CgI8J33

"I give t^e/e MaoAs
\ fvr the faiim&i^ if a- Celltgi at. t^ C<^/y"

Bought with the income
of the
Oliver Wolcott Fund

LEAVES

A LAWYER'S LIFE

AFLOAT AND ASHORE.

BY CHARLES COWLEY,
JUDGE- ADVOCATE, S. A. B. SQUADRON,
Author of " Histort op Lowell," " Famous Divorces of all
Ages," " Eeminiscences of James C. Atek," etc., etc.

LOWELL, MASS.
Published bt Penhallow Printing Company,
Boston— Lee & Shepard.
1879.

Copyright, i 879.
By Charles Cowley.
All rights reserved.

PREFACE.
It was my custom, while on the Staif of Admiral
Dahlgren, to note briefly, from time to time, incidents
that took place in the Squadron under his command.
I also carefully noted the events that had taken place
in that Squadron in Admiral Dupont's time, as they
were related to me by those who had been eye-wit
nesses thereto. Since my return to civil life, it has
been my custom to examine the successive histories of
the late War that have appeared, and to note their
errors and their excellencies, in relation to the South
Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and in relation to the
Department of the South, which cooperated with that
Squadron, These pages will show how little attention, com
paratively, most of our historians have bestowed upon
the naval and military forces whose services, suffer
ings and sacrifices are here passed in review.
The mingling of narrative and criticism has its
advantages as well as its disadvantages. In the pres
ent case, I indulge the hope that it may have the effect
to secure to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron
its proper place in the history of the War.

6 PREFACE.
Without concealing my personal predilection for
the Cause of the Union, I have sought to treat the
Lost Cause with entire candor.
Though I am not prepared to say, with General
William E. Bartlett, that "I am as proud of the men
who charged so bravely with Pickett's Division on our
lines at Gettysburg, as I am of the men who so brave
ly met and repulsed them there ;" I am prepared to say
with him, that, notwithstanding the great and wide
spread demoralization which 'attended it, " the War
developed and proved, on both sides, the noblest quali •
ties of American manhood. It has left us soldiers and
sailors, once foes, now friends, a memory of hard-fought
fields, of fearful sacrifices, and of heroic valor."
Since these pages were in type, the pardon of
Captain Small, which was foreshadowed on page 54,
has become an accomplished fact.
I learned, long ago, that it was Senator Wade,
and not General Hawley, who made the faux ¦pas at
the Navy Department, recorded on page 124; but
failed, by inadvertence, to make the proper correction
until that page had been printed.
CHAELES COWLEY.
Lowell, Mass., 1879.

"History is false to her trust when she betrays
the cause of truth, even under the influence of patri
otic impulses. It is not true that all the virtue was in
the Whig camp [during the Eevolution,] or that the
Tories were a horde of ruffians. They were conserv
atives, and their error was in carrying to excess the
sentiment of loyalty [to their King, just as the error
of the Confederates lay in carrying to excess the sen
timent of loyalty to the State,] which is founded in
virtue. Their constancy embittered the contest. Their
cause deserved to fail; but their sufferings are entitled
to respect. Prejudice has blackened their name ; but
history will speak of them as they were, with their
failings and their virtues," — James L, Pbttigeu,
"We have, we can have, no barbarian memory of
wrongs, for which brave men have made the last expi
ation to the brave," — Eufus Choate.
"And the men who, for conscience' sake, fought
against their government at Gettysburg, ought easily
to be forgiven by the sons of men who, for conscience'
sake, fought against their government at Lexington
and Bunker Hill." — William E. Baetlett,

LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S LIFE
AFLOAT AND ASHORE.

CHAPTER I.

Blockades — Steam Navies — The Southern Block
ade — Our Blockading Squadrons — Compte de Paris —
The Steamer Iroquois in Chase of the E, E. Lee,
Blockades are of two kinds — military and
commercial. Military blockades have been
practiced from the earliest times } they are
merely the naval equivalent of sieges by land —
having for their object the capture of the ports
invested. Commercial blockades have for their
principal object the crippling of the enemy by
stopping his imports, and by isolating him from
the commercial world.
So long as commerce was held in contempt,
as it was in all the great monarchies and re
publics of antiquity, there was no occasion for

TO LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
this form of warfare. It was not until the
exploits of Vasco de Gama and Columbus had
opened the great routes, as well as the great
commodities, of modern commerce, that the
Dutch Provinces of" Spain, in their grand strug
gle for independence, struck a powerful blow at
their truculent foe by establishing the first
commercial blockade — that of the Scheldt.
The blockade which the United States
enforced against the ports of the Southern
Confederacy, was peculiar. It combinefl the
objects of a military, with those of a commercial
blockade : and our Supreme Court recognized it
as possessing a two-fold character — as valid by
municipal law, and as sanctioned by international
law. Had the Federal leaders thoroughly com
prehended the difficulties and complexities and
the enormous magnitude of the work of block
ading the three thousand miles of coast between
the Potomac and the Rio Grande, when the
Executive Proclamation of Blockade was issued,
on the nineteenth of April, 1861, the hand of
President Lincoln might have been stayed. Of
all the great blockades in European history,
the only one that can be compared with the
Federal blockade of the South, was that which
was enforced by Great Britain against France

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. \ i
and her allies — with one brief intermission
— from the time of the Revolution to the fall of
Napoleon.* The power which chiefly made the Federal
blockade so effective — the power without which
indeed the Civil War might have had a different
termination — was that of steam.
The power of steam, which enabled the
Federal government to transfer a vast army,
in one week, from the seaboard of the Atlantic
to the valley of the Mississippi, — the power of
steam, of which the South was substantially
deprived, when, one by one, its interior lines
were cut by the Federal forces, and especially
when Sherman disabled all the railroads from
Atlanta to the Sea, — this power, and this alone,
enabled the Federal Navy to post its pickets at
the mouth of every harbor, river, inlet, sound or
bay, from Maryland to Mexico ; to arrest all
operations of commerce, substantially, save
with two obscure ports ; to recover all the Sea
Lslands from North Edisto to Tybee ; to make
similar conquests on the coast of North Caro
lina ; to run the batteries on the Mississippi ; to
plant the Star-Spangled Banner over New
*See Cowley's Blockades of History, in Dalilgren's
Maritime International Law, pp. 137-142 : also, London
Quarterly Review, October, 1876. *

12 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
Orleans ; and to perform a thousand other feats
which, without a Steam Navy, would scarcely
have been attempted.
Innumerable coast-line indentations multi-
pUed a thousand fold the difficulties which the
vast extent of the Southern seaboard presented
to the blockading forces. Every sound, bay,
inlet, harbor or estuary from Cape Henry to
Matamoras, offered shelter to inward bound
craft laden with contraband of war, as well as to
cotton-carriers outward bound. Terrible tem
pests lashed the shores of the Atlantic, and the
Gulf coast bristled with reefs and rocks.
The ports of Virginia and North Carolina
were naturally the first to receive the attention
of the Federal Navy. On the thirtieth of April,
notice of the establishment of the blockade at
those ports was given by Flag Officer Pender-
grast at Hampton Roads, agreeably to the
requirements of international law.*
On the eleventh of May, Captain McKean
appeared off Charleston in the Steam Frigate
Niagara, and gave notice of the blockade of
that port, where his movements were watched
with curious interest. Having boarded half a
*Our prize courts released such ships as were seized
for breach of blockade, without previous notice and
warning*

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 13
dozen neutral vessels, and ordered them off the
whole .Southern coast. Captain McKean pro
ceeded to the Gulf, and arrived off Pensacola
May 25th,
On the twenty-sixth of May, Captain Poor
arrived off Pas a I'Outre in the Steamer Brooklyn,
and gave notice of the blockade of the Mississippi.
About the same time. Commander Porter arrived
in Mobile Bay in the Steamer Powhatan, and
gave notice of the blockade of Mobile.
On the twenty-eighth of May, Flag Officer
Stringham arrived off Charleston in the Steamer
Minnesota, and thenceforth "the Venice of
America" and all the ports of South Carolina
were under close surveillance for four years.
Op the thirty-first of May, the Steamer
Union began the blockade of Savannah.
On the seventh of June, Flag Officer Mer-
vine reached Key West, and posted his pickets
along the West coast of Florida and in the Gulf
On the second of July, Commander Alden,
then commanding the steamer South Carolina,
sent in notice of the blockade of Galveston.
On the twenty-third of the same month, Flag
Officer Stringham sent in notice of the blockade
of Appalachicola. Considering the vast length of this line of
pickets, and the fewness of the ships engaged,

14 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
the establishment of this blockade seems rather
a subject for merriment than for serious con
sideration. Mr. Welles found only forty-two
ships in commission, March 4, 1861 ; and of
these three were in the Mediterranean, seven
on the coast of Africa, three in the East Indies,
and two in Brazil. Only four ships were then
in Northern ports available for service.
At first, men laughed at the attempt of
the Secretary of this ludicrously small Navy
to blockade a coast measuring 3,549 statute
miles, (much of it having a double shore to be
guarded,) and containing 189 harbors, river
openings, or indentations ; but they were soon
taught that, as Lord Macaulay had said, "it is
not from the laughers alone that the philosophy
of history is to be learned."
For, farcical as it seemed at the outset, this
blockade soon became a matter of the most
serious moment. Three days after the notifica
tion of the blockade by Flag Officer Pendergrast,
the Federal Navy, small as it was,, began to send
in its prizes. "The rapid rise in the prices of
all imported commodities in the insurgent States
presented," as the Count of Paris most justly
observed, "the exact measure of ,the efficiency
of the blockade."" 
?History of the Civil War, vol. 2, p. 434. The words
of the learned and candid Count might lead to the inference

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 5
When Congress met, in December, the
Secretary of the Navy reported 136 vessels
purchased, 34 dismantled vessels repaired and
put in commission, and 52 vessels in process of
construction ; making a total of 264 ships, 2,557
guns, and 22,000 men.
The vessels engaged in this blockade duty
were grouped into two squadrons : — the Atlantic
Blockading Squadron, which consisted of 22
vessels, carrying 296 guns and 3,300 men, under
Flag Officer Stringham, and- which had for its
field of operations the whole Atlantic coast from
Norfolk to Cape Florida ;— and the Gulf Block
ading Squadron, which consisted of 21 vessels,
carrying 282 guns, and 3,500 men, under Flag
Officer Mervine, and which had for its field the
entire Gulf coast from Florida to the Rio Grande.
These squadrons were re-enforced as fast
^ as new ships could be built, or old ships
bought and repaired. More than two hundred.
vessels were built, and more than four hundred
purchased, during the War ; the latter represent
ing every style of marine architecture — ¦
"From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook."
that our first prizes were taken after the disaster of Bull
Run, July 21, 1861, But the fact is that three prizes were
captured as early as April. Thenceforward prizes were
taken almost daily until all the great ports' of the South
were recovered. Lists of all the prizes are appended to
Mr. Welles' Report for 1865

i6 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
The number of men in the naval service
was rapidly increased from 7,500 to 51,500.
Referring to the officers and seamen in
this service, on the page already cited, the
Count of Paris, in whose luminous narrative
many of our naval operations are more ade
quately recorded, and more generously applaud
ed, than in some of the works of our own
historians, says : — "Their task was the more
arduous on account of its extreme monotony.
To the watches and fatigues of every kind which
the duties of the blockade service involved,
there were added difficulties of another character.
It was necessary to instruct the newly-recruited
crews, to train officers who had been taken from
the merchant navy, and to ascertain, under the
worst possible circumstances, the good and the
bad qualities of merchant vessels too quickly
converted into men-of-war. In these junctures,
the Federal Navy displayed a perseverance, a
devotion, and a knowledge of its profession,
which reflect as much honor upon it as its more
brilliant feats of arms,"
To make the blockade more effective, the
Atlantic Squadron, in September, was divided
into two. Flag Officer Goldsborough took com
mand of the North Atlantic, guarding the coasts
of Virginia and North Carolina ; while Flag

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. ' 17
Officer Dupont was assigned to the South
Atlantic, guarding the coasts of South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida.
The Gulf Squadron was also divided. Flag
Officer McKean took command of the East
Gulf, from Cape Canaveral to Pensacola ; while
Flag Officer Farragut was assigned the com
mand of the West Gulf, from Pensacola to
Matamoras. But before these divisions were fully con
cluded, Dupont and Farragut severaWy signal
ized their accession to their respective commands
by capturing the best of the enemy's positions
for their own head-quarters, — the one at Port
Royal, the other at New Orleans.
Admiral Goldsborough having held the
command ofthe North Atlantic about one year,
was relieved by Admiral Lee, who held that
command about two years, when Admiral
Porter succeeded him. The period of Porter's
command was brief, but brilliant, for it was
signalized by the bombardment and capture of
F'ort Fisher, aud the 'recovery of Wilmington
and all that remained unredeemed of North
Carolina and Virginia. *
Admiral Dupont, as will more fully appear
hereafter, retained the South Atlantic Squadron
till July, 1863, when he was relieved by Admi-

1 8 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
ral Dahlgren, who hauled down his flag two
years later at Washington, when the two Atlan
tic Squadrons, reduced to a shadow of their
former greatness, were united under the com
mand of Admiral Radford.
In the East Gulf, the command fell suc
cessively on Admirals Lardner, Bailey and
Stribling. Admiral Farragut retained the com
mand of the West Gulf till after the capture of
Mobile in 1864; and his successor was Admiral
Thatcher, to whose command the East Gulf was
added at the close of the war.
Each of these fleets had its own history,
(partly recorded, but mostly unrecorded,) its
own perils and privations, its own battles and
heroes, its own triumphs and trophies, its own
griefs and glories. Of each, there remain many
honorable recollections, which are fast vanish
ing into gloom,
A few years more, and the last of us who
have survived the perils of this arduous service,
will have passed away to be no more seen.
Local tradition may, for a time, preserve,
with many a fond exaggeration, and with many
«
a pardonable invention of love or glory, the
memory of some of the lesser lights in our naval
firmament, and the grander luminaries will
shine forever : but, for the rest, little will be

