telegraph that “Massa Linkum’s big
ships had whopped out de Confeds at New Orleans, and were coming up
river to set de niggers free,” had improvised a boat, and had trusted
to the current to drift them down to the ships.

They seemed perfectly convinced that our principal mission was to
set them free, which, as it was before the Emancipation Proclamation
had been written, was very far from being the case. In fact, it was
directly the reverse, and commanding officers were as yet forbidden to
receive or to harbor escaped slaves.

General Phelps had already got himself into trouble because he declined
to return these fugitives to their masters, and it seemed at first as
though these poor fellows would have to be put on shore, where their
fate, if captured after having run away to us, might easily be imagined.

But Captain Alden of the Richmond was a very kind-hearted man, and
he intimated unofficially that if the presence of these men was not
brought to his notice he should know nothing about them. While their
fate was thus hanging in the balance, the poor fellows were in a
terrible state of anxiety; but when they learned that they might go to
work as wardroom servants, without pay, their gratitude seemed to know
no bounds.

To close this episode here, Jacob, the elder of the men, became my
special servant on board of the Richmond; and when I later obtained
a command, he went with me, rated as captain’s steward, and for two
years he was my devoted servitor, and never have I had a more faithful,
humble friend than this runaway slave.

It was a relief to both army and navy when Butler’s common-sense
classification of the negroes as “contraband of war,” cut the Gordian
knot and enabled us to grapple successfully with one of the most
difficult problems of the war, although why we should have been so long
in thus solving it always passed my comprehension.

Finding that Vicksburg would not surrender to the naval forces, we ran
down the river to New Orleans, and after several months of preparation
returned to Vicksburg, convoying a detachment of three thousand troops
in river-boats. But as the rebels had been improving the shining hours
by establishing a series of heavy batteries on the heights overlooking
the river, and had a garrison of ten thousand men, we were no better
able to cope with Vicksburg than we had been earlier in the summer.

We gallantly ran the batteries with our fleet, but we were no nearer to
capturing the stronghold from above than from below. So in July we ran
the batteries again, down river and at night this time, giving up the
capture of Vicksburg to the army; and we all know the history of that
long and tedious siege.

Preparations now commenced in good earnest for the naval attack upon
Mobile, and we learned that for that service several of the new
monitors were to be sent out to our fleet. But Farragut, now admiral,
was a very old-fashioned sailor, with a strong prejudice in favor of
wooden ships: he had gained all his victories in such ships, and he
said he was too old a dog to learn new tricks.

So, as will be remembered, when he finally went into the Mobile fight,
his flagship was still the wooden ship Hartford; and singular enough,
the only vessel he lost in that memorable battle was the new iron-clad,
Tecumseh. She was sunk by a torpedo, and went down with Captain Craven
and one hundred and thirteen of her crew!

Had Farragut taken that vessel as his flagship, as he was urged to do,
he would undoubtedly have lost his life with the others.

I was myself a witness of an exhibition of his aversion to iron-clads.
On the 4th of July, 1862, our fleet and the squadron of Admiral Charles
H. Davis were lying above Vicksburg where the two fleets had met a few
days before. Davis’s flagship was the Benton, an iron-clad of which you
will hear more later on in this narrative, and he was quite proud of
her.

On the 4th Admiral Davis invited Admiral Farragut to go down with him
in the Benton and “try the batteries,” as he worded it. As this was an
excursion entirely after Farragut’s own taste, he at once accepted, and
the two admirals steamed down the river on the trial trip.

The Benton carried a very heavy armament, but she was slow, and, being
built on two hulls, did not handle well in a strong current. Arrived in
good position, the ship opened fire on the upper shore battery, and the
rebels were quite ready to respond.

They had lately received a new Whitworth gun, which they had just got
in position, and they brought this into play on the Benton. By a sorry
chance a shell from it entered one of the Benton’s bow ports and burst,
killing and disabling several men.

This was getting exciting, and Farragut, after striving for a long time
to control himself, burst out: “D--n it, Davis, I must go on deck! I
feel as though I were shut up here in an iron pot, and I can’t stand
it!”

And on deck he went, only compromising at last, through the entreaties
of his friend, by entering the conning turret. This was the same
instinct that sent him aloft in the Mobile fight. He wanted to see
what was going on, and such a thing as fear of personal exposure never
entered his mind.




CHAPTER V

CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER


In November, 1862, while we were lying off Baton Rouge in the Richmond,
I was officially notified from Washington of my promotion to the grade
of acting lieutenant. A week later I was ordered by Admiral Farragut to
the command of the W. G. Anderson, then at the Pensacola Navy Yard.

The Anderson, a beautiful clipper bark built in Boston for the Cape
of Good Hope trade, had been lately purchased by the government. She
had been fitted out as a cruiser, her decks strengthened to carry an
armament of six 32-pounders, two 24-pounder howitzers, and a 30-pounder
Parrott rifle gun on the forecastle, and she had a full complement of
fifteen officers and one hundred and forty men.

My orders were to proceed to the coast of Texas to join the fleet
on the blockade, with my station at Aransas Bay. This was welcome
news, as there was a great deal of blockade running in that quarter,
which offered us a fine prospect for excitement and prize money. Our
preparations were quickly completed, and a week after I had taken
command we weighed anchor, saluted the flag officer’s pennant, and
sailed for our station.

The first few days passed quietly, with nothing to interrupt the usual
routine of sea life on board of a man-of-war. As we were now in the
direct track of the blockade runners bound from the coast of Texas to
Havana, their favorite port, I issued an order that a lookout should
be kept at each masthead from daylight until dark; and I also offered
a prize of twenty-five dollars to the man sighting any vessel that we
should afterward capture.

As a result of these precautions the cry of “Sail ho!” was constantly
heard from our vigilant lookouts; but the sails thus discovered proved,
after much chasing, to be all legitimate traders, or at least their
papers represented them as such, and we had our labor for our pains.

As I looked at our track, as laid out on the chart by the navigating
officer, at the end of the fourth day, it resembled a Chinese puzzle
much more than the course of a vessel bound to a certain point with a
leading wind. So as I felt that I had no more time to lose, I laid my
course for Galveston, where I was to report to Commodore Bell before
going down to my station.

The following morning I was aroused by my orderly, who reported that
the officer of the deck had made out a schooner on the lee beam
standing to the eastward. Sending up word to keep away in chase, I
bundled on my clothes, and hurrying on deck found our ship with yards
squared standing down for the schooner.

The vessel was so far to the leeward of us that her hull was scarcely
visible above the horizon, but the breeze was fresh and our canvas was
drawing well, and it was soon apparent that we were gaining on her.
By the time we piped to breakfast we had raised her hull, and I felt
confident of overhauling her in a few hours.

But it now became evident that the schooner was by no means anxious
that we should come to closer quarters, and proposed to prevent it if
possible. Suddenly putting her helm up, she kept away before the wind
and crowded on canvas until she looked like a great white gull.

This convinced us that we had at last fallen into luck, and that the
schooner was what we had been so diligently seeking,--a blockade
runner. To make assurance doubly sure, I gave the Parrott rifle its
extreme elevation and sent a shell screaming down toward her, at the
same time hoisting our colors, as a polite invitation for her to heave
to and allow us to overhaul her.

But our courtesy passed unnoticed, and she displayed no colors in
return. So we followed her example in making sail, and every yard of
duck that could be boomed out from any part of the ship was brought
into play.

We were evidently gaining on our chase, and everything seemed to
promise well, when there was an ominous sound of slatting canvas,
and looking aloft, I saw that the breeze was failing us. This was
unfortunate, for a stern chase is proverbially a long chase, the
forenoon was already well-nigh spent, and we were yet several miles
astern of the schooner.

I ordered that all our sails should be hoisted taut and sheeted close
home, but the wind continued to get lighter until there was scarcely
enough breeze to give us steerage-way. Occasionally we could feel a
slight puff of air, and, remembering the experience of the frigate
Constitution when she was chased by two English ships in 1813, I
ordered that whips be rigged aloft and the sails thoroughly drenched
with salt water. Still, with all our efforts, it was evident that we
were not materially lessening the difference between the two vessels,
if indeed we were not losing ground.

After consultation with my executive officer, I decided that my only
hope of securing our prize before dark, when she would easily evade
us, was to send a party in one of our boats in chase. Accordingly Mr.
Bailey had the first cutter called away, the crew carefully armed, and
a small Butler machine gun mounted in the bow of the boat.

The chase was now, as we estimated, nearly six miles distant; and as
she was all the time forging ahead two or three knots an hour, there
was a prospect of a good long pull for it. But the bait was a tempting
one and the boat crew were very ready to make the effort.

I arranged with Acting Master Taylor, who was to go in charge of the
boat, that if night should overtake him before he could return to the
ship I would lay her to, fire guns at intervals, and hoist signal
lanterns so that we could easily be seen. He also took with him a
number of rockets and Coston’s signals to burn if needed.

With my best wishes for his success Mr. Taylor shoved off, and his men
pulled lustily toward the schooner. It was not necessary to give the
order to keep a sharp lookout on the movements of the boat, for every
man in the ship felt a personal interest in her, and all hands were
watching her progress, from the masthead lookouts to the mess cooks,
who hung gazing out of the ports whenever they could escape for a
moment from their duties.

To pull a heavy man-of-war cutter six or eight miles in a seaway is not
child’s play; and although the men buckled to their oars like heroes,
it was slow work. The sun was getting low when the officer of the deck
called my attention from the boat I was watching so anxiously through
the glass to a heavy bank of black clouds making to the northward.

