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Table of Contents

Hatteras.—"Black Drink."—Fortress Monroe.—General Butler.—Small-pox.—"L'Isle des Chats."—Lightning.—Farragut.—Troops land.—Surrender of Forts.

In February, 1862, the writer of the following pages, an officer on the staff of Brigadier-general Thomas Williams, was stationed at Hatteras. Of all forlorn stations to which the folly and wickedness of the Rebellion condemned our officers, Hatteras was the most forlorn. It blows a gale of wind half the time. The tide runs through the inlet at the rate of five miles an hour. It was impossible to unload the stores for Burnside's expedition during more than three days of the week. After an easterly blow—and there are enough of them—the waters are so piled up in the shallow sounds between Hatteras and the Main, that the tide ebbs without intermission for twenty-four hours.

The history of Hatteras is curious. There can be little doubt that English navigators penetrated into those waters long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. But the colony was not a success. Of the colonists some returned to England; others died of want. The present inhabitants of the island are a sickly, puny race, the descendants of English convicts. When Great Britain broke up her penal settlement at the Bermudas, she transported the most hardened convicts to Van Diemens Land; those who had been convicted of minor offenses, she turned loose upon our coast. Here they intermarried; for the inhabitants of the Main look down upon them as an inferior race, and will have no social intercourse with them. The effect of these intermarriages is seen in the degeneracy of the race.

Until within a few years their principal occupation was wrecking. Hatteras lies on the direct route of vessels bound from the West Indies to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. The plan adopted by these guileless natives to aid the storm in insuring a wreck was simple, but effective. There is a half-wild pony bred upon the island called "marsh pony." One of these animals was caught, a leg tied up Rarey fashion, a lantern slung to his neck, and the animal driven along the beach on a stormy night. The effect was that of a vessel riding at anchor. Other vessels approached, and were soon unpleasantly aware of the difference between a ship and a marsh pony.

The dwellings bear witness to the occupation of their owners. The fences are constructed of ships' knees and planks. In their parlors you may see on one side a rough board door, on the other an exquisitely finished rose-wood or mahogany cabin door, with silver or porcelain knobs. Contrast reigns everywhere.

But the place is not without its attractions to the botanist. A wild vine, of uncommon strength and toughness, grows abundantly, and is used in the place of rope. The iron-tree, hard enough to turn the edge of the axe, and heavy as the metal from which it takes its name, is found in abundance, and the tea-tree, from whose leaves the inhabitants draw their tea when the season has been a bad one for wrecks. This tea-tree furnishes the "black drink," which the Florida Indians drank to make themselves invulnerable. They drank it with due religious ceremonies till it nauseated them, when it was supposed to have produced the desired effect. What a pity that we can not associate some such charming superstition with the maladie de mer! It would so comfort us in our affliction!

But we were not to stay long on this enchanted isle. Butler had organized his expedition against New Orleans, and it was now ready to sail. He had applied for Thomas Williams, who had been strongly recommended to him by Weitzel, Kenzel, and other regular officers of his staff. Early in March we received orders to report to Butler at Fortress Monroe. We took one of those rolling tubs they call "propellers," which did the service between the fortress and Hatteras for the Quartermaster's Department; and, after nearly rolling over two or three times, we reached Old Point. Here we found the immense steamer the Constitution, loaded with three regiments, ready to sail. Williams had hoped to have two or three days to run North and see his wife and children, whom he had not seen for months. But with him considerations of duty were before all others. He thought that three regiments should be commanded by a brigadier, and he determined to sail at once. It was a disappointment to us all. To him the loss was irreparable. He never saw his family again.

It has always appeared to me that General Butler has not received the credit to which he is entitled for the capture of New Orleans. Without him New Orleans would not have been taken in 1862, and a blow inflicted upon the Confederacy, which the London Times characterized as the heaviest it had yet received—"almost decisive." The writer has no sympathy with General Butler's extreme views, and no admiration for his protégés; but he was cognizant of the New Orleans expedition from its inception, he accompanied it on the day it set sail, he landed with it in New Orleans, he remained in that city or its neighborhood during the whole of Butler's command; and a sense of justice compels him to say that Butler originated the expedition, that he carried it through, under great and unexpected difficulties, that he brought it to a successful termination, and that his government of the city at that time, and under the peculiar circumstances, was simply admirable.

It is not perhaps generally known that it was Butler who urged this enterprise upon the President. He was answered that no troops could be spared; M'Clellan wanted them all for his advance upon Richmond. Butler thereupon offered to raise the troops himself, provided the Government would give him three old regiments. The President consented. The troops were raised in New England, and three old regiments—the Fourth Wisconsin, the Sixth Michigan, and the Twenty-first Indiana—designated to accompany them. At the last moment M'Clellan opposed the departure of the Western troops, and even applied for the "New England Division." It was with some difficulty that, appealing to the President, and reminding him of his promise, Butler was able to carry out the design for which the troops had been raised.

We sailed from Old Point on the 6th of March with the three regiments I have named. We numbered three thousand souls in all on board. If any thing were wanting at this day to prove the efficacy of vaccination, our experience on board that ship is sufficient. We took from the hospital a man who had been ill with the small-pox. He was supposed to be cured. Two days out, his disease broke out again. The men among whom he lay were packed as close as herring in a barrel, yet but one took the disease. They had all been vaccinated within sixty days. I commend this fact to the attention of those parish authorities in England who still obstinately refuse to enforce the Vaccination Act.