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 19
known of them in the next age, unless it has
been, or soon is, recorded.
There were, of course, many experiences
which were common to all our squadrons — the
dreary monotonous routine of man-of-war duty--
and especially the incesant watching, the
frequent chasing, and occasional capture, of the
blockade-runners ; though too often, the chase
ended, like all other pursuits of this mortal life,
in disappointment and defeat.
No blockade-runner, probably, ever eflected
her escape after a harder chase than that of the
Steamer R. E. Lee, which was chased during
the whole of the sixteenth of August, 1863, by
the Steamer Iroquois, on leaving Wilmington
for Nassau, with a cargo of cotton, having
among her passengers Duke Gwinn and his
daughter Lucy. The Iroquois was then under
the comtnand of Captain Case ; the Lee under
that of the famous blockade-runner, Captain
John Wilkinson, formerly a Lieutenant in the
United States Navy, who tells the story as
follows : —
"We passed safely through the blockading fleet
off the New Inlet Bar, receiving no damage from the
few shots fired at us, and gained an offing from the
coast of thirty miles by daylight. By this time our
supply of English coal had been exhausted, and we
were obliged to commence upon North Carolina coal

20 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
of very inferior quality, and which smoked terribly.
We commenced on this fuel a little after daylight.
Very s,(>on afterwards the vigilant look-out at the
mast-head called out 'Sail ho!' and in reply to 'Where
away?' from the deck, sang out 'Right astern, sir, and
in cha-^ie.' The morning was very clear. Going to
the mast-head I could just dis-cern the royal of the
chaser ; and before 1 left there, say in half an hour,
her top-gallant sail showed above the horizon. By
this time the sun had risen in a cloudless sky. It
was evident our pursuer would be alongside of us by
mid-day at the rate we were then going. The first
orders given ivere to throw overboard the deck-load
of cotton and to make more steam. The later proved
to be more easily given than executed; the chief en
gineer reporting that it was impossible to make steam
with the wretched stuff filled with slate and dirt.
A moderate breeze from the north and east had been
blowing ever since daylight and every stitch of
canvas on board the square-rigged steamer in our
wake was drawing. We were steering east by south,
and it was clear that the cha^^er's advantages could
only be neutralized either by bringing the 'Lee'
gradually head to wind or edging away to bring
the wind aft. The former course would be running
towards the land, besides incurring the additional
risk of being intercepted and captured by some of
the inshore cruisers. I began to edge away there
fore, and in two or three hours enjoyed the satisfac
tion of seeing our pursuer clew up aud furl his

LIFE A FL OA T AND A SHORE. 2 1
sails. The breeze was still blowing as fresh as in
the morning, but we were now running directly away
from it, and the cruiser was going literally as fast as
the wind, causing the sails to be rather a hindrance
tlmn a help. But she was still gaining on us. A
happy inspiration occurred to me when the case seemed
hopeless. Sending for the chief engineer I said 'Mr,
S., let us try cotton, saturated with spirits of turpen
tine.' There were on board, as a part of the deck
load, thirty or forty barrels of 'spirits.' In a very
few moments, a bale of cotton was ripped open, a bar
rel tapped, and buckets full of the saturated material
passed down into the fire-room. The result exceeded
our expectations. The chief engineer, an excitable
little Erenchman from Charleston, very soon made
his appearance on the bridge, his eyes sparkling with
triumph, and reported a full head of steam. Curious
to see the effect upon our speed, I directed .him to
wait a moment until the log was hove. I threw it
myself; — ^'nine and a half knots. 'Let her go now
sir?' I said. Five minutes afterwards, I hove the
log again ; thirteen and a quarter. We now began
to hold our own, and even to gain- a little upon the
chaser; but she was fearfully near, * * near
enough at one time for us to see distinctly the white
curl of foam under her bows, called by that name
among seamen. ^ I wonder if they could have screwed
another turn of speed out of her if they had known
that the 'Lee' had no board, in addition to her cargo of
cotton, a large amount of gold shipped hythe Confed-

22 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
erate Government? There continued to be a very
slight change in our relative positions till about six
o'clock in the afternoon, when the chief engineer
again made his appearance, with a very ominous ex
pression of countenance. He came to report that tjie
burnt cotton had choked the flues, and that the
steam was running down. 'Only keep her going till
dark, sir,' I replied 'and we will give our pursuer the
slip yet,' A heavy cloud-bank was lying along the
horizon to the south and east ; and I saw a possible
means of escape. At sunset the chaser was about
four miles astern and gaining upon us. Calling two
of my most reliable officers, I stationed one of them
on each wheel-house, with glasses, directing them to
let me know the instant they lost sight of the chaser
in the growing darkness. At the same time, I
ordered the chief engineer to make as black a smoke
as possible, and to be in readiness to cut off the
smoke, by closing the dampers instantly, when ord
ered. The twilight was soon succeeded by darkness.
Both of the officers on the wheel-houses called out at
the same moment, 'We have lost sight of her,' while
a dense volume of smoke waa streaming far in our
wake. 'Close the dampers,' I called out through the
speaking tube, and at the same moment ordered the
helm 'hard a starboard.' Our course was altered
eight points, at a right angle to the previous one. I
remained on deck an hour, and then retired to my
state-room with a comfortable sense of security. We
had fired so hard that the very planks on the bridge

LIFE A FL OAT AND A SHORE. 2 3
were almost scorching hot, and my feet were nearly
blistered."* On examining the Log of the Iroquois, I
find this entry, repeated, with unvarying mo
notony, again and again, watch after watch, from
morning to night : —
"In chase of a strange Steamer."
A little more steam on the engines of the
Iroquois, could it only have been obtained,
would have made a fortune for Captain Case,
and secured a splendid windfall for every one
of his officers and crew.
The Lee ran the blockade no less than
twenty-one times under Wilkinson, carried out
from 6,000 to 7,000 bales of cotton, worth two
millions of dollars, in gold, and carried into the
Confederacy return cargoes of equal value. But
on November 9th, 1863, the first time she at
tempted to run in under another commander,
she was captured by the Steamer James Adger,
and sent to Boston as a prize.f
From this notable example, — (Surpassing
in protracted interest anything like it in my
own experience, — the reader will learn some
thing of the labor, the care, the fun, the frolic,
and the peril, too, of that exciting service.
¦"Narrative of a Blockade-Runner, pp. 164-166
1 1 Lowell's Decisions, 36.

CHAPTER II,
First South Atlantic Prizes — Charleston Priva
teers — Capture of the Savannah, Petrel, and Beaure
gard — Confederate Steamer Nashville — Mason and
Slidell's Mission — Nelson in Chase of Napoleon,
It was my fortune to serve in the South
Atlantic Squadron only, seeing no other except
as a visitor. My reminiscences will therefore
be confined to the South Atlantic Fleet, and to
the Military Department of the South, with
which that fleet cooperated.
The first prize captured off Charleston was
the Ship General Parkhill, which had been
warned off May 12, but disregarded the warn
ing, and was taken by the Niagara in attempting
afterwards to run the blockade. The following
was the notice endorsed on her Log: —
"Boarded May 12th, and ordered off the whole
Southern coast of the United States of America, it
being blockaded, E, L. MAY,
Lieutenant, U, S, S. Niagara,"

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 25
The second of the Charleston prizes was
the Schooner Savannah, captured by the Brig
Perry, June 3rd. She had been a pilot-boat at
Charleston before the War. Her burden was
fifty-four tons, and her armament one i8-pound-
er mounted on a swivel amidships. She was
commanded by Thomas H. Baker, of Charles
ton, and manned by twenty-two men. She had
run the blockade of Charleston one day only
before her capture, intending to cross the Gulf
stream, proceed to Abaco, and then lie off Hole-
in-the Wall to capture any vessels of the United
States that she could intercept on the voyage
to and from Cuba, The next day she fell in, as
Mr. Greeley relates, "with the Brig Joseph, of
Rockland, Me., laden with sugar from Car
denas, Cuba, for Philadelphia, Setting an
American flag in her main rigging, to indicate
her wish to speak the stranger, the privateer
easily decoyed the Joseph within speaking dis
tance, when he ordered her captain to lower his
boat and come on board. This command
having been readily obeyed, the merchantman
was astounded by the information, fully authen
ticated by the i8-pounder aforesaid, that he was
a prize to the nameless wasp on whose deck he
stood, which had unquestionable authority from
Mr Jefferson Davis to capture all vessels belong-

26 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
ing to loyal citizens of the United States,
There was plainly nothing to be said ; so the
Yankee Skipper said nothing ; but was held a
prisoner on board his captor, while a prize-crew
of eight well-armed men was sent on board the
Joseph, directed to take her with her men into
Georgetown, S, C," where she was condemned
as prize of war by the Confederate prize court.
When the Savannah, afterwards, on the
same day, hove in sight of the Perry, the cap
tain, at once, to follow the quaint narrativt! of
Mr. Greeley, "made all sail directly toward her,
expecting, by the easy capture of a second
richly laden merchantman, to complete a good
day's work, even for June. On nearing her,
however, he was astonished in turn by a show
of teeth — quite too many of them for his one
heavy grinder. Putting his craft instantly
about, he attempted, by sharp sailing, to escape;
but It was too late. He was under the guns of
the U. S. Brig Perry, Lieut. E. G, Parrott com
manding, which at once set all sail for a chase,
firing at intervals, as signals that her new
acquaintance was expected to stop. The
Savannah did not appear to comprehend ; for
she sent four shots at the Perry, one of which
passed through her rigging. So the chase con
tinued till 8 o'clock p, M„ when the Perry had

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 27
hauled so close to the puzzling little craft as to
order her by trumpet to heave to, when the
schooner lowered all her sails, and her officers
ran below. In a few moments, the two quarter
boats ,of the Perry were alongside and their
crews leaped upon the flyaway's deck; when all
remaining mystery as to her character was thor
oughly dispelled. Her men at once stepped
forward and surrendered their side-arms ; and
preceiving there was no bloodshed the leaders
soon emerged from the cabin, and did like
wise. All were promptly transferred to the
Perry, and returned in her to Charleston bar ;
whence they were dispatched, on the 7th, as
prisoners, in what had been their own vessel, to
New York.*"
The Federal authorities, at first, threatened
to treat the officers and crew of the Savannah,
as pirates. But after having recognized Con
federate soldiers as prisoners of war, and not
as murderers, they could not reasonably with
hold belligerent rights from Confederate sailors,
whether serving in public ships of the Confed
eracy, like the Atlanta and Alabama, or in
private armed cruisers bearing Confederate
letters of marque. And when the Confederate
States had captured a large number of Federal
*Anierican Conflict, vol. 1, p, 698

28 ¦ LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
soldiers, and when President Davis threatened,
as he did in a letter to President Lincoln, to
punish Federal prisoners in the same manner
in which his privateers were punished, the Fed
eral authorities were forced to recede from their
untenable position. But I doubt whether the
sunny-hearted Lincoln or his astute Secretary
of State ever seriously contemplated the public
execution of Southern privateers as pirates.
If the Savannah perished prematurely,
the Brig Jefferson Davis, which left Charleston
a short time after, upon the same business,
had better success. She had previously been a
Slaver, called the Echo, and had been condemn
ed as such two years before. Her armament
consisted of a 32-pounder gun, placed amid
ships, mounted on a pivot, so that it might be
used in all directions, and on each side a 32-
pounder and a 12-pounder; and she was manned
by 260 men.
The Jefferson Davis was painted black and
looked like the craft which the poet described,
"Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark."
She spread terror through New England and
ran in as near as the Nantucket Shoals, making
on her way prizes valued roughly at ;^225,ooo.
After a brief but brilliant career, this fanious
privateer, (for she carried letters .of marque

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 29
from the President whose name she bore,) on
August 17th grounded on the bar of St.
Augustine, and was lost. Captain Coxetter and
all his crew returned in triumph to Charleston.*
The third Charleston prize was the Ship
Amelia, captured by the Wabash and Union,
June 1 8th, The anniversary of the battle of
Waterloo proved a Waterloo to her.
Previous to this, ( June 8th,) the Union
had taken the Brig Hallie Jackson off Savannah,
On the ninteenth of July, the Schooner
Dixie ran the blockade of Charleston to cruise
as a privateer. She carried four guns : her
burden was 1 50 tons ; her commander, Thomas
J. Moore, had letters of marque from President
Davis On the fourth day after leaving Charles
ton, she fell in with and captured the Bark Glen,
from Portland, Maine. Two days later, she cap
tured the Schooner Mary Alice, of New York,
with a cargo of sugar, from the West Indies : but
this prize was promptly recaptured by the block
ading fleet.
Another week passed, when the Dixie
captured her third and last prize, the Bark
Rowena of Philadelphia, with a cargo of coffee.
Captain Moore transferred himself to his prize.
On the night of August 27th, the Rowena and
¦"Appletou's Annual Cyclopsedia, 1861, p. 686.