“I am afraid that we are going to have our wind, now that we don’t want
it, sir,” he said.

A vivid flash of lightning, emphasized by a rattling clap of thunder,
followed hard upon this remark.

“Yes, indeed; you must get in your studding sails and flying kites at
once, Mr. Allen, for it is coming down upon us by the run!”

Mr. Bailey came on deck and took the trumpet, as executive officer, the
boatswain’s call sounded shrill, and the light sails came rapidly in.

“Furl the topgallant sails, sir!” I cried. And they were barely in when
the wind was howling.

“Stand by topsail halyards fore and aft, clew lines and reef tackles.
Let go, clew down and haul out. Aloft, topmen, and put in two reefs!”
was the next order.

I looked in vain for any sign of our boat. “Masthead there, can you see
the cutter?”

“No, sir, the cutter and schooner are both entirely shut in!” was the
reply.

By this time we were tearing through the water under our double reefs,
keeping our course as nearly as possible toward where the boat had
last been seen. The squall brought rain with it in torrents, and, as
the darkness closed in, the desire to overhaul the schooner became
second to that of picking up my boat and her crew. So I decided to
heave the ship to and let Mr. Taylor find me, as I certainly could not
expect to find him.

I ordered lanterns hoisted at each masthead and at the ends of the
topsail yards, and directed that a gun be fired and a Coston signal
burned every ten minutes.

By this time the squall had passed to leeward, the rain had ceased, and
the moon was struggling out of the ragged-looking clouds.

Boom! went our first gun, and at the same time the Coston signal was
ignited and flamed up, lighting all about us with its deep crimson
glare.

“Sail ho!” yelled the forecastle lookout.

“Where away?”

“Close aboard on the starboard bow, sir!”

And there, sure enough, loomed the sails of a schooner on the port tack
standing directly across our bow.

“And it’s the Johnnie!” exclaimed Mr. Bailey, as he gazed down from
the forecastle in astonishment upon the vessel almost under our
bowsprit, her decks piled up with cotton bales, and her crew standing
thunderstruck at their perilous position.

I sprang upon the forecastle and hailed: “Heave to, or I’ll sink you!
Ready with No. 1 gun, Mr. Allen!”

“All ready, sir!”

“Don’t fire! we surrender!” came quickly from the schooner, as she flew
up in the wind and lay bobbing helplessly on our port bow.

“Send a boat at once to me with your captain. And let him bring his
papers, if he has any!” I called out.

“We stove our boat the other day, sir, and she won’t float,” they
replied.

“Very well; I will send my boat to you. Mr. Bailey, have the second
cutter lowered, and send Mr. Allen on board that schooner to take
charge of her with a dozen well-armed men. Let her captain and his crew
come back here in our boat. Take a master’s mate with you, Mr. Allen!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” and the boat was called away and made ready.

“By the way, Mr. Allen,” I called out as the boat shoved off, “see if
you can find out from them anything about Mr. Taylor. In dodging him
they have probably run afoul of us.”

I had gone aft to see the boat off and to give these orders; and as
they were executed I looked to see where the schooner lay, but could
not find her.

“Forecastle there! where away is the schooner?” I hailed.

There was a moment’s pause, and then the hesitating reply came from the
lookout, “She has drifted out of sight, sir; I can’t make her out!”

I hastened forward, and, sure enough, nothing could be seen of her.

“Schooner ahoy!” I hailed and listened, but no response came back.

A signal was burned, but it only served to show us our second cutter
that I had just sent away, pulling aimlessly in the direction where we
had last seen the schooner.

It was very evident that we were duped. While we had been lowering
our boat she had quietly filled away, and had already such a start as
to render a search for her in the darkness well-nigh hopeless, more
particularly as two of my boats were now away from the ship.

Thoroughly vexed at the stupidity of the forecastle lookout, whose
carelessness had permitted such a ruse to succeed, I recalled the
second cutter, and paced my quarter deck, my mind occupied with most
unpleasant reflections.

It was evident that I must remain with my ship hove to, or I should
probably lose my first cutter, if she had not already gone to the
bottom in the squall! It was certainly a remarkably bad quarter of an
hour that I was having just then.

“C-r-r-r-a-c-k!” came the sound of firing to leeward, and up shot a
rocket, leaving a trail of fire behind it like a meteor.

“Hurrah! there’s Taylor down there with his Butler coffee-mill! Fill
away, Mr. Bailey, and make all sail! Be alive about it, or we shall not
be in at the death! There he goes again! I don’t believe that schooner
will get away from us this time!”

The yards flew round and we filled, as the topmen sprang aloft to turn
out the reefs. The topsail yards flew to the mastheads, the topgallant
sails were sheeted home with lightning speed, and we bore down upon the
scene of conflict with all possible dispatch.

But the firing had already ceased, and we soon saw signal lanterns
hoisted from the masts of the schooner that had given us such a chase.

“Well, sir, we have got her at last!” came over the water in Mr.
Taylor’s familiar tones, as we approached.

“Glad to hear it, Mr. Taylor,” I replied; “but what have you got?”

“The schooner Royal Yacht, sir. She ran out of Galveston, through the
whole blockading fleet, night before last. She has a cargo of one
hundred and fifty bales of cotton, sir!”

“Give the cutter’s crew three cheers, men!” I said, and our crew sprang
into the rigging and gave three as hearty cheers as ever came from one
hundred throats.

“I will send Mr. Allen on board the schooner with a prize crew, Mr.
Taylor, and you can return in your own boat with the schooner’s captain
and crew.”

This exchange was soon made, and Mr. Taylor came on board with his
prisoners, and gave me the particulars of the capture. When the squall
struck us, he had been already five hours in chase. He lost sight
of the schooner, and for a time had his hands full in keeping his
boat from filling. When the wind lulled, as nothing was in sight, he
determined to return to the ship, and, hearing our guns and seeing
our signals, he was making the best of his way back to us, when the
schooner that was escaping from us almost ran him down.

He at once opened fire from his Butler gun at short range, and drove
the schooner’s crew from the deck by a well-directed rifle fire. Left
without a steersman, the vessel yawed, the cutter dashed alongside, the
boat’s crew sprang on board, and the prize was taken!

Upon investigation, it proved that the Royal Yacht had run out from
Galveston two nights before; and, skillfully piloted by her captain,
who was very familiar with the intricacies of the bay, she had passed
through our entire blockading squadron, under cover of the darkness,
and had got to sea unnoticed.

By ten o’clock we were again on our course for Galveston, with the
Royal Yacht following in our wake, the cynosure of many watchful eyes.
There was a good leading breeze, and by the same hour the following
night we anchored among the Galveston fleet, and I reported my arrival
to Commodore Bell.

The officers of the various vessels of the blockading fleet were very
positive in their assertions that the Royal Yacht could not by any
possibility have escaped from Galveston. But we found Galveston papers
on board, printed the morning of the day she escaped, and much to their
mortification the doubters were compelled to acknowledge the unwelcome
fact.

The next day I dispatched the schooner to Key West with a prize crew,
where in due time she was libeled, condemned, and sold with her cargo
for nearly sixty thousand dollars. Of the proceeds of the sale the
government received one half, and the other moiety was divided among my
officers and crew.

As I had captured her on the high seas, out of sight of any other
vessel, I received, as commanding officer, one tenth of our half, which
made a very agreeable addition to my bank account, and was a pleasant
souvenir of my first capture of a blockade runner.




CHAPTER VI

A NARROW ESCAPE


It was Christmas morning, and very early on Christmas morning, for the
sun, like a great ball of burnished copper, was just rising above the
mist that hung low along the eastern horizon, gilding with the first
flush of dawn the cold, gray clouds and shimmering on the crest of the
waves that rippled in the freshening breeze.

Under all sail and braced close to the wind, a war-ship is standing in
for the land, where a long stretch of low sand hills is broken by the
entrance to a bay, an ugly line of breakers making across; while a mile
beyond, the tall, white shaft of a half-ruined lighthouse is visible.

The vessel is a clipper-built bark, her long, tapering masts heavily
sparred and spreading a cloud of canvas. The lines of her hull are so
fine, her bow is so sharp, and her run so clean moulded that she could
evidently show great speed were she not so closely hauled. As it is,
although every thread of canvas is drawing, the bowlines are hauled
well out and the weather leeches of the topsails shiver as the ship
rises and falls on the strong easterly swell; for she is kept almost
in the wind’s eye by the old quartermaster at the wheel, under the
watchful conning of the officer of the deck.

Near one of the after guns stands an officer looking through his marine
glass toward the southward, steadying himself, meanwhile, by leaning
against the weather mizzen rigging.

“Well, sir, what do your young eyes make of her?” I queried.

“It is certainly the Connecticut, and she is making the best of her way
down the coast, under steam and sail.”

“Just as I thought! Confound it, why couldn’t we have been a couple of
hours earlier! Well, Mr. Bailey, it seems pretty certain that we have
lost the supply steamer, as we did our blockade runner last night, by
being a little too late!”

“That will make it a very dismal Christmas for us, sir.”

“I know it, Mr. Bailey, and I am as much disappointed as you possibly
can be. I was anxiously expecting some important private letters by the
Connecticut, to say nothing of the necessity of stocking up my mess
stores. I fancy that you are not much better off in that respect in the
wardroom.”

“Better off, sir! Why we are down to our very last can of tomatoes, and
that, with salt beef, is very likely to be our Christmas dinner to-day
in the wardroom, with possibly a plum duff as a wind-up. It’s simply
awful, sir!”