Five days brought us, in perfect health, to Ship Island. Here was another Hatteras, with a milder climate, and no "black drink;" a low, sandy island in the Gulf, off Mobile. This part of the Gulf of Mexico was discovered and settled by the French. They landed on Ship Island, and called it "L'Isle des Chats," from the large number of raccoons they found there. Not being personally acquainted with that typical American, they took him for a species of cat, and named the island accordingly. From Ship Island and the adjacent coast, which they settled, the French entered Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchartrain, and so up the Amite River in their boats. They dragged their boats across the short distance which separates the upper waters of the Amite from the Mississippi, embarked upon the "Father of Waters," and sailed down the stream. Here they played a trick upon John Bull; for, meeting an English fleet coming up, the first vessels that ever entered the mouths of the Mississippi, they boarded them, claimed to be prior discoverers, and averred that they had left their ships above. There existed in those days an understanding among maritime nations that one should not interfere with the prior discoveries of another. The English thereupon turned, and the spot, a short distance below New Orleans, is to this day called "English Turn."

We remained at the "Isle of Cats" about six weeks—the life monotonous enough. The beach offered a great variety of shell-fish, devil-fish, horse-shoes, and sea-horses. An odd thing was the abundance of fresh, pure water. Dig a hole two feet deep anywhere in the sand on that low island, rising scarcely five feet above the sea, and in two hours it was filled with fresh water. After using it a week, it became brackish; when all it was necessary to do was to dig another hole.

When on Ship Island, I witnessed a curious freak of lightning. One night we had a terrible thunderstorm, such as one sees only in those southern latitudes. In a large circular tent, used as a guard-tent, eight prisoners were lying asleep, side by side. The sentry stood leaning against the tent-pole, the butt of the musket on the ground, the bayonet against his shoulder. The lightning struck the tent-pole, leaped to the bayonet, followed down the barrel, tearing the stock to splinters, but only slightly stunning the sentry. Thence it passed along the ground, struck the first prisoner, killing him; passed through the six inside men without injury to them; and off by the eighth man, killing him.

Finally, the expedition was complete. Stores, guns, horses, all had arrived. Butler became impatient for the action of the navy. He went to the South-west Pass, where Farragut's fleet was lying, and urged his advance. Farragut replied that he had no coal. Butler answered that he would give him what he wanted, and sent him fifteen hundred tons. He had had the foresight to ballast his sailing ships with coal, and so had an ample supply. A week passed, and still the ships did not ascend the river. Again Butler went to the Pass, and again Farragut said that he had not coal enough—that once past the forts, he might be detained on the river, and that it would be madness to make the attempt unless every ship were filled up with coal. Once again Butler came to his aid, and gave him three thousand tons. We were naturally surprised that so vital an expedition should be neglected by the Navy Department. The opinion was pretty general among us that the expedition was not a favorite with the Department, and that they did not anticipate any great success from it. They were quite as surprised as the rest of the world when Farragut accomplished his great feat.

At length all was ready. The troops were embarked, and lay off the mouth of the river, waiting for the action of the fleet. Farragut, after an idle bombardment of three days by the mortar-boats, which he told us he had no confidence in, but which he submitted to in deference to the opinions of the Department and of Porter (the firing ceased, by-the-way, when it had set fire to the wooden barracks in Fort Jackson, and might have done some good if continued), burst through the defenses, silenced the forts, and ascended the river. It is not my province to describe this remarkable exploit. Its effect was magical. An exaggerated idea prevailed at that time of the immense superiority of land batteries over ships. One gun on shore, it was said, was equal to a whole ship's battery. The very small results obtained by the united English and French fleets during the Crimean war were quoted in proof. Those magnificent squadrons effected scarcely any thing, for the capture of Bomarsund was child's play to them. The English naval officers, proud of their service and its glorious history, were delighted to find that, when daringly led, ships could still do something against land batteries, and all England rang with Farragut's exploit.

The part played by the army in this affair was minor, but still important. Our engineer officers, who had assisted in building forts St. Philip and Jackson, knew the ground well. Under their guidance we embarked, first in light-draught gun-boats, then in barges, and made our way through the shallow waters of the Gulf, and up the bayou, till we landed at Quarantine, between Fort St. Philip and the city, cutting off all communication between them. As, in the stillness of an April evening, we made our slow way up the bayou amidst a tropical vegetation, festoons of moss hanging from the trees and drooping into the water, with the chance of being fired on at any moment from the dark swamp on either side, the effect upon the imagination was striking, and the scene one not easily forgotten.

Farragut had passed up the river, but the forts still held out, and the great body of the troops was below them. When, however, they found themselves cut off from any chance of succor, the men in Fort St. Philip mutinied, tied their officers to the guns, and surrendered. Fort Jackson followed the example. No doubt our turning movement had hastened their surrender by some days. I once suggested to Butler that we had hastened it by a week. "A month, a month, sir," he replied.

It was here they told us that the United States flag had been hauled down from the Mint by a mob headed by that scoundrel Mumford, and dragged through the mud. I heard Butler swear by all that was sacred, that if he caught Mumford, and did not hang him, might he be hanged himself. He caught him, and he kept his oath. There never was a wiser act. It quieted New Orleans like a charm. The mob, who had assembled at the gallows fully expecting to hear a pardon read at the last moment, and prepared to create a riot if he were pardoned, slunk home like whipped curs.