30 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
Dixie ran safely into Charleston, narrowly es
caping capture by the Federal blockaders, which
were too few in number for that wide-mouthed,
many-channeled port.
The fourth of the Charleston prizes was
the Schooner Petrel, taken by the St, Lawrence,
July 28th, She had previously borne the name
of Governor Aiken, and had been a United
States revenue cutter at Charleston. She had
been out of Charleston but a few hours when
she fell jn with the St. Lawtence, which she
mistook for a merchantman. The St. Lawrence
encouraged the mistake by pretending to run
away until both had got into deep water, and
the Petrel had approached within close range of
the St Lawrence. Then, suddenly, an 8-inch shell
was discharged from the St. Lawrence's Paixhan
gun, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky ; it
fell into the Petrel's hold, exploded, and sent
her to the bottom in an instant. Four of the
crew went down with her: the rest were picked
up by the St. Lawrence's boats. They suppos
ed they had heard a clap of thunder, and mis
took the flashes of the St, Lawrence's guns for
lightning. It took some time to satisfy them
that they had had a fight with a Federal frigate,
and had been made prisoners of war. Then
some of them appeared sad; some glad ; some
puzzled and amused ; and some indifferent.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 31
The commander of the Petrel, William
Perry, held a letter of marque from President
Davis ; and though his little craft carried but a
single gun, he would, doubtless, have made
havoc among our merchantmen, had not the St.
Lawrence, in this summary manner, "prevailed
on him to stop." He and his officers and men
were all taken to Philadelphia, and, after
lying for some time in jail, were exchanged as
prisoners of war.
The fifth of the Charleston prizes, the
Brigantine Hannah Balch, was recaptured by
the Confederate Steamer Winslow off Hatteras,
on her way to the prize court.
Three more prizes, the Middleton, Alert,
and Watson, taken August 16, October 3 and
15, by the Roanoke and Flag, complete the list
of Charleston captures, down to the arrival of
Dupont at Port Royal, on the Eve of Guy
Fawkes' Day, November 4, 1861.
On the twelfth of November, 1861, the
Steamer William G. Anderson, cruising in the
Bahama Channel, captured the Schooner Beau
regard, which had run the blockade of Charleston,
only one week before, to cruise as a privateer.
She was "a long, low, rakish looking craft," re
sembling the ships of the pirates who infested
those waters from 1812 to 1820. Her burden

32 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
was about a hundred tons, and her armament a
single 24-pounder pivot gun ; and she was
manned by a captain, two lieutenants, a purser
and twenty-two seamen. On sighting the
Anderson, the Beauregard ran towards her till
she came within four miles, when her captain
"suddenly hauled by the wind," probably dis
covering that the stranger was an armed vessel
of the Navy, and not a defenceless trader.
And now the Anderson in turn gave chase,
and in two hours brought the Beauregard under
her lee, fired a gun, and ordered the captain to
come on board with his papers. The privateer
captain obeyed that order, and showed a letter
of marque signed by Jefferson Davis, President
of the Confederate States, and countersigned
by Robert Toombs, Secretary of State, and
bearing the seal of the Confederacy.*
In his dispatch to the Navy Department,
Lieutenant William C, Rogers, the commander
of the Anderson, (who, like all his officers, was
a volunteer,) says : —
¦* Neither Harper, nor Greeley, nor the Count of Paris,
nor Lossing, nor Boynton, mentions the Dixie. Harper,
alone of these authorities, mentions the Jefferson Davis ;
while the Count alone mentions the Beauregard ; and he
errs, as in the case of the Savannah, in saying that she
captured "a few prizes." Vol 1, p. 430. There is a good
account ofthe Beauregard in Putnam's Rebellion Record,
vol. 2, pp. 429, 430, Gilbert Hay was her commander.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 33
. "We put a prize-master and a crew on
board, and transferred the prisoners to our ship,
placing them in double irons. On boarding her
the crew were found in a drunken state, com
mitting all the destruction they could — throwing
overboard the arms and ammunition, spiking
the gun, and cutting the sails and rigging to
pieces. She was otherwise in bad order and
poorly found, and having but a short supply of
water. Having twenty-seven prisoners, and no
room for them on board the W, G, Anderson, I
decided, as we were within three days' sail of
Key West, to take them and the vessel into that
port and deliver them to the proper authorities."
There were several other privateers that
sailed from Charleston, and from Savannah, of
which I have learned but little — such as the
Brig Bonita, previously a Slaver ; the iron
Steamer James Grey; the Schooner Sallie, which
ran out of Charleston and captured the Brig
Granada and the Betsy Ames, which were con
demned as prizes by Judge Magrath in the
Confederate Admiralty Court at Charleston and
sold by the Confederate States Mcfrshal.
The Savannah, the Petrel, the Dixie, the
Sallie, the Jefferson Davis, and the Beau
regard, were strictly privateers. I now come to
a vessel of another sort On the 26th of Octo-

34 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
ber,* the Confederate Steamer Nashville ran ^
the blockade of Charleston under the command
of Lieutenant Robert B, Pegram,t then of
the Confederate States Navy, but previously of
the Federal Navy, to cruise, not as a privateer,
but as a public armed vessel of the Confederacy.
The Nashville narrowly escaped being
captured as promptly aS the three privateers
whose fate I have just now recorded. The
Steamer Connecticut, which was sent in pur
suit of her, put into Burmuda in search of her
before the Nashville arrived.
The Nashville captured and destroyed one
prize, the Ship Harvey Birch, of New York. She
afterwards ran the blockade of Beaufort, North
Carolina. At a later period, she entered the
Ogeechee, and landed a cargo of arms in
*This is the correct date; See the Case of the United;
States, in Papers relating to the Treaty of Washingtou —
Geneva Arbitration, vol. 1 , p. 132 ; and the Case of
Great Britain, ibid, p. 232 ; ns well as the Counter Case of
Great Britain, ibid, vol. 2, pp. 295, 347. But in the Argu
ment of the United States, Messrs. Gushing, Evart.s aud
Waite give the erroneous date of August 26th. Ibid,
vol. 3, p. 138. The same error disfigures the Opinion of
Mr. Adams. Ibid. vol. 4, pp. 212-214.
fCompare his commission, in Putnam's Rebellion
Record, vol. 3, p, 410, with the commissions of ofiBcers in
the Federal Navy, in Lossing's History of the Civil War,
vol. 1, p. 560.

LIFE A FL OAT AND A SHORE. 3 5
Georgia, but was blockaded by the Federal
fleet, and prevented from getting out. Week
after week, she lay under the guns of Fort-
McAllister, —
"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean."
Finally in Febuary, 1863, she was destroyed by
the Monitor Montauk.*
She seems to have been meant for special
service on occasions of emergency, and especi
ally for duty in connection with the diplomacy of
the Confederacy. Messrs. Mason and Slidell,
the envoys to Great Britain and France, were to
have been carried out by her.
The Tribunal of Arbitration, at Geneva,
unanimously decided that Great Britain was not
liable for the damages done to the commerce of
the United States by the Nashville. Such also
was the decision of that Tribunal upon the
claim of the United States for damages done
by the Davis, the SalliC' and other privateers
from Charleston. These claims had no such
foundation as those for damages done by the
 .  »-
*No historian of the late Civil War gives us anything
like a clear or connected account of the Nashville. The
Count of Paris, or rather his translator, errs, as in the
case of the Sumter, in calling her a "privateer." Vol.2,
p. 645. Boynton calls her "a very fine and fast English
blockade-runner." History of the Navy &c. vol. 2, p,
436, As well call her a Chinese war iunk.

36 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
Alabama, the Florida and other cruisers fitted
out in British ports.*
On the night of the twelfth of October —
the same night of extreme darkness on which
the Confederate Flag Officer HoUins attempted
to raise the Federal blockade of the passes of
the Mississippi — the Steamer Theodora, formerly
called the Gordon, ran out of Charleston,- and
carried to Cuba James M. Mason and John
Slidell, the Confederate Envoys to Great Britain
and France. The subsequent seizure of the
envoys by Captain Wilkes on board the British
Mail Steamer Trent has been related with all
desirable fulness by most of the historians of
the late War ; although, I apprehend, that the
question of the rightfulness of that seizure is
generally but little better understood than when
Captain Wilkes sent across the 'bow of the
Trent that famous shell which, like th? shot of
Lci^cingfon, was "heard round the world."
I was in Boston when Mason and Slidell
were brought to Fort Warren as prisoners of
war — when the great banquet was given to
Captain Wilkes — when Governor Andrew "slop
ped over," as he had done before, when he
kissed the gun in the Senate Chamber, — and
''But see Harriett Martineau's remarks on this subject
in her Autobiography.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A8H0RE. 37
f-
when even the learned Chief Justice Bigelow,
for the first, last and only time in his career,
soiled the ermine by using it ad captaudum
vulgus with opinions which his sober second
thought disaffirmed.
All the newspapers applauded Wilkes,
His pluck was cheered in every public assembly :
"his praise was in all the churches." Even
conservative statesmen, like the late Edward
Everett, hastened to say, by way of preludes to
lyceum lectures, that there was a precedent for
the seizure of these envoys in the capture by
Great Britain of Henry Laurens, while on his
way, during our Revolutionary War, in a block
ade-runner from the United States to 'Holland.
It was only here and there that I met a clear
sighted, hard-headed lawyer like Judge Abbott,
who shook his head ominously, and said, "This
wont do. We can never justify, on our
principles, the seizure of any belligerent *on his
passage in a neutral ship from the port of one
neutral to the port of another." The great
natural sagacity of President Lincoln enabled
him to view this seizure by the clear, cold light of
reason : and he insisted that Seward, (who was
the ablest of his lieutenants, though never his
master) should inform Her Britannic Majesty
that Captain Wilkes had acted without authority.

38 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
Suppose that, in the late Turko-Russian
War, an Ambassador of the Porte had been
seized by the captain of a Russian cruiser on
board an American steamboat plying between
New York and Havanna, and taken thence to
Cronstadt, and there incarcerated as a prisoner
of war: I apprehend that the American Eagle,
that blessed Bird of Freedom, would have
screamed quite as loudly as the British Lion
growled over the act of Captain Wilkes.
Some such case, as I have been told, was
put by the President, hypothetically, in one of
his conversations with Mr. Seward.
Had not the darkness of the night, the
number and width of the channels of Charleston,
and the fewness of our fleet off the bar,
prevented the capture of the Theodora, a
case that ranks among the most famous in the
history of international relations, would not have
occurred. And what honors would not have
been paid to the blockading captain who should
have captured the Theodora with her distinguish
ed passengers. They were to have sailed in
the Nashville, as I have said ; and how promptly
the Federal cruisers bounded over the waves to
catch them, appears from the fact that one of
them, as already stated, actually reached St,
Georges, the port of their supposed destination

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 39
in the Bahamas, before the ship in which they
were to have sailed, left Charleston, By chang
ing the time of their departure, and their port of
destination, as well as the vessel in which they
sailed, the Confederate Envoys placed the
Federal cruisers at the greatest disadvantage.
How extremely difficult it is to intercept an
enemy at sea, without knowing his destination,
was strikingly illustrated by the experience of
Lord Nelson, when in pursuit of Admiral
Brueys' fleet, which carried General Bonaparte
and the "Army of Egypt" to the scene of their
glory and their shame. Even Nelson, "the first
and last of the Titans of the sea," did not escape
cruel outcries of "delatoriness and incapacity,"
which, though they "redoubled his anxiety,"
could not increase his untiring vigilance and
sleepless activity. The incidents of this chase
are thus related by Lamartine in his admirable
Memoirs of Celebrated Characters : —
"Bonaparte embarking at Toulon an expe
ditionary force, on board the most formidable
fleet that had navigated the Mediterranean since
the Crusades, left the English ministers in doubt
as to the object he had in view. Did he propose
to pass the Straits, and attack Great , Britain in
one of her European islands or in the Indies .''
Was it his intention to seize Constantinople, and

40 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
from thence to dictate to Russia and Austria,
and to command the seas of Europe ? Lord St.
Vincent, the admiral in chief command of the
naval forces of England on the coasts of France,
Italy and Spain, dared not abandon the blockade
of Cadiz and the French ports ; he therefore
dispatched Nelson, as the bravest and most
skillful of his lieutenants, to watch, pursue, and,
if possible, destroy the French armament.
Nelson, successively re-enforced by sixteen sail
of the line, hoisted his flag in the Vanguard,
and hastened after the enemy without any cer
tain indication of their course. After touching
at Corsica, already left behind by Bonaparte,
and examining the Spanish seas, he returned to
Naples on the i6th of January, 1798, discourag
ed by a fruitless search, and in want of stores
and ammunition. While there, the reports of
the English consuls in Sicily apprised him of
the conquest at Malta by the French, with the
subsequent departure of the fleet as soon as
that island was reduced, and directed his thoughts
towards Egypt.
"The intrigues of Lady Hamilton, animated
by her double attachment to the queen and to
Nelson, obtained from the Court of Naples,
notwithstanding their avowed neutrality, all the
supplies necessary for 'the English squadron

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 41
before they resumed their dangerous cruise.* In
a few days Nelson was ready to put to sea ; he
touched at Sardinia, coasted the shores of the
Peloponnesus, searched the Levant in its full
extent, dispatched small vessels to look into the
road of Alexandria, where the French had not
yet appeared, traversed the Egyptian sea, sailed
along one side of Candia while the Republican
fleet passed by on the other, came close to
Malta, vainly interrogated every ship or boat
coming from the Archipelago, learned that there
was already an outcry against him at home for
his delatoriness or incapacity, exclaimed against
the winds, crowded additional sail, braved con
tinual tempests, and finally, on the ist of August,
at early dawn, discovered the naked masts of
the French fleet at anchor in the Bay of
Aboukir." The victory of the Nile then won by Nelson
was the most complete that had ever been won
at sea since the invention of gunpowder ; and
must have shamed those carping critics who had
¦"The fatal attachment between Lord Nelson and Lady
Hamilton, like the passion of Antony and Cleopatra,
"inflamed the coasts of the Mediterrenean, changed the
face of the world, and carried on to glory, to shame, and
to crime, a hero entangled in the snares of beauty." See
Lamartine's fine memoir of Nelson, quoted in Cowley's
Famous Divorces of All Ages.

42 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
stung the pride of Nelson with their senseless
calumnies.