“I am heartily sorry for you, Mr. Bailey, and I must see if my steward
cannot rake up something among my stores to help out your table a bit.
I shall expect you and the doctor to dine with me to-day, however. But
we must be getting in very close to our anchorage, I think. Yes, there
is our buoy just off the lee bow. We shall fetch it nicely on this
tack. Call all hands, sir, at once, and bring the ship to an anchor.”

The order was passed, the boatswain’s call rang out sharp and clear,
the boatswain’s mates took up the refrain in a minor key, and above the
notes of the whistles the hoarse cry, “All hands bring ship to anchor,
ahoy!” resounded through the berth deck. Responsive to the call, the
quiet ship was soon alive with men hastening to their stations.

“Stand by halyards, sheets, clewlines, and downhauls fore and aft!”
shouted the executive officer through his trumpet. “Lower away; let
go; clew up, haul down!” There was a whizzing of ropes, a flapping of
canvas, and in a moment the yards were down and the sails were hanging
in festoons.

“Away, topgallant and royal yard men! Lay aloft, topmen and lower yard
men! Trice up booms; lay out; furl!”

A hundred men sprang into the rigging as they were called away; each
yard swarmed with them as they rapidly furled the sails; and as the
ship lost her headway, the anchor was let go, the crew quickly laid
down from aloft, and the beautiful ship that but a few minutes before
had been alive under a cloud of canvas was quietly swinging to her
anchor, with sails trimly furled, bunts triced up, yards squared by
lifts and braces, and no man to be seen above the hammock nettings save
the lookout at each masthead and the commanding officer, who from the
poop had been critically watching this evolution of “a flying-moor,”
and now turned to express his satisfaction to the executive officer,
who was turning the trumpet over to the officer of the deck.

“Very neatly done, indeed, Mr. Bailey! We couldn’t have beaten that in
the old Richmond with three times our crew! Men who show the result of
your excellent training so smartly as this at least deserve a Christmas
dinner. Have my gig called away immediately after breakfast, and I will
go on shore and see if I cannot knock over a bullock. I don’t believe
any of us will object to a bit of roast beef, and I shall be glad to
make a little reconnaissance at the same time.”

My predecessor on this station had been Captain Robert Wade, in command
of the United States bark Arthur. As she was at Pensacola when I took
command of the Anderson, I went on board of her one day to learn
something about my new station.

“Well, Kelson,” said Captain Wade in response to my queries, “it is
a God-forsaken coast, and I am not sorry to have got away from it
myself. You will need to anchor in about ten fathoms, say three miles
from shore; for when the northers come along next winter you will very
likely have to slip, and then you will require plenty of sea room to
work off shore.”

“Any inhabitants about the bay?”

“I never saw any. There are some half-wild cattle on Matagorda Island,
and I used to go on shore, occasionally, and shoot one for the messes.
It’s a pretty lonely spot, I assure you!”

That was about all that I had been able to learn, in advance, of the
stretch of coast I was supposed to take care of; and up to this blessed
Christmas Day, now nearly two weeks, no signs whatever of life in the
neighborhood of the bay had been discovered, although a bright lookout
had been constantly maintained from the mastheads of my ship.

Consequently I felt that I was taking every reasonable precaution when
I ordered my boat’s crew to wear their cutlasses, and had half a dozen
Sharps’ rifles put in the stern sheets, for I knew that we would be
more than a match for any possible bushwhackers, although I had no
reason to expect any opposition. My surgeon had gladly accepted an
invitation to join me, and soon after breakfast we shoved off from the
ship on our quest for beef.

Across the mouth of the bay the breakers made a line of white-capped
surf; but acting on instructions I had received from Captain Wade, I
watched for a heavy roller, and then we gave way and went in with it,
keeping the boat’s stern to the sea, and thus crossed the bar with only
a slight drenching.

About a mile, as I remember it, from the bar stood the lighthouse.
Early in the war the rebels, in accordance with their general policy,
had removed the lantern, and had then attempted to blow up the tower;
but the sturdy shaft had defied their efforts, and, barring a ragged
gap in one side, it was, as yet, practically intact.

Landing a few rods from the lighthouse, I left the boat beached,
with orders to the crew not to stray away and to keep their arms in
readiness for use. Then, accompanied by the doctor and my coxswain, I
strolled up to the tower, intending to obtain from the top a lookout
over the surrounding country.

But this I soon found was no easy task, for the rebels had blown
out the lower iron steps from the inside: and it was only by using
considerable effort that we at last succeeded in accomplishing our
object, and only then after pulling down in the struggle two of the
steps still remaining in place. However, at last we scrambled up and
made our way to the balcony above the lantern-room.

From this point the view was very extended; and unslinging my marine
glass, I, sailor-like, turned first to look at the beautiful picture my
noble ship presented gracefully riding at her anchors, her tall masts
tapering skyward, the ensign and pennant drooping idly from the peak
and masthead in the light air, the guns peering from her side being
the only thing to indicate that she was not some “peaceful merchant
caravel.”

“She is certainly a beauty, doctor. You don’t often see a prettier
craft, and she is as good as she is bonny, and carries a swift pair
of heels into the bargain! But what are you looking at over there so
intently? It is easy to see that you are not a sailor! Have you got a
bullock in range over those hills?”

While speaking I turned my glass in the direction where the doctor
was looking so earnestly, and the sight presented almost took away my
breath, and for an instant I was speechless.

On our right, over the sheltering sand hill which had heretofore
concealed them from our view, was a rebel camp in plain sight, into
which, as I looked down from the tower, it seemed to me that I could
have cast a stone!

Two score dingy shelter tents and two or three larger marquee tents
indicated the presence of at least a hundred men, while before one of
the large tents were two brass field-pieces!

There was no perceptible stir in the camp, and for a moment I hoped
that we might not have been observed, and that possibly there was yet
time for us to escape unnoticed from this trap into which I had so
unwittingly cast myself.

But the silence and quiet were delusive; for as I looked again more
carefully, I saw that men were stealing over the sand hills toward my
boat, which they doubtless hoped to capture by surprise!

We have been told by those who have been revived, after coming
well-nigh within the gates of death by drowning, that in the few
agonizing moments before they became unconscious, a thousand
recollections of the life they were leaving flashed through their
minds. So now I recalled Wade’s words when he had told me that this
island was uninhabited, and cursed myself for having trusted to them. I
thought of the report of the affair Mr. Bailey, soon to be commander in
my place, would make to the admiral. What business had I, the captain,
out of my ship, when a junior officer could have been sent in to make a
reconnaissance, if indeed it were needed at all! And what sad news to
be sent home to my young wife, for a Texas prison pen was but a shade
better than death!

But I was aroused by the doctor’s question, “Hadn’t we better be
getting out of this, captain?” and coming to a realizing sense of the
necessity for immediate action, I made quick time in getting down to
the ground.

The boat’s crew were amusing themselves by shying stones at a bottle
they had set up for a mark, in utter unconsciousness of their imminent
danger, and they were evidently greatly surprised at the rapid manner
with which we came down to the boat.

“Into the boat at once, men!” I cried, “and give way for your lives!
The rebs are almost on top of us!”

The doctor and I climbed into the stern sheets as the men sprang into
their places; and as they bent to their oars, the rebels, seeing that
they were discovered, poured over the sand hills with exultant yells.
Fortunately we got the boat well in motion before they opened fire, and
their shots flew wild, save one that buried itself in the stern of the
boat close to the rudder head.

“They are bringing the fieldpiece over the hill, captain!” said the
doctor, who was watching the enemy.

“Give way, lads! Make her jump, if you don’t want to sleep in prison
to-night!” I shouted, keeping the boat as close over to the port shore
as it was possible without fouling the oars.

Bang! and a shell came shrieking through the air so close to our heads
that, as it burst, a fragment cut a slice out of the starboard gunwale
of the boat, between the stern sheets and the after oar. At the same
time the stroke oarsman was wounded in the left arm by another bit of
shell. But the brave fellow did not abandon his oar or lose his stroke;
and the doctor, tearing a piece from his own shirt sleeve, bound it
about the wounded arm and stanched the blood, without moving the man
from his seat.

“They are waving us to come in, captain,” said the doctor, as he
finished binding up the man’s arm and took a look astern.

“Well, we won’t oblige them,” I replied. “Give them a sight of our
ensign, doctor, so that they may know for certain who we are. It will
not be the first time they have fired on that flag!”

The doctor reached behind me, as I steered, and placed the staff of the
boat flag in its socket, and “Old Glory” streamed out behind us as we
flew through the water.

This brought another shell, which passed close astern of the boat,
missing us by so little that we all held our breath as it came
screaming toward us. But we, meanwhile, were not tarrying. Our light
boat was dashing along, and her speed evidently disconcerted the
hurried aim of our adversaries, whose next shots were wide of the mark,
although quite near enough to make their singing very unpleasant music.

But another and an entirely unexpected danger now confronted us; for as
we neared the lower point of the bay, where we expected to be out of
range, men were seen launching from the beach a boat somewhat larger
than our own, with the evident purpose of cutting us off before we
could reach the bar.

Under ordinary circumstances, or single-handed, I should not have
objected to this prospective contest, for I felt very sure that, boat
for boat, we should be more than a match for them; but if we stopped to
fight, the artillerymen, who were now dragging their pieces down the
beach, would get us in range, and a single well-directed shot from the
gun would easily have put us _hors de combat_. So that I viewed
this new complication as very far from being an agreeable incident.

But before the soldiers got their boat afloat, which they were going
about in a very lubberly manner, we were startled by the report of
a heavy gun from outside, and a rifle shell came hurtling high above
our heads and landed in the sand very near our pursuers. A second shot
followed almost immediately, which to our delight exploded in the very
midst of the men, capsizing the piece and dispersing the gunners in a
very summary manner!

“Hurrah! doctor, the Anderson is talking back! There she is, God bless
her!” and as I spoke the dear old barkey appeared in plain sight under
topsails, courses, and jibs, right abreast of the entrance to the bay,
and much closer in to the bar than she had any business to be, and
the Parrott rifle rang out again, landing a shell in such very close
proximity to the party who were getting the boat afloat that they at
once abandoned their work.

“Give way now, boys; we’ll go through the breakers if we have to go
through bottom side up! Our friends will pick us up.” And we dashed
into the surf. The boat rose almost on end, then came down and touched
bottom, but at the same instant another roller lifted her, the men bent
to their oars sturdily, and in a minute more we were through the surf
and safe in the quiet water outside the bar.

As we emerged from the rollers the Anderson luffed up in the wind, her
main topsail was braced aback, and the crew sprang into the rigging and
gave three hearty cheers, which must have been very depressing to our
would-be captors.

We were received on board with a warm greeting that set all discipline
at defiance for a few minutes, and then the usual calm routine of a
well-disciplined ship of war settled down, and all excitement was
repressed as we hoisted in the gig and made sail on the other tack for
our anchorage.

My honest steward’s welcome, when I went down to my cabin, was none
the less hearty because in failing to bring off the coveted bullock I
had compelled him to serve me a very meagre dinner; and as I sat down
to the simple meal he had provided, I could not but be grateful for my
very narrow escape from taking my Christmas dinner that day in a Texas
prison pen!




CHAPTER VII

A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT


About three months after my adventure in the bay, the doctor came to me
one morning after quarters and reported that he had a number of cases
on the sick list of a decidedly scorbutic character. This, he said,
was mainly the result of a lack of fresh vegetables in the messes, as
we had been neglected by the supply steamers for a long time. Since my
late experience, I had made no further attempts at obtaining fresh beef
on shore, so had come down to a salt-beef ration.

The doctor said that it would be necessary to have a change in the
dietary to check the progress of this disease, and he submitted his
report for my consideration.

Although my orders from Commodore Bell contemplated my keeping a close
blockade of Aransas, I had received, in view of the extent of coast I
was expected to care for, permission to exercise a certain amount of
discretion, which I felt assured would warrant me in running down to
the Rio Grande under the existing circumstances.

That was the southern limit of the Texan coast, about one hundred
and seventy-five miles from Aransas, and was included in my beat, as
the Anderson was the only ship on the blockade between Galveston and
Matamoras.

When I notified Mr. Bailey of my intention and gave orders for getting
under weigh at daylight the following morning, my executive officer
did not attempt to conceal his pleasure at the prospect of a change
from the deadly monotony of the blockade; and I observed that evening,
as I took my after-dinner exercise on the poop, that the songs from
the forecastle displayed an unusual amount of vigor in the choruses.
Indeed, I had never heard “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York” go off with such
vim, and the chorus,--

  “My bonny, my bonny, my bonny Black Bess,”

could almost have been heard on the sand hills, three miles away, that
sheltered our Confederate friends, the Texan Rangers.

The next morning we were off bright and early with a fresh breeze from
the northward, and the following day we dropped our anchor just north
of the imaginary line that divided Mexican from American waters. In
fact, I was so close to this boundary line that, although I laid my
anchor on American bottom, when the wind was from the northward my ship
swung into Mexican water. By treaty this line, starting from the centre
of the mouth of the Rio Grande, runs out three miles W. N. W. I mention
this particularly, as its importance in my story will be discovered
farther on.

My anchorage was well outside of the fleet in the harbor, which to
my surprise included a number of large merchant steamers flying the
English flag, all of them busily engaged in loading or unloading; and
all of them, as I observed, were well to the southward of the line, and
consequently in Mexican waters.

Our anchors down, sails furled, and yards squared, I had my gig called
away, and pulled in shore to an American ship of war with whom I had
exchanged signals and which I had thus learned was the United States
steamer Princess Royal, a captured English blockade runner purchased
by our government at the prize sale and fitted out as a vessel of war.
She was commanded by Commander George Colvocoresses, a regular officer,
a Greek by birth, and called by the sailors, who could not grapple with
this Hellenic appellation, “Old Crawl-over-the-crosstrees.”

After reporting and explaining my errand at the Rio Grande, I expressed
my astonishment at the activity that was manifest on every side in the
harbor.

“Yes,” said the captain, “I have had the pleasure of seeing small
vessels come in here almost every day loaded with Texan cotton,
which they have quietly discharged in lighters, and those ships have
brought cargoes of arms and ammunition from England which they sell at
excellent prices to the Confederate agents ashore, and after they have
discharged they will load up with cotton for Liverpool.”

“What becomes of the war material?”

“Oh, it is all smuggled across the river, a little farther up from the
coast, into Texas. Those guns you can now see being hoisted out will be
in the hands of the Confederates within the next sixty days.”

“And can nothing be done about it?”

“Absolutely nothing. I have protested with the authorities, and they
assure me that nothing contraband of war shall be permitted to cross
the river into Texas. But the under customs officers are easily bribed,
and they become conveniently blind.”

Returning to the Anderson, I pulled near the discharging ships, and I
could readily see that they were, as the captain had said, hoisting
out munitions of war, with no attempt at concealment. Of course, as
they were ships of a neutral power in Mexican waters, we, as United
States officers, were helpless in preventing this traffic, which
was of such great benefit to the Confederates and which kept their
trans-Mississippi armies so admirably equipped.

On going ashore the next day to arrange for supplies, I found the
streets of Matamoras swarming with Confederate officers, who made
themselves offensive to us in many ways. So I did not endeavor to
prolong my stay at the Rio Grande, but pushed things along, laid in
a generous supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, filled our water
tanks, and was ready for sea again within a week. Then one afternoon
I went on board the Princess Royal to make my farewell call on Captain
Colvocoresses, and returning to my ship, was about getting under weigh,
when, taking a look seaward, I saw a schooner standing in for the
harbor from the eastward.

Mr. Bailey, who was looking at her intently with his glass, exclaimed:
“Captain, she is full of cotton and carrying a large deck load. She is
a blockade runner, sure!”

A glance through my own glass verified the correctness of his report.

“By George, Mr. Bailey, we’ll have a try for her!”

“I am afraid it is no use, captain. She is too near the line; before we
can get under weigh she will be in Mexican water, where she can laugh
at us.”

“Yes, if she finds out who we are. Let us see if we can’t outwit her. I
don’t believe she has noticed us yet, and she is well to the eastward
of the line yet. Quietly brace our yards awry; cock-bill the main yard
a bit; haul down that pennant and ensign; run in our guns and close the
ports; slack up the running rigging; throw an old sail over the port
gangway as though we had been taking in cargo there; get up a burton
on the mainstay and a whip on the main yard; send all hands below. In
short, turn the old ship into a merchantman for the time being, to
throw the schooner off the scent. If we succeed in doing that, I will
guarantee that we bag her.”

Mr. Bailey hurried away to have this work done, and I sent my orderly
to ask Mr. Taylor to come into the cabin.

I explained my plan to him, and told him to man and arm the second
cutter and to drop her under the starboard quarter, where she could not
be seen from the approaching schooner, and to be ready at a word from
me to dash upon the prize. I knew that I could depend upon this officer
for an intelligent and prompt performance of his share of the work,
and I told him the instant he got on board the schooner to heave her
to on the other tack and at once take the bearing of the mouth of the
river so carefully that he could swear to the vessel’s position, if the
matter should come up in the prize court for adjudication.

Then I replaced my uniform coat and cap with a white linen jacket and
a straw hat, and took up a conspicuous position on the poop, looking
very like a merchant captain. Meanwhile Mr. Bailey, following my
suggestions, had transformed my dandy man-of-war bark into a merchant
drogher, to all appearance from a short distance. He had also got
himself up in the masquerade costume of a Kennebunk mate, and in his
shirt sleeves was lounging over the midship rail, cigar in mouth,
watching the approach of our Confederate friend, who was standing in
for the anchorage evidently entirely unconscious of any lurking danger.

The greatest difficulty I experienced was in keeping my men out
of sight. They were as full of excitement as a cat watching for a
mouse, and would endeavor to steal up the hatchways for a peep at the
schooner, notwithstanding all the vigilance of their officers.

At last the schooner was within little more than a cable’s length of
our port quarter, and her crew were standing by to shorten sail, in
anticipation of anchoring, when I quietly walked across the poop and
gave Mr. Taylor the word.

Like a tiger springing upon his prey, the boat flew through the water,
was alongside the schooner, and Mr. Taylor was at the tiller, which he
put hard down, to the utter astonishment of the steersman.

The boat’s crew were already in possession, the schooner, was luffed
up in the wind, close under my quarter, a line was thrown to her, her
sails came down by the run, and she was our prize without striking a
blow and almost without a word being uttered!

The captain of the vessel had not fully recovered from his astonishment
when he was brought on board my ship. From him I learned that she was
the America, with one hundred and eleven bales of cotton, with which
she had run out of Laredo a few days before. Casting a glance about
my decks, now filled with men, he muttered: “Well you ’uns certainly
tricked me that time! This must be that infernal Yankee bark they told
me was off Aransas Pass!”

As I did not deem it advisable to remain longer in port after my
capture, although it was undoubtedly made in American waters, I got my
ship under weigh at once, and within thirty minutes we were standing
out to sea with the schooner in tow, and the whole affair had passed
off so quietly that I doubt if a vessel in port was aware that anything
out of the common order had taken place.