CHAPTER III.
Battle of Port Eoyal— General T, F. Drayton —
Occupation of the Sea Islands — General T. W,
Sherman's Army — Battle of Port Eoyal Ferry —
Eobert Small — Ter-centennary of Charles Fort —
Battle of Secession ville — Blunder of General Ben-
ham — ^Victory of General Evans — General Stevens.
Had not the name of Dupont shone among
the brightest in the American Navy, he would
not have been assigned to the command of the
fleet of seventeen men-of-war and thirty-three
other vessels, which left Hampton Roads, Oct
ober 2gth, 1861, for Port Royal. His heart may
well have swollen with both professional and pa
triotic pride, as he gave the signal, "Weigh
anchor," to a fleet manifold greater than had
ever before been assembled under any American
commander. The terrible tempest which sepa
rated his fleet off Hatteras, has often been
compared with that which overtook the Duke

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 43
of Medina Sidonia and the Spanish Armada,
nearly three centuries before : and many devout
souls in the Confederate States regarded it as a
sign of Divine displeasure towards the Federal
ists, and as a proof of the favor of Almighty
God for the cause of the South.
. The battle of Port Royal was the first oc
casion on which a Steam Navy fought land
batteries while sailing in a circle ; though some
thing like it was attempted by Admiral
Dundas, seven years earlier, in the harbor of
Sebastopol.* Like the later capture of New Orleans, it
was wholly the work of the Navy, and the Army
merely held what the Navy acquired.
The Federal force engaged was so much
greater than that of the Cenfederates, in the
number and weight of guns, that to have failed
of success would have covered it with disgrace.
The merit of Dupont lies in having effected his
object with but little loss,
*Kiuglake's Invasion of the Crimea, vol. 2, chapter
17. Admiral Hamelin's signal to the French fieet on that
occasion, — "id France regardes vous," — deserves to be
bracketed with that which thrilled the tars of Nelson on
the morning of Trafalgar, — "England expects every man
to do his duty;" or with the famous "sentiment" with
which BonapartL' roused the energies of his Colonels on
the mornini^' of the Pyramids, — "From yonder summits
forty centuries look down upon you,"

44 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
If, as the Duke of Wellington said, the
art of war consists in the accomplishment of great
results by small sacrifices, the credit due to
Dupont can hardly be overstated.
It is not often that a soldier fights in his own
village and on his own estates. But General
Thomas F, Drayton's plantation was hard by
the fort which his valor defended, and his house
stood a mile or so distant, within a few yards of
the beach, commanding one of the finest views
of land and sea in the whole archipelago of St.
Helena. Like Dahlgren, Pegram, and many
other officers, the sad fatalities of the civil war
compelled General Drayton, to fight against his
own brother, Captain Percival Drayton, who
commanded the Steamer Pocahontas in the
fleet of Dupont.
There is a noble essay of Lord Macaulay
in which Colonel John Hampden, mortally
wounded at Chalgrove, by Prince Rupert's cav
alry, is pictured to us "with his head drogping,
and his hands leaning on his horses neck, mov
ing feebly out of the battle. The mansion
which had been inhabited by his father-in-law,
and from which in his youth he had carried
home his bride, Elizabeth, was in sight," With
similar feelings doubtless the Confederate Gen
eral Drayton looked back upon that comfortable

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 45
mansion where he had so. often sat listening to
the melancholy music of the sea, and thinking
ofthe possible future of that magnificent bay, in
which all the Navies of the world might ride,
Lossing and the Count of Paris give
excellent detailed accounts of the battle of
Port Royal. More condensed summaries are
given by Greeley, Harper, Boynton, and many
others. The reports of Admiral Dupont and
Secretary Welles to the President, must not be
overlooked.* As long as Mr. Welles was in
office, persistent attempts were made to belittle
him. Whatever he achieved, the merit of it
was attributed to Mr. Fox, Mr. Faxon, or some
body else. Many denied him the credit .due
for his reports, which are among the most mast
erly State papers ever penned by a public man.
Now that he is no more, the truth may perhaps
be told without offence. Mr. Welles had admir
able assistants : but he filled, really as well as
nominally, the first place in his Department.
In the matter of style, which is of no
small importance, (for "the style is the man,")
he is without a superior among all the men of
learning who have filled his place, not excepting
Bancroft, the historian, or Secretary Thompson,
"¦See also General Drayton's Report, in Putnam's Re
bellion Record, vol. 11, p. 101. Also vol. 3, pp. 304-318.

46 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
the keen analyzer and 'expositor of the relations
of the Papacy and the Civil Power.*
This victory of Dupont was achieved
exactly one year from the day when South Caro
lina began her preparations for secession —
namely, on the day following the election of
President Lincoln. During the year, the armies
of the Union had met with so many Big Beth
els, Bull Runs, Ball's Bluffs, and Belmonts, that
the people of the North had become much dis
couraged. But upon the recovery of the Sea
Islands by Dupont, "the winter of our discon
tent" at once became glorious summer ; and even
the growlers of the press became cheerful,
hopeful and happy.
The late William S. Robinson called
attention to this coincidence of dates in his
"Warrington" letters, and added : "Verily this
has been an eventful and glorious year ; and I,
who have been complaining and scolding at the
government for inactivity, should feel ashamed of
myself, did I not think that complaint and un
easiness and criticism on the part of the press
and people had been useful in bringing the ad
ministration up to its present position."
""Mr. Pollard notices the contrast between "the won
derful energy" displayed by Mr. Welles, and the '-feeble
administration" of the Confederate Navy, in his Lost
Cause, pp, 192, 224,

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 47
Charming self-complacency 1 As if the Ad
ministration had actually been stimulated in its
efforts by clamors tending directly to baffle and
discourage it.
By the capture of Port Royal we gained an
admirable naval depot and a firm foothold in the
region of the Sea-Islands Cotton, It also af
forded a grand theatre for those Anti-Slavery
experiments in which General Hunter, General
Saxton, Chaplain French, Colonel Higginson,
E. L. Pierce, and many other gentlemen, and
many ladies, too, distinguished themselves ,
Beaufort district was one of the richest and
most thickly settled in the Palmetto State. It
contained about 1,500 square miles, and pro
duced, annually, 50,000,000 pounds of rice,
and 14,000 bales of cotton. It then had a pop
ulation of about 40,000, of whom more than
three-fourths were slaves.
Beaufort was named for the beautiful Ga
brielle d'Estrees, mistress of Henry the Fourth
of France, who made her Duchess of Beaufort,
She it was, more than Duperron or D'Ossat,
who prevailed upon that amorous monarch to
renounce Protestantism, and make his peace
with Rome.
While the ships of Dupont were spinning
roun*d the ellipse in Port Royal Harbor, General

48 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
R. E, Lee was on his way to the Confederate
Department of South Carolina, Georgia and
Florida for the purpose of directing and super
vising the construction of a line of defence along
the coasts of those States, He established his
headquarters at Coosawhatchie, on the railroad,
about midway between Charleston and Savan
nah.® But as Colonel Taylor, of his Staff,
writes, "beyond the prosecution uf this work of
fortifying the coasts and rivers, nothing of
importance occurred during his three months'
stay in this departrrient. He was in Charleston
at the time of the great conflagration." Early
in March 1862 he returned to Richmond.
The military force, which was assigned to
occupy the Sea Islands, consisted of three bri
gades numbering about fifteen thousand men,
besides artillery, the whole under General
Thomas W. Sherman. The brigades were as
follows : — FIRST BRIGADE.
Brigadier-General Egbert S, Viele.
Third New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry.
Eighth Maine
Forty-sixth New York " "
Forty-seventh New York " "
Forty-eighth New York "
•"Four Years with Gen. Lee, p. 37.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 49
SECOND BRIGADE.
Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens.
Eighth Michigan Volunteer Infantry. ^
Fiftieth Pennsylvania " "
One Hundredth Pennsylvania* "
Seventy-ninth New Yorkf " "
THIRD BRIGADE.
Brigadier-General Horatio G. Wright,
Sixth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry,
Seventh Connecticut " "
Ninth Maine
Fourth New Hampshire " "
Third Rhode Island
Dupont and Sherman cooperated admirably
in recovering and picketing all the Sea Islands
from the North Edisto River to Wassaw Sound.
No forcible resistance was made to them by
the Confederates until New Year's Day, 1862,
when a determined stand was made under
Generals Gregg and Pope at Port Royal Ferry,
on the Coosaw River, General Isaac I. Stevens
and Captain C, R, P. Rodgers commanded the
Federal military and naval forces respectively.
Mr, Lossing's account of the battle of Port
Royal Ferry is the best that has yet appeared.
''Commonly called "Roundheads."
fColonel James Cameron, the flrst commander of this
regiment, called "Highlanders,"' was killed at Bull Run.

50 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
Why the Confederate forces made this
stand at Port Royal F'erry, will readily appear
when one remembers that "the Shell Road,"
that beautiful and only thoroughfare by land
between Beaufort and Charleston, strikes the
Coosaw at this ferry, nine miles north of Beau
fort. By this brief battle the Federal forces
succeeded in destroying the Confederate works
and in burning their houses ; still, the Coosaw
River continued, for three years longer, the
dividing line between the opposing pickets ;¦ the
Confederates holding the left bank, and the
Federals holding the right of that stream.
The Eighth Michigan sustained the heaviest
fire of grape and canister from the Confederates,
and here its major, A.- B. Watson, was mortally
wounded.* On March 31st, 1862, the Department of
the South was established under General Hun
ter, and the name of his predecessor was no
more heard in South Carolina, Georgia and
''See Lossing, vol, 2, p. 127 ; the Count of Paris, vol.
1, p. 464 ; and the reports of Dupont, Rodgers, aud others,
in Putnam, vol. 4, pp. 1-10
This battle is not mentioned by Mr. Greeley, though
his narrative does contain, as he says, "accounts (nec
essarily very brief) of many minor actions and skir
mishes which have been passed unheeded by other his
torians." Neither does Harper's History mention it.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 51
Florida, till another and far greater Sherman
marched his pic-nic party from Atlanta to
the Sea. The new commander divided the depart
ment into three districts — the Northern, under
General Benham ; the Southern, under General
Brannan ; and the Western, under General L. G.
Arnold,* The adjutant-general of this depart
ment was Major Charles G, Halpine, the famous
"Miles O'Reilly," who indited some of his best
effusions at Port Royal,
The more striking events in this depart
ment have,- of course, their place in most of the
histories of the War ; but none save those who
shared its severe picket duty, or the severer
picket duty of the cooperating ships, can duly
appreciate the importance or the irksomeness
of the part which it faithfully performed.
Upon the maintenance of a picket line of 250
miles in this department depended our holding
the archipelago of St. Helena ; and. upon that
again depended Sherman's Grand March.
Colonel Higginson sums up this work in
these words : —
"The operations on the South Atlantic
coast, which long seemed a merely subordinate
and incidental part of the great contest, proved
¦?Hunter's Order is in Putnam, vol. 4, p. 353,

52 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
to be one of the final pivots on which it turned.
All now admit that the fate of the Confederacy
was decided by Sherman's march to the sea.
Port Royal was the objective point to which he
marched and he found the Department of the
South, when he reached it, held almost exclus
ively by colored troops. Next to the merit of
those who made the march, was that of those
who held open the door."*
Much has been said about the attempt to
close the harbor of Charleston by sinking ships
in its principal channels. Why the Federal
Navy might not thus seal up a hostile port, as
Cardinal Richelieu did Rochelle, it is dificult
to see. But it is useless now to discuss what
might have been. Sixteen vessels loaded with
stone were sunk in the Main Channel. But
two or three spring tides, (those flood tides
which attend the full moon,) washed the "stone
fleet" out of the way.
Harper's History states that, "in a few
weeks, the Ashley and Cooper Rivers made
for themselves a new channel, better than
the previous one." Greeley thinks "the partial
closing of one of the passes, through which
the waters of the Ashley and Cooper rivers
find their way to the ocean, was calculated to
"¦Army Life in a Black Regiment, p. 263.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 5 3
deepen and improve the remaining."* But the
fact is, there never was a partial closing of the
ship channel. The sixteen old whalers, loaded
with stone and sunk checkerwise there, disap
peared like phantom ships.
While the people of Charleston were com
plaining of this imaginary peril, a real and over
whelming calamity came upon them, and a large
portion of "the Venice of America" was reduc
ed to ashes.
The daring stratagem of Robert Small, the
slave pilot of the Confederate Steamer Planter,
plying between the city of Charleston and the
forts which defended it, has not escaped the
notice of Mr. Lossing, or of the Count of Paris.
It was one of the most brilliant personal
exploits in a war in which brilliant deeds were
not uncommon on either side. Small not only
brought to the Federal fleet a useful vessel and
four heavy cannon ; but he brought also valuable
information. From him we learned that General
Pemberton, who had succeeded General Lee in
this department, had determined to abandon
Cole's Island, and was strengthening the
defences of James' Island.
Small's intimate knowledge of the River
and Bay of Stono enabled him to pilot the
?Harper, vol. 2, p. 733 ; Greeley, vol. 2, p. 458.

54 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
Unadilla, the Pembina and the Ottowa as far
towads Charleston by that channel as beyond
Legareville — a service of the greatest import
ance to the Navy, although the benefit of it was
lost by the failure of the Army to move with
the requisite force and celerity on that line.*
Small afterwards became an Acting Master
in our Squadron, and commanded the Planter
till the end of the War. He has since been a
State Senator, and is now a Representative in
Congress. It is true, he has been convicted of
accepting a Five-Thousand-Dollar Bribe. But
his conviction was procured by the testimony of
a single witness, and that witness an accomplice ;
and there is doubt as to its justness. And even
if he was guilty, it was at a time when all around
him, including men who had been brovight up
under the most favorable conditions, were
rolling in wealth obtained by bribes.
The generosity of Governor Hampton
may yet pardon Small, If the Governor hesi
tates to condone the bribe-taking on account of
the "stealing" of the Planter, let him ponder on
*Small's bold exploit was not done suddenly, as the
Count of Paris infers. Vol. 2, p. 234. It was known to
scores of Charleston slaves, who kept the secret well.
Strange that neither Greeley nor Harper deigns to notice
Small, though the latter reports speeches by village poli
ticians at flag-raisings.

LIFE AFL OA T AND A SHORE. 5 5
the pithy remark of another gallant son of the
Palmetto State : "You cant expect much moral
ity for twelve dollars a month."* Small's life had
been passed at hard labor without even twelve
dollars a month.
On the twenty-seventh of May, occurred
the three hundreth anniversary of an event
which, if we had had not been so strenuously
engaged in making history that we had little
leisure for recalling it, might have been celebrat
ed from Maine to Mexico — the landing of the
flrst European settlers in the United States.
These settlers were Norman Protestants,
and their expedition, which consisted of two
small vessels under the command of Jean Ribaut,
was fitted out under the auspices of Admiral
Coligny, the famous Huguenot chief, who perish
ed with many thousands of his co-religionists in
the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Captain
Ribaut Was an officer of great merit. He was
accompanied by Rene de Ladonniere, afterwards
Governor of Fort Caroline, and other gentlemen
of high repute in their day.
The expedition left F'rance on the eighteenth
of February — a day destined to distinction in
""Admiral Steadman's remark, wheh voting for a
lenient sentence on a sailor, found guilty of stealing, by a
naval general court-martial in 1865.