I sent the America to Key West with a prize crew, and the following
evening I was back at my old anchorage off Aransas with an abundance of
fresh provisions and mess stores and enjoying the comfortable feeling
that comes of outwitting an adversary.




CHAPTER VIII

CATCHING A TARTAR


But the good fortune that had thus far fallen to the lot of the
Anderson was to take a turn, for we had not long returned to our
station at Aransas when an affair occurred that was a decided damper
upon the fun we had heretofore enjoyed in capturing prizes.

One morning while the watch was washing down the decks the lookout
at the masthead gave the always welcome “Sail ho!” and upon closer
inspection the vessel in sight proved to be a small sloop hugging the
shore to the northward and evidently running down the coast on her way
to the Rio Grande.

Of course we slipped our anchors at once and made sail in chase; but
the wind was light and the sloop was of such light draft that, having a
leading wind, she could safely keep almost in to the surf line, where
we could not possibly get at her with the ship. In consequence, the
sloop was rapidly approaching the entrance to Aransas Bay, where she
would easily have escaped us, when I resorted to my former expedient
and sent in an armed cutter, with a light gun, to head her off, knowing
that if I could get her off shore I should eventually capture her.

But when the captain of the sloop saw what I was up to, he put his
helm up, without hesitation, let draw his sheets, and drove his vessel
through the light surf and high up on the beach. Then the crew at once
abandoned the craft, and, running up over the sand hills, disappeared.

The officer in my boat, following sharp upon his chase, ran alongside
the sloop, of which he took possession, and found her loaded with
between forty and fifty bales of cotton. But, unfortunately, she had
been beached at the very tiptop of high water; and as the tide soon
after began to run ebb, it was very evident to Mr. Allen that his prize
would soon be high and dry, so he returned to the ship for further
orders.

That evening at high water I sent in three armed boats, with orders
for one of them to lay outside the breakers and cover the landing
party. The crews of the other two boats, under command of my executive
officer, were directed to make every effort to get the sloop afloat,
and for that purpose they were amply provided with hawsers, blocks
and tackles, a kedge anchor, and such other paraphernalia as I deemed
necessary for the proposed work.

The wind was light and there was a full moon, so that the conditions
were very favorable for success. Mr. Bailey laid out the sloop’s
anchor, backed with our kedge, brought the hawser to the sloop’s
windlass, reinforced it with a heavy purchase, and got a heavy strain
on the hawser with the aid of his twoscore men, who were working with
all their heart, but not an inch would she budge. Her skipper had
driven her up with all sail set, and she had made a bed for herself in
the soft sand from which we could not possibly move her.

When the tide began to run ebb, Mr. Bailey decided to return to
the ship and report progress--or rather the lack of it. I had been
anxiously watching the operations from the ship, which I had anchored
as near the beach as prudence permitted, and I was naturally annoyed
at the want of success on the part of my people.

I presume my manner gave Mr. Bailey the impression that I attributed
the failure to his insufficient effort, which was by no means the case,
but I saw that he was very much dejected as he made his report.

The officers talked the matter over together in the wardroom that
evening, as I learned later on, and the next morning Mr. Taylor, who
was my favorite boat officer, came to me after quarters and asked, as a
special favor, permission to go in with three picked boat’s crews that
morning and, abandoning what seemed a well-nigh useless attempt to get
the sloop afloat, to unload her and tow the cotton, worth twenty or
twenty-five thousand dollars, off to the ship.

“I’ll guarantee to do it, captain,” said the plucky fellow. “I propose
to take in two or three coils of inch rope in the boats and after
getting the bales afloat I can lash them together so that we can tow
them off to the ship in this smooth water with our three boats.”

“It will be very hard work, Mr. Taylor, even if you get the bales
afloat through the surf, which is doubtful. And I don’t feel clear in
my mind that it would be strictly in the line of duty. The sloop is
ashore, and her blockade running can be put an end to for good and
all by a match and a few pounds of powder, or we can knock her to
pieces from the ship in target practice. Our men had a hard day’s work
yesterday for nothing, and I don’t care to give them more of it.”

“I know that, sir; but the crew are just crazy to do it. I should only
take volunteers, and there are twice as many ready to go as I require
for the work.”

I saw that officers and men were alike anxious for the lark, as they
considered it; they were always ready when I called upon them for
the severest duty, and so against my better judgment I gave way and
consented. But I insisted that the first cutter, well armed, should
remain outside the surf to cover the shore operations, and that under
no circumstances should she be taken off from guard duty. By this
precaution alone I was saved from what would have otherwise been a very
serious disaster.

Most of the forenoon was passed by the shore party in breaking out the
bales and in warping them out to one of the boats outside the surf, and
by noon nearly all the cotton was afloat. Just before twelve o’clock
I was about giving the order to make the boat recall signal, for the
men to come off to dinner, when I saw a series of puffs of smoke from
the sand hills and heard the muffled reports of musketry. In a moment
there was a rush of gray-coats toward my men, a rapid return fire from
my guard boat, a struggle on the beach, plainly visible through the
glass, two or three figures lay prone on the sand, and then the heads
of men could be seen swimming from the beach out to the boat. One of
the cutters was meanwhile launched and forced out through the surf, the
rebels keeping up an active fire at it, and then all was quiet, with
two boats pulling out toward us and a group of rebels gathered about my
whaleboat on the beach!

All this had not taken much longer in the action than it has in the
telling, and we on board ship were so utterly surprised at the sudden
attack, that for a moment we looked on in speechless amazement! But
only for a moment, for the boatswain’s call was not needed to bring
all hands on deck, and the orders that rang out sharp and swift were
obeyed with equal promptness.

“Aloft, topmen and lower yard men, and loose topsails and courses!
Stand by to sheet home and hoist of all! Stand by to slip the anchor!
Forecastle there; clear away the rifle and get a range on those
fellows! Be careful, Mr. Allen, and give the gun elevation enough to
clear our boats!”

The sails fell from the yards and flew to the mastheads, the courses
were sheeted home and the tacks ridden down, the jibs ran up, our
anchors were slipped, and filling on the starboard tack we stood in for
the land, the forecastle gun, actively served, throwing shells among
the rebels, who were taking shelter behind the sand hills.

“Put a leadsman in the fore chains, sir! Give me the soundings sharp,
my lad!”

“And a quarter five,” came the quick response.

We were drawing sixteen feet, and that left but fifteen feet of water
under my keel. I certainly could not go much farther in.

“Get another cast, and be quick about it!”

“Qu-a-a-r-ter less five!”

“Stand by to tack ship! Put your helm down!”

“And a h-a-l-f four!”

“Hard a lee! Tacks and sheets! Mainsail haul!”

The dear old barkey came up in the wind like a bird, lost her headway,
paused, trembling, for a moment, and then filled on the other tack as
the head yards flew round. We began to edge off shore again, while the
call from the leadsman, “Quarter less four,” warned me that we had got
on the other tack none too soon.

Out of danger with my ship, I could now turn my attention to the
situation in shore, where I found two of my boats well off to me and
the beach clear of the combatants, who did not care to face my fire;
but my white whaleboat had been run up inside of the sloop, and was
temporarily abandoned.

The two boats were soon alongside, and I learned, to my sorrow, that
six men of the whaleboat crew were prisoners on shore and two of the
second cutter’s crew had been wounded in escaping. The abandoned
cotton was meanwhile floating about in the breakers, a disagreeable
reminder of the cause of our discomfiture.

Mr. Taylor reported that when the rebels opened fire and made a rush
for them, two of our boats were beached. The crew of the cutter ran
their boat out and got her beyond the breakers under a heavy fire with
only two wounded; but the crew of the lighter boat were less fortunate,
and were headed off by the rebels, and six of them were compelled to
surrender at discretion. Several of the Confederates were wounded by
the fire from our guard boat, and Mr. Taylor thought that two of them
were killed.

The next day I sent in a flag of truce boat to Colonel Hobbie, in
command of the Confederates, and endeavored to effect an exchange of
my men for several rebel prisoners I had on board; but failing in that
attempt, I sent my boys their clothing and a liberal supply of tobacco.
All of this, however, as I learned, was confiscated by the rebels, and
none of their property ever came into the hands of my men.

The following day I found that my whaleboat had been taken away
during the previous night, so I went to quarters for target practice
and speedily knocked the sloop into kindling wood with our broadside
battery,--as I should have done at first,--and so brought that episode
to a close.

Six months later, while the Anderson was at New Orleans, Harry Benson,
the coxswain of my whaleboat, who was one of those captured, came off
to the ship and reported for duty. He had escaped from the prison pen
at Matagorda wearing an old Confederate uniform he had managed to
purchase, and had actually walked, nearly six hundred miles, through
Texas to New Orleans!




CHAPTER IX

THE NAVAL TRAITOR


The following spring the commodore ordered the Anderson to New Orleans
to refit, and while there an official letter came to me from the Navy
Department detaching me from the West Gulf Squadron and granting me
two months’ leave of absence, with orders to report at the expiration
of that time to the officer commanding at Cairo, Illinois, for service
in the Mississippi Squadron, which was then under the command of Rear
Admiral David D. Porter.

On inquiry I found that I was one of the half dozen officers selected
as a contingent from the West Gulf Squadron to be placed in command
of Porter’s fleet of river steamers, which had been transformed into
vessels of war.

As the fighting was all over in our department since the capture of
Mobile, and as there was a decided novelty in the river fleet, I did
not object to this transfer, more particularly as a furlough was the
agreeable accompaniment of the change.