56 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
the history of the South as the day of President
Davis' inauguration, and the day of the evacua
tion of Charleston.
After landing near St. Augustine and at
other points on the (joast of Florida and Georgia,
on the twenty-seventh of May, 1 562, Captain
Ribaut entered that spacious and beautiful bay
which, "because of the fairnesse and largenesse
thereof," (as Ladonniere relates,) he named
Port Royal. He spent several days in exploring
the rivers which enter this bay, and in examin
ing the coast. Upon this shore he erected a
column of stone engraven with the arms of his
native France. Ribaut has sometimes been
called the discoverer of Port Royal, but he was
not. The Spanish navigator, Vasquez de AUyon,
had been there more than forty years before — in
1520. Having determined to plant a colony here,
he built a fort, the walls being formed of a kind
of concrete made largely of oyster shells, and
called coquina. The remains of these walls are
still visible on Old Fort Plantation, at the mouth
of Battery Creek, about six miles from
Beaufort. As this fort was to contain only
twenty-six men, it was only twenty-six fathoms
long and thirteen wide. Captain Ribaut called
it Charles Fort in honor of his King, Charles

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 57
the Ninth, and placing it under the command of
Captain Albert de la Pierria, he turned his prows
toward France.
The solitude of the wilderness is as de
pressing as the solitude of the sea ; and the
ennui endured by the little garrison of Charles
Fort, "with no civilized neighbors from the
North Pole to Mexico," can only be compyed
with that which our own Navy experienced dur
ing the long blockade of the South. It drove
them to sickness — to dispair — to insanity. In a
mutiny which arose, Albert was put to death by
his own men, and Nicholas Barre was chosen
commander ; but the fear of coming famine and
the want of provisions made the men desperate.
They obtained food from the Indians for some
time. Finally, they built a rude, pinnace — the
first sea-going vessel ever constructed on this
Continent — and embarked for France. After
incredible sufferings from hunger and thirst,
they were picked up by an English vessel, the
captain of which presented some of them to
Queen Elizabeth ; and glad they were to see
once more their native Normandy.
Mr. Simms has illustrated the sojourn of
Albert de la Pierria at Port Royal in the Lily
and the Totem. Colonel Higginson, whose
regiment of blacks was encamped for some time

58 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
near Charles Fort, during the late War, gives
extracts from the narratives of Ribaut and
Ladonniere in his American Explorers.*
From Captain Ribaut this Continent re
ceived the name of Nouvelle France ; and here
began that series of efforts to establish French
supremacy in America, which were renewed,
again and again, for more than two hundred
years, till the conquest of Canada by General
Wolfe in 1759. In fact this dream of a French
empire was not wholly dismissed till the sale of
Louisiana in 1801 ; an act to which the great
First Consul consented only from inevitable
necessity, declaring to our Commissioners that,
but for the certainty that Great Britain would
seize Louisiana in the war then impending, he
would rather cut off his right arm than cede
that territory to the United States.
On the sixteenth 6f June, 1862, the Fed
eral forces in the northern district of this de
partment, aided by three of our gunboats, made
an assault on the Confederate works, which
should have been made several weeks earlier,
or not at all, I refer to the battle of Seces-
sionville, more often called the battle of James'
¦"See also Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New
World, De Brey's Florida, and the learned work of
Professor Rivers.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 59
Island. The Confederate forces in this district
had been increased two days before to 2,000
men, under General N. G. Evans ; the batteries
at Secessionville being under Colonel T. G.
Lamar, of the First South Carolina Artillery.
The Federal troops on the island outnum
bered the Confederates more than three to one,
but the latter had, of course, an immense
advantage in position, and not much more than
half of the former were engaged at all.
The principal fighting was done by General
Stevens' division. The first brigade commanded
by Colonel William W, Fenton, made the as
sault in the most gallant manner. This brigade
consisted of the Eighth Michigan, Lieutenant-
Colonel Graves ; the Seventh Connecticut,
Lieutenant-Colonel J, R. Hawley ; and the
Twenty-eighth ^Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Col
onel M. Moore. It was gallantly supported by-
the second brigade, commanded by Colonel
Daniel Leasure, consisting of the Seventy-ninth
New York, Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison ; the
One Hundredth Pennsylvania, Major Daniel
A. Leckey ; and the Forty-sixth New York,
Colonel Rudolph Rosa,
Two companies of the Eighth Michigan
under Captains Ely and Doyle, and one com
pany of Colonel Serrell's New York Volunteer

6o LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Engineers under Captain Sea^s, formed the
storming party. Captain Rockwell's Connecti
cut Light Battery and Captain S. M. Sargeant's
company of the First Massachusetts Cavalry,
followed in the rear.
The Count of Paris praises these young
and inexperienced troops as having "behaved
like veterans," They had to advance upon a
narrow ridge of sand not over 200 yards wide,
swept by grape and canister from six cannon,
(one of which was sighted by Lamar himself,)
and exposed to a murderous fire from rifle-pits
and sharp-shooters on both flanks and in their
rear. The crossing of the famous bridge of
Lodi could hardly have been more terrible.*
The batteries they attacked were protected
by an insuperable abatis, a ditch seven feet
deep, and a parapet nine feet high. The Count
of Paris says, "They advanced with the bayonet
without firing a shot, and had already passed
the last hedge, situated some five hundred yards
from the work, before its defenders had become
aware of their approach. Colonel Lamar had
scarcely collected a few men, and fired his
seige-gun once, when the assailants were al-
''At St. Helena, Bonaparte said, it wa.s at Lodi, as he
crossed the bridge with Lannes, that he felt the flrst spark
of his all-devouring ambition — which the battles of Tou
lon, Milesimo and Monte Notte had failed to kindle.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 6 1
ready in the ditch. One of the most sanguin
ary close combats was engaged on the parapet
itself ; it was five o'clock in the morning, the
day was hot, foggy and damp ; the combatants
were soon enveloped in dense smoke. The
boldest among the' Federals had penetrated into
the entrenchments, and planted on them the
flag "of the Eighth Michigan; but they could not
capture the redoubt, the guns of which, loaded
with grape, swept the summit of the ridge, and
opened several gaps in the ranks of the regi
ments which Stevens had sent to their
assistance." The gallant Colonel Fenton threw the
Eighth Michigan as far to the right as possible,
and used every effort, as General Stevens says,
"to bring on, in support, the Seventh Connecti
cut and the Tw,enty-eighth Massachusetts ; but
the terrible fire of grape and musketry from the
enemy's works cut the two former regiments in
two, the right going to the right and the left to
the left, whither, finally, the whole of the
Twenty-eighth Massachusetts took its position,
and where thev were joined, with scarcely an
interval of time, by the One Hundredth Penn
sylvania and the Forty-sixth New York, of
Leasure's brigade. These regiments had been
brought up with great promptness and energy

62 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
by Colonel Leasure, and the right of the One
Hundredth had pushed up to and joined the
Seventy-ninth in their charge,"
The battle became a massacre. Stevens
says, "The Eighth Michigan made the most
heroic exertions, and suffered the most terrible
losses. Captains Pratt, Church, Guild, and
Lieutenant Cattrell, commanding companies,
were killed, and Captains Doyle and Lewis and
Lieutenant Bates, commanding companies, were
wounded on or near the parapet of the work,
* * Of twenty-two officers of that regiment
who went into action, twelve were killed and
wounded." If we had "Highlanders" on our side in
this battle, so had the South — a Charleston bat
talion composed largely of Scots and the de-
cendants of Scots, under Major David Ramsay,
(son of the historian,) who was subsequently
mortally wounded at Fort Wagner,
In less than half an hour, that gallant
regiment lost two-fifths of its whole force. The
total loss on our side "was nearly 600, including
more than sixty officers. The Confederate loss
was 207. This assault on Secessionville was made by
General Benham, in violation of the instructions
of General Hunter, and against the advice of

LIFE Afloat and ashore. 63
Generals Stevens and Wright. Had the same
force assaulted these works a month earlier
when Robert Small brought the information of
General Pemberton's designs', the result might
have been different.
As is stated in the Military and Civil
History of Connecticut, this movement was an
inexcusable blunder from beginning to end. "Ten
thousand men were sent to make a five days'
march on three days' rations ; and the sequel
was that they arrived without food, tents, or
, cooking utensils. The only cooking utensil
the field and staff of the Sixth had, was a gallon
camphene can, with nozzle and top cut off. In
this were cooked potatoes, pork, beef, coffee,
tea, — food of every sort, — for three weeks."
The battle of Secessionville has been
shamefully slighted by compilers of histories.
Harper's work, while treating many engage-
.ments of our Civil War more copiously than
any other narrative, devotes but a few lines to
Secessionville, John S, C. Abbott and many
others omit to notice it. Horace Greeley
and the Count of Paris tell the story of
this combat clearly and fairly but more briefly
than one could wish, Lossing's account is
of inferior merit. The Mihtary and Civil His.
tory of Connecticut contains a good account of

64 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
the distinguished part which the Connecticut
regiments sustained in this battle; but it is
avowedly devoted to the Connecticut men
alone, and the heroes of New York, Michigan
and Pennsylvania are left unmentioned. In
Putnam's Rebellion Record the reports of all
the commanders on both sides, with .praiseworthy
fairness, are printed in full.*
Mr. Guernsey, who compiled that portion
of Harper's History which relates to the
Department of the South, thinks it "a great
mistake," on Pemberton's part, to abandon Cole's
Island. Pemberton not being one of Mr.
Pollard's pets, like Johnston and Beauregard,
this movement is condemned in the History of
the Lost Cause. President Davis, however, had
a high opinion of Pemberton's abilities, though
he finally sent Beauregard to relieve him, to
hush the clamor of the politicians and the press.
I cannot but think that this 'Officer was as wise
as any of his critics. The lesson thundered
from the cannon of Dupont at Port Royal, that
uncovered batteries cannot successfully resist
the converging fire of heavily armed fleets, had
not been lost on him. He therefore withdrew
from a position which, from the depth of the
adjacent waters, might easily be assailed with
'»Vol. 5. pp. 209-221 ; vol. 12, pp. 494-504.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 65
effect by the Navy, and strengthened to the
utmost those inner fortifications which, from the
shallowness of the water, were practically beyond
the Navy's reach. Two of our gunboats, the
Ellen and the Hall, which managed to get into
this action, when the tide rose high enough to
enable them to approach, obtained an excellent
range, and as General Stevens says, "did very
great execution among the ranks of the enemy."
Besides this, the great length of the Confederate
line when Pemberton assumed command, might
well alarm even a less wary commander.
General Stevens, soon afterward, took
command of the second division of General
Burnside's corps in Virginia. But it was written
that his sun should go down at noon. On Sep
tember 1st, 1862, at Chantilly, seeing the Army
about to be attacked at a great disadvantage, he
ordered a charge by his own divison, and sent
one of the captains of his staff to other division
commanders for assistance ; but none of these,
except General Kearney, would take the rcpon-
sibility of acting without orders from their
superiors in command.
General Kearney saw the supreme peril of
the situation, and felt as Admiral Villeneuve
felt on a similar occasion, when he signalled,
"Every captain who is not in action is not at his

66 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
post," "Yes," rephed Kearney, "I'll support
Stevens in anything," and at once put his
columns in motion.
By this bold movement. Pope's Army was
saved ; and the battle of Chantilly, which
promised victory to the Confederates, ended
in their defeat. But General Stevens was shot
in leading his troops to the charge. General
Kearney, riding accidentally in the darkness of
the night within the Confederate lines, was also
killed. Stevens was a native of Andover, Mass.,
a son of the late Nathaniel Stevens, and a
brother of Oliver Stevens, the District Attorney
of Suffolk. He had previously been Governor
of Oregon, and had sat in Congress. To sooth
the South, he had favored the largest conces
sions to their demands ; but when the dissolution
of the Union by force was attempted, he
tendered his sword to the Federal Administra
tion. His services were accepted, but he was
not given the rank to which he justly thought
himself entitled by virtue of his education and
previous service, because of his former affilations.
One of the newspapers bitterly complained that
whereas General Stevens had been Chairman
of the Breckenridge Democracy, in i860, and
had professed himself a friend of the South and

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 67
its peculiar institutions, and had a few months
before partaken of the hospitalities of Charleston,
he now came with a hostile force on an abolition
crusade.*

CHAPTER lY.
Battle of Pocotaligo — Battle of Coosawhatchie
— Attempt to raise the Blockade of Charleston —
Battle between the Iron-Clads and the Forts —
Dupont's Prizes,
The Charleston and Savannah Railroad was
of the first importance to the Confederate forces
in this department, because, upon an attack at
either end of that line, the force at the other end
could be relied on for support. Colonel B. C.
Christ, with the Fifteenth Pennsylvania, two
Companies of First Massachusetts Cavalry, and
a section of the First Connecticut Battery, had
destroyed several miles of this railroad, by order
of General Stevens, shortly before the battle
*See Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1862, article
"Stevens." In the article on the Army Operations of
this year, the battle of Secessionville is not mentioned.
Injustice to General Benham, I refer to an able de
fence of his conduct, in Putnam, vol. 6, pp. 236-241.

68 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
of Secessionville, but the damages had been
promptly repaired by the Confederates.
The Count of Paris, combining in himself
the instincts and accomplishments of a soldier,
a sailor, a scholar and a statesman, has given an
admirable account of the attempts which our
military and navaJ forces, under General Bran-
nan and Captain Steedman respectively, made
to cut this railroad in October, 1862, and of the
battles which they fought at Pocotaligo and at,
Coosawhatchie. *
The attack of the Confederate rams on the
Federal gunboats off Charleston, on January
31st, 1863, is imperfectly recorded by all the
historians of the late war. And I venture to
observe that too little attention has been given
to the peculiar circumstances under which that
attack was made, and which, in fact, probably
led to it ; for on no other occasion did the Con
federate rams ever assume the offensive at
Charleston. It must be remembered that, on the pre
ceding day, the Steamer Isaac Smith, while mak
ing a reconnoisance on the Stono, went too far
'^Volume 2, pp. 622-C26. Greeley's account, (vol. 2, p.
462,) and Lossing's, (vol. 3, p. 189,) are less full, and
both exaggerate the losses on our side. See the reports
of the commanders on both sides in Putnam, vol. 6, pp.
34-41.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 69
up that stream, and was destroyed on her re
turn by three batteries, which were suddenly
unmasked at one of the many bends in that
serpentine channel.
It must also be remembered that two of the
strongest vessels of the blockading fleet had
gone to Port Royal to coal, leaving the blockade
exceptionally weak just at that time.
It must also be remembered that the noble
blockade-runner. Princess Royal, (the gross pro
ceeds of which steamer, with her cargo, even at
a marshal's sale in Philadelphia, amounted to
^360,000) had just been run ashore and captured
by the blockading fleet, and was lying off the
bar, almost challenging an effort on the part of
the Confederates to wrest her from our grasp.
Moreover, one of these rams had been re
cently built by the proceeds of a great fair, held
by the ladies of Charleston, who had not shrunk
from the greatest exertions and sacrifices for the
cause of Southern Independence ; and there was
a general demand on the part of the ladies who
led society in Charleston for a demonstration by
the Confederate Navy, commensurate with their
own efforts, for that cause.
" It was known," says the Charleston Cou
rier of February 2d, in its glowing account of
this " Brilliant Naval Victory ;" " it was known

70 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
that the vessels guarding the approaches to the
city were of wood, and could not cope with the
mailed rams whose grotesque ugliness and saucy
look we had so often admired." It was also
known that the New Ironsides was soon to join
the blockading fleet,*
Besides all this, it was well known through
out the South that Napoleon the Third had re
cently made overtures to Great Britain and Rus
sia, looking to mediation and recognition of the
Southern Confederacy, and even to intervention
in its behalf,! ^^^^^ though the reply of Russia
was not all that could be desired by the Confed
erates, or by Napoleon himself, it strongly indi
cated that a few more victories in the field of
battle, especially if q,ccompanied by the break
ing of our blockade, might secure that recog
nition which had thus far been withheld.
Practically then, (strange to say,) Great
Britain was thus the only obstacle in the path of
that recognition which France proposed, and to
which her Emperor was willing to add an alli-
*Boynton innocently remarks, " No one of our iron
clads seems to have been at that time off" the harbor,"
vol. 2. p. 432 As though any of our iron-clads had been
there before.
fAppleton's Annual Cyclopasdia, 1862, article, " Pub
lic Documents," contains this correspondence. The De
partment of State also printed it.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 7 1
ance offensive and defensive with the Confeder
ate States. If then the Federal blockade of
Charleston could be raised, might not Great Brit
ain withdraw her negative upon the policy of
France ?
It was with reference to this, as I have been
told, that a Southern preacher preached a power
ful and passionate political sermon from the text,
" There is a lion in the way,'' vehemently de
nouncing the British Lion for placing himself
across the track of Southern Independence,
when the Pope of Rome had recognized and
blessed the standard of the South as equal in
the temporal order with the banner of St. Peter.
The Federal fleet, at this time, consisted of
the Housatonic, Captain W. R Taylor, senior
officer present ; the Mercedita, Captain F. S,
Stellwagen ; the Flag, Commander, J. H. Strong;
the Quaker City, Commander J. M, Frailey;
the Key Stone State, Commander W. E. Le-
Roy ; the Augusta, Commander E. G. Parrott ;
the Unadilla, Lieutenant-Commander S. P.
Quackenbush : the Memphis, Lieutenant-Com
mander P. G. Watmough ; the Ottawa, Lieu
tenant Commander W, D, Whiting ; the Stettin,
Lieutenanti C, J, Van Alstine ; together with
the Schooner Blunt and the Yacht America.
The fleet of Flag Officer Ingraham con-

72 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
sisted of his Flagship, the Palmetto State, an
iron-clad steamer, built after the style of the
Atlanta, citmmanded by Captain Rutledge ; and
the Chicora, another iron-clad steamer, of the
same style of construction, commanded by Cap
tain Tucker ; with three steamers acting as tend
ers — the Governor Clinch, the Ettiwan, and the
Chesterfield. The Palmetto State, approaching the Mer
cedita unsuspected in the darkness, was hailed
by her watch officer : " What steamer is that .''
Drop your anchor. Back — back. Steer clear of
us and heave to." Captain Rutledge answered :
"This is the Confederate States Steamer Pal
metto State," — at the same time ramming the
Mercedita through amidships, at and below the
water line, and discharging a seven-inch shell
from his bow gun, which, entering the starboard
side of the Mercedita, passed through her con
denser and the steam drum of her port boiler,
and exploded, passing through her port side,
killing and scalding her men, and so completely
disabling her, that Captain Stellwagen at once
hauled down his flag. The Confederate Captain
ordered him to send a boat, which was done, and
Lieutenant Commander Abbot went aboard and
gave his parole in behalf of himself and all the
officers and crew. Upon this pledge, not to serve

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 73
Sullivan's Island. "-'i
Beach Channel. • 2
• 3
Shoals. • 4

• 7
Main Channel •
• 8
• 9
• 10
''¦'Foiiy""'"'"" Island. The dotted line indicates the bar. The Agues 1 — 10
show the positions of the blockading vessels. The rams
passed down the main ship shannel, crossed the bar, and
turnin<r, one to the right, the other to the left, attacked
the flrst vessels they met. Then turning to tho north
east, (the battle ended,) they recrossed the bar, lay seven
hours in the beach channel and then returned to the inner
harbor of Charleston. The distance from the right to the
left of our line was about twelve miles.

74 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
against the Confederate States until regularly
exchanged, Abbot was allowed to return to his
ship, but no further steps were taken to secure
her. Meantime, the Chicora attacked the Key
Stone State, giving her a shot from her bow gun
and afterwards a broadside. In the fight which
ensued, the Chicora sent a shot through both
the chimneys of the Key Stone State, and struck
her with ten rifle shells, (two of them bursting on
her quarter deck,) killing twenty of her crew,
including her surgeon, and wounding twenty
more, and utterly disabling her.
By this time other vessels of our fleet, hear
ing guns and signals of distress, came from their
several stations off the bar to the help of their
consorts. Seeing these, the Confederate Flag
Officer speedily abandoned the struggle. On
His return to Charleston, he and General Beau
regard issued a proclamation that the blockade
had been raised. A counter statement was made
by the captains of the blockading fleet, and no
ship attempted to act on the faith of the pro
clamation. Although the greater part of the fighting
on the Confederate side was done by the Chi
cora, the narratives of Greeley, Lossing, Boyn
ton, and a score more writers, erroneously credit

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE, 7 5
the Palmetto State with two separate battles,
first with the Mercedita, and then with the Key
Stone State.*
None of our historians seem to have read
the testimony before the naval court of inquiry
touching this battle.
A question arose, whether the parole of the
Mercedita's officers and crew was binding upon
them, after the Confederate fleet had abandoned
them. A similar question arose a few months
later, when the Army Steamer, George Wash
ington, was destroyed by the Confederates near
Beaufort. The officer in command ran up a
white flag, and then ran away, with his men, to
the Beaufort shore. They were fired on, as they
ran through the marshes, by the Confederates,
who treated their attempt to escape as a resum-
tlon of hostilities. Admiral Semmes followed
these precedents, when he struck his flag to the
Kearsage, and then jumped overboard.
It seems clear that it is the right, if not the
duty, of a prisoner of war to escape if he can ;
"¦The reports of all the commanders on b'th sides
are printed in Putnam's Rebellion Record, vol 6, pp. 401-
415. Bnt the Editor should have punctuated them with
the n.ames of the several vessels referred to. Not beiu!j
able in the darkness to identify the opposing ships, these
commanders had to use descriptive phrases. Nut one
reader in ten thousand can now tell to what vessels these
phrases apply.

^6 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
and the duty of a captor to hold his prisoner if
he can. By neglecting to follow up the capture
of the Mercedita, by putting a prize master on
board of her, it would seem pretty clear that
Commodore Ingraham abandoned his conquest,
and thereby relieved his prisoners from their
parole. Considering that, as Commodore Ingraham
says, (in his official dispatch to Secretary Mall-
ory,) "everything was most favorable for"
the Confederate rams, the wonder is, that they
did not achieve in fact what the Confederate
commanders claimed to have achieved. Had
the Confederate Captain Buchanan been in
command of these rams, the result might have
been different. The Confederate Rams passed
within the shadow of a great opportunity ; but
they failed to take advantage of it ; and it never
occurred again.
During seven mortal hours after the battle,
these rams lay at anchor, at the entrance of
Beach Channel, waiting for the rising of the
tide to take them back to the city. Most of the
Federal vessels returned to their stations out
side the bar in full view, I have been told, and
can readily believe, that during this time, some
of the younger officers and men of the rams
became disgusted with the situation, and impa-

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. ¦jj
tient to resume the fight. Could the Confederate
States have had, but for one hour, the services
of Farragut, or of Porter ; or could the soul of
one of those old Titans of the sea, under whom
the English, French, Dutch, and American Nav
ies won their great historic renown, have entered
into and taken possession of Ingraham on that
dark winter's morning ; how different might the
course "of events have been !
Hawng had but little personal connection
at any time with the operations on the southerji
part of the coast assigned to the South Atlantij:
Blockading Squadron, my journal contains noth
ing touching various events which occurred in
that region additional to what will be found in
the narratives of the historians, to whose vol
umes I so often refer : — such as the destruction
of the Nashville, which even Dupont calls a
" privateer ;" the storming of Fort McAllister ;
the bombardment and capture of Fort Pulaski ;
and the capture of _the Atlanta. One of the
very best accounts of the battle between the
Weehawkin and the Atlanta, June 17, 1863, will
be found where one rarely looks for a graphic
picture of a battle, in Judge Sprague's decision
condemning the Atlanta as a prize.*
*2 Sprague's Decisions, p. 263. The opinions of
Judges • Sprague, Lowell, and Blatchford, in prize cases,
are valuable to the historian as well as the lawyer.

7?, LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
The battle between the iron-clads and the
forts of Charleston, had been long in prepara
tion ; and when it was finally fought, April 7th,
1863, it was witnessed and reported by many of
the ablest writers in all the leading newspapers,
both North and South. The best of the reports
is that of William Swinton, the historian of the
Army of the Potomac, in the New York Times.*
It is not my purpose to fight this battle over
again ; but merely to correct some of the errors,
and supply some of the omissions of the popu
lar historians. All of these writers state that General G.
T. Beauregard commanded the Department, and
Brigadier-General R. S. Ripley, the First Mili
tary District, at the time of the battle ; but
none of them give the names of the subordinate
commanders or of their commands.
Bragadier- General Trapier, commanding
second subdivision of this district, was present
at Fort Moultrie ; Brigadier-General Gist, com
manding first subdivision, at Fort Johnson ;
Colonel R. F. Graham, commanding third sub
division, on Morris Island, and Colonel L. M.
Keitt, commanding Sullivan's Island, at Battery
Bee, attending to their duties and awaiting the
development of the attack.
"¦It is reprinted in Putnam, vol. 6, pp. 602-512, aud
with it is that of the Charleston Mercury.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 79
The fortifications engaged were those which
formed what General Ripley called his " first
circle of fire," There were six of them — Sum
ter, Moultrie. Bee, Beauregard, Wagner and
Gregg ; and they were commanded and garri
soned as follows : —
Fort Sumter — Colonel Alfred Rhett ;
Lieutenant Colonel J. A, Yates, and Major
Ormsby Blanding, with seven companies of the
First South Carolina Artillery,
Fort Moultrie — Colonel William But
ler, and Major T, M. Baker, with five companies
of the First South Carolina Infantry.
Battery Bee — Lieutenant Colonel J. C.
Simkins, with three companies of the First
South Carolina Infantry.
Battery Beauregard — Captain J. A. Sit-
greaves, with two South Carolina companies —
one of Artillery and one of Infantry,
Battery Wagner — Major C. K, Huger,
w^ith two companies of the First South Carolina
Artillery, Battery Gregg — Lieutenant H, R, Les-
esne, with a detachment of the First South
Carolina Artillery,
Several companies of the Twentieth South
Carolina Infantry, under Captain P. A, McMi-
chael, stood on Sullivan's Island to repel any

8o LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
attack by land ; while the Twenty-first South
Carolina Infantry, under Lieutenant Colonel
Dargan, occupied Morris Island, for the same
purpose. The Confederate iron-clads Chicora and
Palmetto State, under Captain J. R. Tucker, lay
above Fort Sumter, the principal point of at
tack, but took no part in the engagement,
Dupont led the attack with his pennant fly
ing from the Ironsides, His ships advanced in
single file — four monitors, the flag-ship, three
monitors, and the iron-clad, Keokuk, as follows :
I. Weehawken, Captain John Rodgers ;
2, Passaic, Captain Percival Drayton ;
3. Montauk, Commander John L. Worden ;
4, Patapsco, Commander Daniel Ammen ;
5. New Ironsides, Commander Thos, Turner ;
6, Catskill, Commander George W. Rodgers ;
7. Nantucket, Commander Donald M. Fairfax ;
8. Nahant, Commander John Downes,;
9. Keokuk, Lieut.-Commander A. C. Rhind.
Captain Joseph F, Green lay outside with
the Steamers Canandaigua, Housatonic, Una
dilla, Wissahickon, and Huron, as a force in re
serve. General Seymour lay below, with a mil
itary force, ready to assist the Navy by a descent
upon Morris Island, or upon Sullivan's Island,
or in any other way.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 8i
The sky and the sea shone like seas of
glass, " the blue above, and the blue below ;'' no
sound was heard, no shot was fired on either
side, and not a man was seen on the decks of
the monitors, as our turtle-backed fleet steamed
along irt front of Morris Island, until it came
within range of Sumter. Then, at ten minutes
past three, the batteries of that grim fort opened,
and those on Morris and Sullivan's Islands
promptly joined.
The ships of Dupont, formed in line of bat
tle, (not "huddled helplessly together," as
Boynton erroneously states,) instantly returned
the fire of the forts. The thunder of artillery
became terrific ; the water seemed to boil and
hiss, when struck by solid shot or exploding
shell ; clouds of smoke and flashes of fire filled
the air for two miles, from Sullivan's to Morris
Island. The result is known to all. In thirty min
utes Dupont became " convinced of the utter
impracticability of taking the city of Charleston
with the force under his command ;" and every
one of his commanders concurred in this view.
Brave as Dupont was, the defences of Charles
ton had been so perfected by the Confederates,
that he feared and said that " a renewal of the
attack on Charleston would be attended with

82 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
disastrous results, involving the loss of this •
coast."* But the Rev, Dr. Boynton thinks that
"Dupont was mistaken in all his main opinions.''
Many writers have stated the number of
guns engaged on the Confederate side to be
300 ; some, 350 ; and some, 400: But there were
not 300 guns mounted in all the defences of
Charleston ; and the guns of the second and
third circles of fire were not engaged.
The nine Federal iron-clads carried thirty-
three guns, twenty-three of which were actually
used. The six Confederate works mounted
seventy-six guns, of which sixty-nine were actu
ally used. No matter how often the experiment
is made ; as often as sixty-nine guns are used
against twenty-three, afloat or ashore, I venture
to predict that the sweet goddess of Victory will
bestow her most bewitching smile on the party
that has the heaviest artillery.
The Federals fired 139 fires — 96 shells, 30
solid shot, and 13 cored shot. Of these, 55
struck the walls' of Sumter, two of the shells
passing through her walls.
The Confederates fired 2,229 shots, with
21,093 pounds of cannon powder, and hit the
iron-clads 248 times,
¦•The reports of Dupont and his captains are ap
pended to Secretary Welles' report for 1863, and reprinted,
in substance, in the second volume of Boynton.