So I went home, and of course thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the
first leave of absence I had obtained for more than three years. I
found my only little baby, whom I had never seen, grown into quite a
child of two and a half years, who would scarcely come to the stranger
in uniform she had never seen, who called her daughter. And there were
other family changes, some of them very sad ones, but in those busy
war-days we had little time for sentiment.

Like everything else in this world, my two months’ furlough soon
passed, and I bade everyone good-by, and took the train for Cairo. And
a vile hole it was in the early spring of 1864, the streets flooded
and almost impassable and the wretched hotels filled with soldiers,
gamblers, and the ruck that always hang about the skirts of an army.

When I reported to Commodore Pennock, he was kind enough to say that
he wanted me with him at the Naval Station at Mound City, a few miles
above Cairo, and so I moved out there and was acting as executive
officer of the Navy Yard, as we called it, when the rebel General N.
B. Forrest, in April, made his famous--or infamous--assault on Fort
Pillow, a few miles below us, carrying it by storm and massacring a
large number of the colored troops who were defending the work.

The mangled survivors of this affair were brought at once up to our
naval hospital at Mound City, and we improvised beds as best we could
for their accommodation. General Forrest is still living, I believe,
and I understand that he denies that any extraordinary cruelty
was manifested by his conquering troops. But I speak from my own
observation; and although it is now thirty years ago, the recollection
of the horrors we saw among those poor mangled negroes is still fresh
in my mind, as are the stories of the dying that were poured into our
ears.

It was a brutal, cowardly massacre, pure and simple, and no amount of
attempted explanation can make it anything else. It was only one sad
episode of a cruel war, but it was an episode worthy of Alva, “the
Spanish Butcher.”

To convict the man, it is only necessary to read his original dispatch
to the Confederate government, which fortunately is still preserved
as a double evidence of his brutality and his illiteracy. It reads:
“We busted the fort at ninerclock and scatered the niggers. The men is
still a cillenem [killing them] in the woods. Them as was cotch with
spoons and brestpins and sich was cilled and the rest was payrolled and
told to git.”

Not long after this event, Commodore Pennock sent for me, one day,
and handed me my orders to the command of the ironclad Benton, then
at anchor off Natchez, and suggested that I had better take the first
steamer from Cairo down to my new ship.

In a way this was a piece of good fortune. The Benton had been at
different times the flagship of both Admirals C. W. Davis and David
D. Porter, and she was the largest vessel on the river and carried
the heaviest armament. The trouble was that she was a very slow ship,
and against the strong Mississippi current, going up stream she could
scarcely make four knots an hour.

However, she had spacious quarters for her commanding officer, albeit
they were directly over the boilers; and she was the division flagship,
which carried a certain distinction; while if she ever should get into
a fight again she had the weight of metal to make her a very formidable
opponent. So I packed my traps and was soon steaming down the river on
the fine passenger steamer Olive for my new command.

       *       *       *       *       *

The torrid heat of a waning July day was being tempered by the
delicious evening breeze that was blowing up the Mississippi River as I
sat aft on the berth deck of my ship smoking a post-prandial cigar in
one of the ports and trying to make up my mind to get into my evening
togs and go on shore to make a long-postponed call. I had now been
several months in command of the Benton, and on the whole they had not
been unpleasant nor altogether unprofitable months.

The navy was just then very busily engaged in keeping up a close patrol
of the river to prevent the Confederate trans-Mississippi army in
Arkansas, under the command of General Dick Taylor and Prince Polignac,
from crossing over the river and effecting a junction with General Joe
Johnston, which they were very desirous of accomplishing.

Cooped up where they were, these twenty-five thousand Confederates,
with an abundance of military stores obtained from English ships at
the mouth of the Rio Grande, did no particular harm; but let them get
on the other side of the river and they would make a very material
difference in the comfort of Sherman, who was then starting on his
famous march through Georgia.

The navy was expected to prevent this passage of the river by keeping
up an incessant patrol day and night, and thus a crossing of the army
in force was an impossibility. We were constantly capturing rebel
deserters, or stray couriers with letters from the Confederate leaders
to Johnston; and occasionally, no doubt, some escaped us, but not many
of them, I imagine.

I wish to emphasize the vital importance to us of keeping this patrol
effective, and the great value it would be to the rebels to break it,
as this has an important bearing upon the incident I am about to relate.

The ship stationed next above me had been the light-armored (we called
them tin-clad) steamer--Brilliant I will call her, although that was
not her name. She was commanded by Acting Master Daniel Glenny, a
native of Connecticut, a bright, active young officer, an excellent
seaman, and a man who had always impressed me favorably.

As I was his senior officer and for the time commanding the division,
Glenny always came on board the Benton to report when our ships met,
which was almost daily, and I had often had him at dinner with me, and
had come to know him intimately. A few weeks before this evening he had
been ordered to a beat thirty miles farther up the river, not far from
Skipwith’s Landing, and consequently I had not seen him for perhaps a
month.

As I sat in the port smoking and dreaming of home, my orderly came up
and said the officer of the deck reported that a tug was steaming up
the river, and that she had signaled, “I wish to communicate.”

I at once went on deck, and by that time the tug was within hail.

“Tug ahoy!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“What tug is that? Don’t come any nearer at present!”

“This is the Rover, sir. I have special orders for you from Commodore
Morris from New Orleans.”

“Very well; steam up under my quarter and come on board!”

The tug came near, and as she touched our overhang we lowered a side
ladder, and an officer in uniform came on board and handed me an
official document.

I went down to my cabin, opened the letter, and read:--

  A. V. LIEUT. ROBERT KELSON, Commanding U. S. S. Benton:

    _Sir_,--Upon the receipt of this order you will at once detach
    your executive officer and order him to proceed immediately,
    without any delay, in the tug Rover up the river to the
    U. S. S. Brilliant, where he will take command of that vessel,
    putting her commanding officer, Acting Master Daniel Glenny,
    in close confinement.

    When this duty is accomplished send the Rover back to me here.

                             Very Respt’y,
                               Yr. Obt. Servant,
                   (Signed)      HENRY W. MORRIS,
                   Commodore Commanding West Gulf Squadron.

Here was a pretty kettle of fish! And what did it all mean? I touched
my bell. “Orderly, send the captain of the Rover down here to me.”

The ensign in command of the tug came down to my cabin. “Captain,” said
I, “do you know what duty you are on?”

“No, sir; except that I was to give you a letter and then follow your
instructions.”

“You have no idea of the contents of this letter?”

“I haven’t the least idea, sir.”

“Very well, I shall send an officer up the river with you to-night to
the Brilliant. You will find her not far below Skipwith’s, I fancy. Go
on board your tug, sir, and be all ready to proceed up the river within
an hour.”

The officer bowed and retired. Then I sent for my executive, Mr.
Willetts, feeling as though I were in a dream. He was a plain,
straightforward man with no more imagination in his composition than
a boarding pike. When I read the commodore’s orders to him, he merely
said, “Shall I put Captain Glenny in irons, sir?”

I had never thought of that unpleasant detail in the affair, and could
have beaten Willetts for the suggestion.

“The commodore says ‘close confinement,’ sir,” he added.

“Yes, Mr. Willetts; but I think confinement to his stateroom, with
possibly a sentry on the guards and another at the door of his room,
will be near enough to close confinement until we get further orders. I
can see nothing in this dispatch to warrant me in subjecting an officer
to the indignity of irons.”

So I packed Willetts off within the hour and turned in for a sleepless
night in my berth, with the problem running through my brain, “What on
earth has Glenny been doing to get him into this scrape?”

       *       *       *       *       *

Three evenings after that eventful night a vessel was seen steaming
down the river showing the Brilliant’s night signal. She passed us,
rounded to astern of the Benton, and then steamed up within hailing
distance.

“Benton ahoy!” came the hail in Willetts’ familiar voice. “I wish to
communicate, sir. Can I come alongside?”

“Very well; come on board yourself.”

I heard the captain’s gig called away, and in a few minutes Willetts,
looking as pale as a ghost, stood in my cabin.

“Captain Kelson,”--he stammered.

“What has happened to you, sir?” I queried, for the man’s manner warned
me that something was wrong.

“Captain Glenny escaped last night, sir!” he said, as he sank into a
chair.

“Escaped!”

And then he told me as much of the story as he knew, which was later
supplemented, bit by bit, from different sources.

Three months before, Glenny had made the acquaintance of a Miss ----,
a very bright, dashing girl, devoted to the cause of the Confederacy
and willing, as she often boasted, to sacrifice anything but her honor
for her country. She lived near the river, within Glenny’s beat, and
she soon discovered that he was attracted by her beauty, which was very
striking, and it was not long until she had made him her willing and
abject slave, body and soul.

Of the details of the affair we could learn little except that she
came on board the Brilliant almost daily and Glenny visited her very
frequently on shore. But this we did discover: that for love of this
girl the young officer at last became a traitor and actually entered
into a compact with the rebel officer commanding on shore to deliver up
his ship to the Confederates.

The consideration for this treachery was to be a major’s commission in
their army, a hundred bales of cotton, and one hundred thousand dollars
in gold, while, as it was understood, the girl promised to marry Glenny
when the deed was accomplished.

A plan was arranged by which a body of the Brilliant’s crew was to be
given liberty on shore to go to a negro ball on a certain night, when
the Confederates were to come off in boats in large numbers and take
possession of the steamer, Glenny making a mere nominal resistance.

The sailors were duly sent on shore to the dance; but through a
suspicion on the part of a vigilant junior officer of the Brilliant,
the consummation of the plot was thwarted and the attempted surprise
failed.

Meanwhile, news of the proposed plan was carried down to New Orleans
by a deserter from Dick Taylor’s corps, and it came to Commodore
Morris, who took prompt action by sending to me to place Glenny under
arrest.

Mr. Willetts told me that he obeyed my orders by placing Captain
Glenny under close arrest, and had stationed a sentry at the door of
his stateroom and another at the window, which opened on the guards.
The first night, however, at midnight, Glenny quietly got up, dressed
himself, and, looking out of the window, said in a calm voice to the
sentry, “Take this pitcher to the scuttle butt and bring me some cool
water!”

With the instinctive impulse of obedience to a commanding officer, the
man at once obeyed and went for the water, without a second thought.

During his absence Glenny crawled out of the window to the guards and
lowered himself down by a rope into a small fishing-canoe they had
towing alongside. He then cut the painter, and in a moment he had
dropped astern in the swift current and vanished in the darkness!

We never saw Glenny again, but I heard of him a couple of years later
from a Texan who had met him, under another name, in the Confederacy
at about the time of Lee’s surrender.

One thing is very sure: had the rebels succeeded in getting possession
of the Brilliant, as they planned, and had obtained her signal book
from Glenny, they could have filled her with armed men, steamed down
to the Benton, made their night number and ran alongside of us without
exciting suspicion, and, pouring a large body of men on my decks, could
have captured my ship almost without a struggle.

Then, under cover of the Benton, the trans-Mississippi army could
readily have crossed the river; and with such a body of fresh,
well-armed men in his rear, Sherman might never have reached the
seaboard. Slighter chances than this have changed the course of mighty
campaigns, as all know who have read history.

In conclusion, I wish to say that this incident is veritable truth,
entirely uncolored, and a bit of unwritten history of the only naval
traitor of the great Civil War.




CHAPTER X

HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS


Early in September, 1864, after Admiral Porter had been transferred
to the North Atlantic Squadron, I was ordered from the Benton to the
command of the United States steamer Tyler, relieving Lieutenant
Commander Edward Pritchett, who, in command of the Tyler, had also been
in charge of the White River division of the Mississippi Squadron.

The Tyler, like the Benton, was a ship with a history. She was one
of the two steamers that had performed such excellent service at the
battle of Pittsburg Landing; and the navy claimed that those two boats
really saved the day on the 6th of April, by keeping a large body of
Albert Sidney Johnston’s army in check and covering our disorganized
troops that had been driven down to the bank of the river. By thus
preventing the rebel attack until the next day, Buell was enabled to
effect a junction with Grant, and then turn what had been a check to
our arms into a decided victory for the Union. It is quite certain
that Grant in his dispatches spoke in very high terms of the service
rendered by the gunboats on that occasion.

The Tyler was a large high-pressure wooden steamer, entirely unarmored,
her wheels unusually far aft, and with two very tall smokestacks. In
fitting her for the naval service she had been divested of all her
upper or “hurricane deck” and “texas,” thus giving her a flush spar
deck three quarters of her length, with a spacious poop deck, raised
some six feet, which afforded comfortable cabins for the commander.

She mounted ten 8-inch guns of sixty-three hundredweight on the berth
deck, a 30-pound Parrott rifle on the forecastle, and two brass
12-pounders on the poop. This was a very formidable battery for a river
steamer; and as she was very high out of the water, when the river was
at a good stage her guns commanded the low banks and could sweep the
level country for a great distance.

Captain Pritchett was a very vigilant and active young officer, and
he kept the Tyler in a high state of efficiency, and nearly always in
motion, so that she had earned from the Confederates the name of the
“Black Devil,” from her color and her apparent ubiquity.

Late in October, 1864, Major-General E. R. S. Canby, who was at the
time in command of the military division of the West Mississippi, with
headquarters at New Orleans, came up to White River on the passenger
steamer General Lyon on a tour of inspection of our army in Arkansas.
Brigadier-General Maginnis was in command of ten thousand United States
troops encamped at the mouth of White River.

This point was also my headquarters with the Tyler; and as I happened
to be there at the time, I made an official call upon General Canby,
which he returned, and he afterward dined with me on board my ship.

In this way I came to know that a movement of our army up the White
River in force was contemplated, with a view of flanking General Dick
Taylor and thus retrieving, if possible, the laurels lost in the
unfortunate campaign up the Atchafalaya earlier in the season.

General Canby, was very anxious to make a personal reconnaissance of
the White River. So, at his request, I dispatched the Hastings up the
river with the general and his staff on the morning of November 3, that
he might obtain a clear idea of the proposed field of operations.

All went well with the expedition until the following day, when, in
passing close in to the bank at a bend in the river, a concealed
guerrilla fired at the general, who was seated on a camp-stool on the
upper deck of the boat, and wounded him very severely in the thigh.

Our steamer at once opened fire upon the bushwhacker, but he escaped
into the adjoining woods, evidently uninjured. As the general was found
to be suffering severely from his wound and the surgeon was unable to
extract the ball, Captain Rogers very properly decided to return at
once to White River station.

Upon the arrival of the Hastings a consultation of army surgeons was
held on board, and it was their unanimous opinion that the general
could not be moved with safety, and that he must be sent down to New
Orleans at once.

Accordingly General Maginnis came to me and expressed an earnest desire
to have the Hastings sent down the river.

This was clearly beyond my authority, as the limits of our division
only extended to Natchez, and from there to New Orleans the river was
in charge of vessels of another squadron. But realizing the exigency, I
first obtained an official requisition from General Maginnis, and then,
severing the red tape, sent the Hastings off with the sorely wounded
officer on my own responsibility.

After several months General Canby recovered and wrote me a very
charming note from New Orleans acknowledging what he was pleased to
call my courtesy, and in due time the Navy Department, with much less
warmth, also acknowledged my official report of what I had done and
condoned my unwarranted assumption of authority in consideration of the
circumstances. So every one was satisfied excepting Captain Rogers.
That gentleman, however, seemed to feel himself personally aggrieved
in having had his steamer bushwhacked, and nothing would satisfy him
but an attempt at retaliation.

A Union scout, who had been on a mission up the White River lately,
came into our camp, and from him we learned that the cowardly shot that
wounded General Canby had been fired by a man named Kane, who lived
near by the point where he had bushwhacked our steamer. Graves said
that Kane boasted of having shot the general, and the scout informed
us that his house was the headquarters for all the guerrillas of the
neighborhood, who were but little better than robbers, as they were
largely Confederate deserters, and preyed upon their own people as well
as upon the “Yanks,” as we were called.

After talking the matter over with Rogers and Graves, I consented to
join in an effort to capture Kane and his gang, and I detailed my
executive officer, Mr. Wilson, with fifty men to accompany me with
Captain Rogers in the raid.

As there was no moon, we decided to make the attempt at once; and as we
wished to reach Kane’s house late at night, we started at a very early
hour in the morning, no information of the projected raid being given
out, as such news had a way of traveling overland to the Confederates
in a most unaccountable manner.

In fact it was announced carelessly on shore that the Hastings was
going up to Cairo for repairs, so when she was missed the next morning
it was assumed that she had gone there.

We steamed very quietly up the White River to a point where a bayou
made in to the stream, some dozen miles below Kane’s plantation, and,
turning the boat, backed her up the bayou about a mile to a bend where
she was completely concealed by the overhanging cottonwood trees,
draped with their long pendants of moss.

Here we waited for night. At eleven o’clock we cast off from the bank
and steamed down the bayou and into the main river, which we ascended
with great caution, literally feeling our way, until Graves assured me
that we were but a scant mile below Kane’s house. We then ran in to the
bank and, securing the boat to the trunk of a great tree, landed our
shore party, which altogether numbered one hundred and ten officers and
men.

We took up the line of march, Graves ahead, Rogers and I following
closely, as indeed was very necessary in the darkness, and the men
coming after us in double file and in as close order as was practicable.

The road was abominable, a mere cowpath, in many places grown up and
almost impassable, and shortly after leaving the steamer we were
compelled to cross a run where the water was knee-deep; but at last we
came in sight of the house, a long, low, story and a half structure,
part log, part frame, surrounded on two sides by a broad porch. At a
short distance and near the woods, which on that side came quite close
to the home buildings, were three wretched cabins or negro quarters, a
half-ruined ginhouse, a smokehouse, two very large corn cribs, and a
high-roofed barn.

No lights were visible, and as it was past midnight it was probable
that all the inmates of the house were asleep. Of course it was
necessary to surround the house closely, to avoid the escape of our
quarry; but the danger in that operation lay in arousing the dogs,
always so numerous and so watchful on a Southern plantation, and thus
giving the alarm.

Graves suggested to me in a whisper that he and Captain Rogers had
better take one portion of the men and, after falling back some little
distance, make a détour, so that they could approach the house from the
rear and farther side, while I should remain where I was and guard the
front and near side.

“When you hear an owl hoot three times and after a pause hoot once,
you may know that we are in position and ready to close in. I will
then wait five minutes and repeat the same signal. When you hear it,
captain, close in with your party, side and front, and we will have
them trapped, sure.”

I deferred to Graves’s suggestions, as he was quite a famous scout.
“But,” said I, “Mr. Graves, I hope you can make your owl hoots very
natural. You know these fellows we are after are quite familiar with
woodcraft, and they would only be aroused and made suspicious by a bad
imitation of an owl.”

“Don’t you fear for that, captain. I can cheat the owls themselves, let
alone these butternuts.”

Graves and Rogers left us with their party, disappearing as silently
in the gloomy shadows of the night as wood goblins. I gathered my own
men closely together, warned them in low tones against making the least
noise, and then waited patiently for the signal.