LIFE AFL OA T AND ASHORE. 83
It is true, the guns of the Federals were of
larger calibre than most of those on the Confed
erate side, so that the weight of metal was more
nearly equal, (as General Ripley suggests ;) and "
the Federals had also a broad mark to aim at,
while the Confederates had much smaller tar
gets ;- — but the advantage of position was clearly
with the Confederates.*
Mr. Lossing suggests that, " Had a suffi
cient supporting land force been employed in
vigorously attacking the Confederates on Morris
Island, and keeping the garrisons of Battery
Gregg and Fort Wagner engaged while the
squadron was attacking Fort Sumter, the result
might have been different." It is seldom worth
speculating on what might have been. But an
answer to Mr. Lossing's suggestion is found in
the failure of all subsequent attempts to carry
Wagner by storm, and in the terrible sacrifices
of life which they involved.
Admiral Dupont remained in command of
the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron three
months after this repulse. During his command
32 prizes were taken at Charleston, although, it
is to be noted, no part of the blockading fleet
lay within the Bar, namely: —
*See the reports of the Confedeirate commanders in
Putnam, vol. 10, pp, 517-535.

84 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Albert, Aquilla, Anna Dees, Antelope,
Amelia, Belle, Coquette, Cambria, Cora, Cata-
lina, David Crockett, Dixie,* Emily St. Pierre,
Elizabeth, Eliza, Flash, Guide, Hettiwan, Hav-
elock, Louisa, Maria, Mary Teresa, Mercury,
Major E, Willis, Neptune, Patras, Providence,
Princess Royal, Rebecca, Stettin, Sarah and
Secesh, In his time, the Yacht America was cap
tured by the Steamer Ottowa, and transferred
to the Army. She is now in the hands of Gen
eral Butler. Besides Charleston, upwards of twenty
other ports were guarded by this squadron ; and
more prizes, in the aggregate, were taken at these
other ports than at Charleston. Some of Du
pont's prizes were very valuable, as the Atlanta,
valued at ^350,000 ; the Cambria, ;SSi9i,ooo ; the
Lodona, ^246,000 ; the Princess Royal, 1^360,-
000 ; the Stettin, ^226,000, etc.
Within two months after Ingraham's at
tempt to raise the blockade with the rams, three
European men-of-war touched off the bar, and
sent a boat to the city with dispatches to their
consuls. I refer to the British Steam Sloop
Desperate, February 27 ; the British Frigate
*She had been a privateer. See page 29. She was
sold for f 30,000. ^j^ qj-.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 85
Cadmus, March 2, and the French Steamer
Milan, March, 30.
In Dupont's time, no foreign vessel of war
was prevented from visiting any blockaded port.
This was in conformity with the proclamation of
blockade and the practice of the most liberal
nations ; though at a later period, it was held
by his successor that "the intervention of our
lines of attack" prevented this,*

CHAPTER Y.
Admiral Dahlgren in cpmmand — Descent on
Morris Island — General Strong — Storming of Fort
Wagner — Morris Island evacuated — Naval Assault
on Fort Sumter — Blockade-running — Torpedo At
tack on the Ironsides — Loss of the Weehawken.
Admiral Dahlgren relieved Admiral Du
pont, July 6, 1863. General Gilmore had pre
viously relieved General Hunter, and a joint
movement was made upon Morris Island, Pre
paratory to this movement. Folly Island, which
General Beauregard had not fortified at all, was
occupied by General Vogdes, who secretly, with
great adroitness, erected a battery on the north-
"?Dahlgren's Maritime International Law, pp. 54-60.

86 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
em extremity of the island, and placed 47 pieces
of artillery in position within pistol shot of the
Confederates, on Morris Island, without being
discovered at all. The great importance of this
bold achievement of Vogdes, will readily appear
when one considers the position of this Island,
which commands Stono Harbor, Stono Inlet, the
water approaches to James Island, and the south
erly extremity of Morris Island.
While most of the writers, on the Federal
side, bestow little praise on Vogdes, Pollard takes
occasion to give Beauregard a lecture for his
" want of vigilance " in not guarding against this
surprise.* The historians of the War trace, more or less
accurately, the progress of the descent upon
Morris Island, henceforth famous in history ;
but none of them have caught sight of the strik
ing and picturesque figure of the youthful Gen
eral Strong, springing upon the lower forts with
the agility of a deer, waiving aloft his sword, and
shouting to his troops, " Come on. Brigade."
In jumping impatiently from the launch into
the surf beating upon the beach, his high-topped
cavalry boots were filled with water, and his
clothes wet through. Thereupon he threw off
his coat and hat, and sat down upon the bank,
"¦History of the Lost Cause, p, 430.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 87
while his faithful negro boy made a bootjack of
himself, and removed the incumbrances. Time
was then too precious to waste on hose, so Gen.
Strong led the charge of July loth in his
stockings, getting his feet repeatedly cut by oys
ter shells at different points on the beach.
In the Romances, falsely called Histories,
of different wars, one sees the General hand
somely dressed, cavorting upon a horse richly
caparisoned. In the grim and bloody reality,
the General more often fights in a plight as un
presentable as that of the gallant Strong, Na
poleon crossed the Alps wrapped in a grey over
coat and mufler, mounted upon an humble mule,
led by a young mountaineer, who did not know
him ; but David paints him wrapped in imperial
purple, bounding over the Alps upon a fiery
stallion. In all the annals of modern war, no example
can be found where an army thus approached an
enemy's shore in boats, landed under a fire of
artillery and infantry, and disloged the enemy
from his fortifications. The descent on Morris
Island almost recalls Casser's descent on Brit
ain, or the landing of William the Norman at
Hastings. It is remarkable that the Charleston Mer
cury foreshadowed this " assault from barges "

88 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
on the very morning it was made, but closed by
saying, " We see no ground for agitation."
This descent would not have been attempted
without the aid of the Navy. Admiral Dahlgren,
with his flag flying from the Catskill, led four
monitors over the bar at four o'clock in the morn
ing, as follows : —
I, Catskill, Commander George H, Rodgers;
2, Montauk, Commander D, McN. Fairfax ;
3, Nahant, Commander John Downes ;
4. Weehawken, Commander E. R. Colhoun.
These monitors approached as near to Mor
ris Island as the depth of water would permit,
and moved along in front of that island, shelling
the Confederates vigorously as they retreated,
and finally opening fire on Wagner. On that
day, they fired 534 shell and shrapnell, and the
Steamer Catskill was struck sixty times. Lieut
enant-Commander Francis M. Bunce, with four
navy howitzer launches, with picked crews, cov
ered the landing, approaching Light House Inlet
by way of Folly Island Creek, at day-break, and
engaging the rifle-pits and batteries of the Con
federates. The regiments here engaged were the Ninth
Maine, the Third New Hampshire, the Sixth and
Seventh Connecticut, the Forty- eighth New
York, and the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 89
The Confederate force engaged numbered
about seven hundred, and consisted of the
Xwenty-first South Carolina volunteers. Colonel
R. T. Graham ; two companies of the First South
Carolina artillery, Captains John C, Mitchell,
(son of the Irish refugee,) and J. R. Macbeth;
and a detachment of the First South Carolina
infantry. Captain Charles T. Haskell.
" Our men," says the Charleston Courier,
" were exposed during the whole fight to a mur
derous fire from the four monitors, who hurled
their enormous missiles with telling effect."
The Edgefield Advertiser said, the roar of
the Federal guns was heard, and the reports
counted, in that district, distant 130 miles.
Not since the capture of Port Royal, had the
F"ederais achieved such important results with
such small losses. Only fourteen were killed,
and less than a hundred wounded ; while the
loss of the Confederates, in killed and wounded
and captured, was 294. Captains Langdon
Cheves and Charles T. Haskell, and Lieuten
ant John S. Bee, were among the killed; and
among the wounded was Captain J. R. Macbeth,
son of the Mayor of Charleston, and nine other
commissioned officers.
After sleeping all night without tents, and
almost without food, on the morning of July

90 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
nth, the Ninth Maine, the Seventh Connecticut
and the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, under Gen
eral Strong, made an assault on Wagner. The
Seventh reached the ditch ; but the other regi
ments, especially the Pennsylvania regiment,
then commanded by Major Hicks, failed to
come up in support ; and Strong, with tears of
grief and mortification rolling down his cheeks,
exclaimed bitterly, " It is useless," and ordered
a retreat. The Confederate loss was very small — one
officer and five privates killed ; one officer and
five privates wounded. The loss on the Federal
side has often been understated. The Confed
erates buried 95 of the Federals (chiefly of the
Seventh Connecticut) within their lines, and
captured 210 prisoners, eighty of whom were
wounded. How many others were killed and
wounded, I never learned ; but the correspond
ent of the Philadelphia Inquirer stated that 350
men who had been wounded in the assault, were
carried in the Steamer Cosmopolitan to Hilton
Head. Among the wounded was Lieutenant-
Colonel Rodman of the Seventh Connecticut,
and Major Hicks of the Seventy-sixth Pennsyl
vania, who was also captured.
Greeley, Harper, Lossing, Pollard, and oth
ers, couple the losses of the loth with those of

LIFE AFL OAT AND A SHORE. 9 1
the nth, and their statements are confused and
inaccurate.* The second assault on Wagner was made
on Saturday night, July 18. If the Federals
had gained much by opening the " parallels,"
the Confederates had gained more by reenforce-
ments from North Carolina and Georgia.
General William Taliafero, one of Stone
wall Jackson's veterans, commanded the Con
federate forces at Wagner, (Beauregard and
Ripley being his superior officers,) which con
sisted of the Charleston Battalion, Lieutenant
Colonel Gaillard and Major Ramsay ; the Fifty-
first North Carolina, Colonel McKeatchin ; and
the Thirty-first North Carolina, Lieutenant
Colonel Knight. There were also two compan
ies of the First South Carolina, Captains Tatum
and Adams ; two companies of the Sixty-third
Georgia, Captains Buckner and Dixon ; and
Captain DuPass' company of light artillery ; —
all under Lieutenant Colonel Simkins. They
were reenforced during the battle by the Thirty-
second Georgia, Colonel Harrison. The guns
of Sumter and Gregg joined with those of Wag
ner in pouring their fire upon the assaulting
columns.

''Greeley, vol. 2, pp. 475-476 ; Harper, 740 ; Lossing,
vol. 3, p. 202 ; IPollard, 431. !

92 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
The assault was preceded by a teriffic bom
bardment from the New Ironsides, from the five
monitors, Montauk, (carrying the flag of the Ad
miral,) Catskill, Nantucket, Weehawken, and
Patapsco, and also from the gunboats Paul Jones,
Ottowa, Seneca, Cheppewa, and Wissahickon,
as well as from several sand batteries on Morris
Island. This bombardment lasted eight hours, (not
"forty-eight," as Pollard's types make him say,)
during which nine thousand shell were hurled
at the fated fort. It ceased only when darkness
came on, and when its further continuance would
have involved the slaughter of the assaulting
column. The brigades which Strong and Putnam
led in this assault, were formed for this special
service. Some of the regiments had never met
before, and had never before seen their brig
ade commanders or the colonels who so soon
succeeded them in command. Strange to say,
many of those who fought in that terrible com
bat, cannot agree as to the composition of these
brigades. Gen, Gillmore's statement of the com
position of these brigades is not followed by
Greeley or Lossing, and is not entirely correct.
Colonel Robert G. Shaw led the attack
with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (colored).