While on board the boat or during the excitement of the march, I had
not felt the cold; but now that we were quiet I found myself chilled
to the bone, notwithstanding my thick pea-jacket, which I wore with
my sword and pistol belt buckled outside of it. Occasionally I heard
the distant baying of a hound; a possum or rabbit rustled through
the dead leaves as he crossed the path, and once I heard the hoot of
an owl from the woods in the rear of the house we were watching. I
listened anxiously, but there was only a single call, evidently not
from our companions. Then I heard what boded ill for the success of our
venture--the sharp yelp of a foxhound near the barn, and soon it was
repeated nearer at hand!

“The brute has scented us, sir,” said Mr. Watson, “and he will have the
whole place alarmed if he is not stopped. What shall we do?”

But before he had finished speaking, three distant hoots of an owl were
heard. We paused, and in a moment they were followed by a single hoot,
and then all was still.

“Five minutes more, Watson, and we will make our rush. Let the cur bark
if he will.”

Again the hoot of the owl broke the stillness of the night, this time
nearer, and, giving the word, we rushed at double-quick from our cover,
deployed, and, as our comrades appeared, we had the house closely
surrounded on every side.

“Keep a sharp lookout, Mr. Watson, and do not let a living soul pass
your line. Don’t parley with any who may try to escape. If they fail to
stop and throw up their hands, shoot! We have shrewd and dangerous men
to deal with, sir.”

With Rogers, Graves, and a dozen men I mounted the steps of the porch
and knocked loudly at the door. There was no reply, but we could hear
movements within.

“Better not wait, captain,” said Graves; “the Lord only knows what
trick they may be up to. I would break in the door.” And break it in we
did.

Then, turning the slides of our boat lanterns, we flashed the light
into the hall, which was bare and empty. Near the foot of the stairs
was a rough cedar settle with a row of pegs, from which hung a quantity
of feminine wraps of various kinds and colors, with a dozen or more
bonnets and worsted head coverings, but not a single masculine garment
or hat, save a dilapidated old broad-brimmed straw, which had evidently
been left over from the past summer.

I saw Graves gazing at this array of women’s gear with a puzzled look
on his face.

“Why, captain, this looks more like a young ladies’ boarding-school
than a bushwhacker’s crib. What does it mean, I wonder?”

A feeble light flashed over the banisters from the upper landing, and a
tremulous female voice exclaimed, “What is it you want here, gentlemen,
at this time of night?”

“Well, madam,” I replied, “we want Mr. Kane for one, and such of his
friends--men, I mean, not women--as may be here.”

“Mr. Kane is not here, sir, I assure you.”

“I regret to doubt your word, madam, but it is my painful duty to
search this house, and I must do it quickly. Please dress yourself at
once, for I can allow you only five minutes for your toilet.”

The lady gave a little scream. “Oh, sir, you mustn’t come up here with
all those men. It is quite impossible. There are none here but women.
There isn’t a man in the house.”

“Where _are_ the men, then?” I queried.

She hesitated, but only for a moment. “Cousin Bob and the boys are all
away at a dance at Mr. Shriveley’s, five miles up the Greenberry road.
They won’t be back until morning.”

Graves drew me aside. “She is fibbing; didn’t you notice how she
hesitated? Those men are upstairs, and we shall have to go up for them.”

It was very probable that he was right, so I said: “Madam, much as I
regret it, my duty is plain. Your house is surrounded by the forces of
the United States, under my command. I must search this house for the
persons I have come here to arrest, and I shall do it, disturbing you
as little as possible. You can have five minutes undisturbed in which
to dress yourself--not a moment more.”

She saw that I was in earnest and hurried away. Sending some men with
Mr. Watson to thoroughly search the lower rooms, we went upstairs at
the expiration of the five minutes, and found three large chambers with
dormer windows giving upon the roof. The first room we entered had two
beds, and by the dim light of our lantern four heads could be seen
buried beneath the bed clothing.

“Well, sir,” said the lady we had first encountered, as she entered the
room wearing a morning wrapper, with a shawl drawn about her shoulders,
“are you satisfied that I told you the truth and that there are no men
here?”

The smothered giggle that came from beneath the blankets was
unmistakably feminine. Our position was certainly becoming
embarrassing, not to say ridiculous, and I was beginning to feel very
uncomfortable under the gaze of the lady who was acting as spokeswoman.

To tell the honest truth, I would rather have been facing a ten-gun
battery just then--and the worst of it was that the woman evidently
knew it.

Graves, who was of a coarser temperament, came to the rescue: “Madam,”
said he, “Captain Kelson has already told you that we are here on duty
and that we must perform it. If the persons in these beds are women,
let them put out their hands,--they can keep their faces hid if they
choose,--and we will be satisfied,” and he looked at me for my assent.

“That is a fair proposition, madam, and will bring this disagreeable
business to an end,” said I.

The lady hesitated, then went to the beds and whispered to the
occupants, and out came four white, ringed, and very shapely hands from
beneath the coverings.

“I am satisfied, madam,” said I, “and as a matter of form Mr. Graves
will accompany you alone to the other chambers and put the occupants to
the same test.”

Graves went with the lady, while we waited in the hall, and when he
returned he was almost dumb with amazement.

“There are sixteen women in this house, not counting the madam here,
and not a ghost of a man! What does it mean? I feel as though I had
been raiding a nunnery!”

We went downstairs accompanied by our fair friend, who, strange to
say, now that our search was over, seemed uncommonly willing to talk,
carefully evading our questions, however, when we endeavored to obtain
some clue to this houseful of girls,--for most of them were evidently
young women.

While I was apologizing as best I could for our ungallant and untimely
visit, there was the report of a musket outside, and as we rushed to
the porch a half dozen scattering shots were heard in the direction of
the barn, while the hounds set up a dismal howl.

Mr. Watson came toward me in a great state of excitement.

“They have got away, sir!”

“Who have got away?”

“The men! There were a dozen of them in the barn and hearing us they
quietly broke a board out at the back and got away in the woods. The
last man of them made a noise and attracted our attention, and we tried
to catch him; but he had the start of us and got away with the rest of
them!”

It was even so; while we were searching the house and were being
detained by the fluent young woman, her friends were escaping.

It seems they had had a little dance at the house, and a number of
girls had ridden over to take part in it. When it was finished it was
too late for them to go to their homes, so their hostess had doubled
them up in her beds, and the men had quartered themselves in the barn
and thus escaped capture.

We returned to the Hastings and made the best of our way back to our
headquarters, with very little to say to the outside world concerning
our raid. This episode, however, commencing in comedy, had a tragic
ending for at least one of the actors.

Graves, the scout, was soon after sent on a special mission by the
general on the other side of the river, not far from Jackson, within
the Confederate lines. By an unfortunate chance he there met, face to
face, one day, the young woman who had parleyed with us at her cousin’s
house on White River. Graves was in Confederate uniform, which he often
wore on these scouting expeditions, but the woman recognized him at
once and denounced him to the military authorities. He was arrested,
tried before a drum-head court martial, and was hanged within twelve
hours!




CHAPTER XI

THE END OF THE STRUGGLE


On the 9th of the following April, 1865, General Robert E. Lee
surrendered the Army of Virginia to General U. S. Grant, beneath the
famous Appomattox apple-tree, and our long civil war was practically
closed.

For months afterward, straggling bands of Confederates would come
riding down to the banks of the river on the Mississippi and Arkansas
coasts, and, waving flags of truce, ask for confirmation of the news
they had heard, that “the old man had surrendered.” The gunboats had
been supplied with official printed copies of the terms of capitulation
accepted by Lee, and we gave these out freely.

It was an interesting sight to watch these war-worn veterans as, with
varying emotions, they read the documents that proved to them that the
cause for which they had fought so long and so well was irretrievably
lost.

Most of them frankly accepted the situation at once; some seemed
relieved that the disastrous struggle was at last over; all were
surprised and gratified to find that they were to have Grant’s liberal
terms,--permission to retain their side-arms, horses, and saddles.

So they went their way to their several plantations, saddened men, but
with an evident determination to devote themselves in the future much
more closely to their own private affairs and to give politics the
go-by.

In the summer of 1865 the Navy Department issued a circular to the
large body of volunteer officers in the navy, notifying them that as
hostilities had ceased, the department would accept the resignations of
such as desired to return to private life.

And so in July, I, with many other of my brother officers, sent in my
resignation, which was accepted with the thanks of the department “for
long and faithful service,” and I received my honorable discharge,
a document which, duly framed, now hangs over my library fireplace,
crossed by the sword which I had worn during the four eventful years of
the civil war.

Since 1865 the old sailor whose career you have followed has had no
more hairbreadth ’scapes by field or flood, such as have been here set
down, and, barring a couple of peaceful passages to and from Europe in
a passenger steamer, he has seen nothing more of the sea than could be
observed from the rocks of Nahant or Mt. Desert on a summer afternoon.
He meets his old shipmates occasionally at the dinners of the Loyal
Legion, and enjoys listening to a good yarn on these occasions with as
much zest as he did a full half century ago, when as a boy in the old
Bombay he used to coil himself up near the windlass bitts on his first
voyage to sea.

And now, after closing this record of more than twenty busy years of
a sailor’s life in both branches of the service, the writer, from his
cosy chimney corner, bids his readers reluctantly that saddest of all
words, good-by.




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Transcriber’s Note:

Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphens, accents and spelling have
been retained as they appear in the original publication except as
follows:

  In the Contents, Part II, Chapter X.
    HUNTING FOR BUSHWACKERS _changed to_
    HUNTING FOR BUSHWHACKERS

  Page 268
    went downstairs acompanied by _changed to_
    went downstairs accompanied by

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68103 ***