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 93
Among the non-commissioned officers and priv
ates was a son of the famous Frederick Douglass,
with many other superior men. But at this time,
all the commissioned officers were white. They
went forward at "double quick" with great en
ergy and resolution ; but on approaching the
ditch they broke : the greater part of them fol
lowed their intrepid colonel, bounded over the
ditch, mounted the parapet, and planted their
flag in the most gallant manner upon the ram
parts, where Shaw was shot dead ; while the rest
were seized with a furious panic, and acted like
wild beasts let loose from a menagerie. They
came down first on the Ninth Maine, and then
on the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, and broke
both of them in two. Portions of the Ninth and
Seventy-sixth mingled with the fugitives of the
Fifty-fourth, and could not be brought to the fort.
They ran away like deer, some crawling upon
their hands and knees.
The Sixth Connecticut, Colonel John L.
Chatfield, followed the Fifty-fourth, and made a
furious charge. In spite of the most deadly
fire, they leaped over the ditch, bounded upon
the parapet, drove the Thirty-first North Carolina
with the bayonet, and entered the south-east
salient of the fort. It is a fact, (though Northern
historians omit to mention it,) that this gallant

94 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
regiment took possession of the south-east angle
of the fort, and held it for three mortal hoiirs.
But it cost a terrible sacrifice of life. The sur
vivors fought with the dead bodies of their com
rades lying three deep around them. Finally,
for want of support, they surrendered ; few, if
any, of them being able to get out.
General Strong exerted himself to the ut
most to push on other regiments in support of
the heroic Sixth. He placed himself at the head
of a battallion containing what remained of the
immortal Seventh Connecticut, and to them he
made his last appeal.
Here Strong fell, mortally wounded, and the
command of the column passed rapidly from one
to another until every Federal colonel and lieu
tenant-colonel present at the fort had been killed,
wounded or captured. When it finally broke,
the ranking officer was Major Plimpton of the
Third New Hampshire, who led its shattered
fragments into the sheltering gloom.
What the column of Strong failed to accom
plish, the column of Colonel Putnam was not
likely to achieve. Colonel Chatfield was the sen
ior Colonel ; he had commanded a brigade be
fore, and was entitled to lead this second column ;
but he waived his rank, declaring his preference
to stand or fall with the Sixth, He had fallen.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 95
mortally wounded, before Putnam's column ad
vanced. The second charge was not less furious
than Strong's. Putnam was killed almost as
soon as he reached the fort ; but his colonels
continued the assault unflinchingly ; falling. back
only when no possibility of success remained.
Putnam's own regiment, the Seventh New
Hampshire, Lieutenant Colonel Abbott, distin
guished itself greatly. The Confederates were
moved to admiration by the resolute courage of
the Forty-eighth and One Hundreth New York,
Colonels Barton and Dandy, and of the Sixty-
second and Sixty-seventh Ohio, Colonels Steele
and Voris. It was near midnight when the last shat
tered regiment recoiled from this terrible carn
age ; and the Confederates poured upon their
flying foes a murderous fire of grape and can-
nister. It was a retreat ol unutterable horrors.
Men fell from the ramparts of Wagner, some
times breaking their limbs by the fall. They
rolled one upon another into the ditch, and were
drowned in the water or smothered by their own
dead or wounded comrades falling upon them.
They dragged themselves upon their hands and
knees over the hills and ridges of sand.
To hundreds of poor fellows who lay, hour
after hour, maimed and mangled, on the bloody

96 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
beach before Wagner, and, piled one upon an
other, in the ditches around it, — with their bones
broken and their wounds bleeding, — choking
with thirst and writhing in agony, — praying, cry
ing, lingering, dying ; — it seemed as if morning
would never come, — as if Nature herself felt
outraged, and denied the light of day to a planet
presenting so ghastly a scene. Seldom, indeed,
has the glad sun risen, or the sad sea sobbed,
over so horrible a spectacle. Blood, brains, bow
els, bones, arms, legs, hair, fragments of bodies,
black and white, all mingled together, with sand,
mud, grass, water, patches of clothing, broken
gun - stocks and gun-barrels, belts, bayonets,
boots, shoes, and all the accompaniments of mil
itary art and life.
The Confederates say they buried six hun
dred of the F"ederal dead upon the ocean beach.
The wounded who survived were taken to prison
hospitals in Charleston, where, as " Personne "
wrote, their blood flowed " by the bucketful."
The wounds were generally severe, being in
flicted at short distances, so that " amputations
were almost the only operations performed,"
The ladies of Charleston, as might have
been expected, were moved to many acts of
kindness towards these suffering soldiers ; and
their sympathy brought upon them the slurs of

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 97
the local press as " troublesome and obtrusive
persons in female garb," who ought to be " im
pressed into service as nurses."
Buried with his own sable soldiers, Shaw
rests by the moaning sea,
" Like Scipio sleeping on the upbraiding shore."
The time may come, when the opposite sec
tions of our restored Union will unite to erect
here a monument to the memory of the heroes
of both races, who fell on either side. Such a
shaft would swell the heart and fill the eye of
every departing and returning sailor. Pilgrims
from afar would come to gaze upon it, and to lift
their hats to it, and walk around it, and to be
consecrated by meditating on its glorious mem
ories. Of such a monument who would not say,
with Webster at Bunker Hill, " Let it rise to
meet the sun in his coming. Let the earliest
light of the morning greet it, and parting day
linger and play upon its summit."
No detailed report, by regiments, of killed,
wounded and missing, on the Federal, side,
has ever, to my knowledge, been published.
The general reports vary — from 1,500 to 2,500.
Among the killed were Colonels Putnam
and Shaw, and Lieutenant Colonel Green of the
Sixth' Gmmee^i«*tr Among the severely wound
ed were General Strong and Colonel Chatfield,

gS LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
(who died of their wounds,) General Sey
mour, and Colonels Barton, Jackson and Emery.
Among the captured were Lieutenant Colonel
Bedell of the Third New Hampshire, and Major
Filler of the Fifty-fifth Pennsylvania.
The causualties among company officers
were as fearful as among the field officers.
The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, (for example,)
which went in under Colonel Shaw, came out,
shattered and reduced one-half, under a boy
lieutenant, with sergeants in command of its
-companies.* The defence of Wagner was conducted with
courage fully equal, and with military skill more
than equal to the assault. The Confederate loss
in killed, wounded and missing, was 174. Their
greatest losses were incurred in their efforts to
expel from the south-east salient the Sixth Con
necticut, where the Federal dead were "packed
as thickly as sardines." Among their killed were
Lieutenant ColoneU J. C. Simkins and P. C.
Gaillard,^and Captains W. H. Ryan and W. T.
Tatum, with other officers of superior merit.
Here, too, the gallant Major Ramsay, law
yer and scholar. Grand Master of the South
¦^In Siborne's History we read that, at Waterloo,
even brigades fell to the command of lieutenants ; a hun
dred officers (Including ten generals) having been killed,
and flve hundred wounded, on the side of the Allies, and
still more on the side of Napoleon,

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 99
Carolina Grand Lodge of Masons, was mortally
wounded — not, however, by the assailants, but
by an accidental shot from one ofthe garrison,*
When the flag of Wagner was shot down dur
ing the long bombardment, like another Sergeant
Jasper, he lashed it to a mast and returned
it to its place.
The history of this encounter has not yet
been written, by any body, with satisfactory ful
ness and accuracy. Such of the facts as have
been preserved, have been embroidered with
curious and absurd fictions, Mr. Greeley, for
example, says, that, "after advancing a few hun
dred yards under a random fire from two or
three great guns," the Fifty-fourth halted for
half an hour, during which it "was addressed
by General Strong and its Colonel 1" The
innocent historian had evidently read and with
childlike simplicity believed, the story that
Napoleon paused and harangued the Guard
before the final charge at Waterloo, The fact
*He was the first Master of Pranklin Lodge, Charles
ton, in which it was my fortune, on taking up my
residence there, to be initiated into the mysteries of sym
bolic masonry. It is remarkable as illustrating the uni
versality of this order, that in the elaborate preamble and
resolutions passed by that lodge on the occasion of his
death, there is nothing which might not have been
adopted by any Northern lodge.

100 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
is, the Fifty-fourth did not arrive till the brigades
had been formed for this assault. Hence it
happened, that it was placed so strangely, form
ed in two lines, in advance of the right of the
first brigade, which was formed in line by com
panies, at half distance.
"This glowing fiction probably arose from
this fact : the step of the Fifty-fourth on start
ing wS's'the "left oblique," and, naturally enough,
thfese new troops crowded badly on the centre ;
sd^hat Shaw had to halt twice to "dress ranks,"
bef6re they tpok the double quick.*
The only "address" given by Strong, at
tha't^lme, was, "Forward, the Fifty-fourth" — as
the only Waterloo "speech" from Napoleon to
the Guard was, "Gentlemen, the road to Brus
sells,"")" No commander out of Bedlam ever
thought of halting troops under fire to indulge
in elephantine harangues or sesquipedalian
orations. The best account of the assault on Wagner
is that of "Personne" in the Charleston Courier,
""If I criticise Greeley more than others, it Is because,
on the whole, I like him better than they. Lossing mix
es the later incidents of this battle with the earlier
events ; and Harper passes them over in silence. Better
things may be expected in the forthcoming volumes of
the Count of Paris, touching the last yfears of the War.
'^Messieurs — Le chemin a Bruxelles.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. loi
which none of the Northei^n historians seem to
have seen.* But, like every other narrative of
the combat which I have read, it is disfigured by
errors. It were well if each surviving regimen
tal commander made a separate report to the
commander-in-chief, as is the custom in the
Navy But some of them, (like Colonel Straw-
bridge of the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania,) would
have little to report, that one would care to read.
Admiral Dahlgren has left us a detailed re
port on the services of the Federal fleet at
Charleston from July lo to September 8, 1863,
which is accessible to all.f Whatever he has
there omitted will doubtless be supplied in his
memoirs now preparing for the press.
Had Wagner been attacked on the loth,
or nth, with any thing like the force and reso
lution with which it was assaulted no the i8th,
it might have been taken, and the lives of
many hundreds of brave men saved. Many
lives might also have been saved, had Putnam's
brigade been pushed in earlier. It was ready
¦^See Charleston Courier of July 20, 21, 22, 24, 1868.
" Personne " was P. G. Fontane, who, like the Confeder
ate General Whiting, passed much of his early life in
Lowell, Massachusetts. Both were pupils of the Lowell
High School. Cowley's History of Lowell, p. 172,
tSee Putnam's Record, vol, 10, pp, 183-190, The same
volume contains the reports of the Confederate command
ers, pp. 534-667. See also Gilmore's Operations &c.

I02 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
and waiting for the word of command while
Strong's brigade was getting " pulverized."
Stevenson's brigade should also have been push
ed in to support Putnam. Greeley, Lossing,
and the other historians, relying too much on
Gillmore's account, omit to mention that this
army was divided into three (not two) brigades,
and that in consequence of Strong and Sey-
more being hors du combat, and Gillmore being
too far in the rear, the third brigade received
no order to advance till it was too late to
save the battle. Gillmore should have posted
himself at least near enough to the fort to know
when Strong and Seymour fell, and to push in
the supports in time.
On Sunday morning while many of the
Federal dead and wounded were still lying on
the beach, the Admiral sent Flag Lieutenant
Preston and Sergeon Duvall, under a flag of
truce, to the Confederate General, offering to
send his own surgeons to take care of the Fed
eral wounded. General Taliafero declined this
offer. At a later period, the Confederates
proposed that each government should send its
own surgeons with medicines, hospital stores,
etc, to minister to its soldiers in prison, but this
was refused by the Federals,*
 ? 
*See the conclusion of the Vindication of the Confed
eracy against the charge of Cruelty to Prisoners.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 103
Six days after the battle Wagner, the Fed
eral Steamer Cosmopoliton met the Confeder
ate Steamer Alice, under flags of truce, midway
between the fleet and the batteries, and ex
changed 105 prisoners. While the exchange
was making, the officers indulged in friendly
conversation, and the Confederates, through
their telescopes, scrutinized with curious inter
est the grim Ironsides, and her strange little
turtle-backed consorts, the monitors.
On the night of August 5th, a Federal
picket launch, with Acting Master Haines and
twenty men, was attacked by the Confederate
Steamer Juiiio under Lieutenant Porcher, inside
of Cummings Point, Ten of the crew jumped
overboard, but two of them, after swimming
two miles, became exhausted, and swam ashore
on Morris Island, and surrenderd. The others
continued swimming till they reached the picket
ships, and were saved. The 'rest were captured.
On August 21, General Gillmore, having
mounted several heavy siege guns so as to com
mand the city, summoned General Beauregard to
surrender I Under the circumstances, Beaure
gard would have been excusable if he had couch
ed his reply in the prohibited word of the famous
Cambronne, which Victor Hugo has almost sanc
tified in Les Miserables ; but he was too polite

I04 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
for that. At first he thought of treating it as
the demand of the sock-and-buskin hero. Gen
eral Bum. But upon the second thought he de
termined to treat it seriously, and "fired the
Southern Heart," with a letter denouncing Gill
more for not giving him more time to remove
the women and children before 'shelling the city.
Finally he refused to move an inch, or to send
away either " chick or child,"
On the night, of August 22, 1863, Sum
ter received one of those heavy bombardings
which Admiral Dahlgren has included in the re
port already cited. The night was black with
tempest. But by this time, the Navy had be
come familiar with the thunder of their heavy
guns. Standing on the turret of the Patapsco,
as the battle was about to begin. Captain Steph
ens recited to the officers around him, the whole
of Bayard Taylor's " Crimean Episode," begin
ning, " Sing us a song," the soldier cried.
The outer trenches guarding,
While the heated guns of the camp allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
So General Wolfe recited Gray's Elegy,
rowing across the St, Lawrence to climb the
heights of Abraham, where he fought and fell
the next morning.
On the night of September 3rd, the Con
federate Major Warley, who, had been wounded

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 105
during that day's bombardment, was captured
with eight men, by the Federal pickets, while on
his way in a boat from Morris Island to Charles
ton. By the sixth of September, Gillmore's par
allels and batteries had approached so close to
Wagner as to ensure its capture at the next as
sault. All that day, a terrible bombardment was
kept up, attended with many casualties to the
Confederates ; and General Terry was preparing
for an assault the next morning. But during the
night Taliafero quietly evacuated Wagner and
Gregg, and shipped his forces to the city, leav
ing Morris Island in possession of the Federals.
A few nights before the evacuation, while
the Confederate Steamer Sumter was transport
ing troops from Morris Island to the city, she
was mistaken by Fort Moultrie for a Federal
vessel, fired on and sunk. By this accident, five
men were killed, others wounded, and twenty
drowned. The rest numbering about 600 were
saved by barges.
The feat of Commodore Perry in transfer
ring himself and his flag to the St. Lawrence
when the Niagara was destroyed during the bat
tle on Lake Erie, has been greatly applauded.*
""Por Perry's peculiar tactical methods and combina
tions, see Ward's Naval Tactics, pp. 76-80.

io6 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
m.
Captain T. H, Stephens, of the iron-clad Pa
tapsco, performed a similar feat during the great
bombardment of September 8, 1863. Commo
dore Rowan of the Ironsids,*^ fearing that the
Patapsco had attracted too much of the enemy's
fire, signalled to him to " Drop down below.'
Whereupon, Captain Stephens coolly pushed off
in his boat, pulled over to the Ironsides, and
begged Rowan to let the Patapsco remain where
she was, "Wait a moment," he said, "and see
how completely my guns command Bee." Com
modore Rowan waited, and Lieutenant Com
mander Bunce, the Executive Officer of the Pa
tapsco, put in a couple of most perfect shots —
seeing which. Commodore Rowan immediately
replied, " Captain Stephens, stay where you are ;
you seem to have taken Battery Bee under your
exclusive charge,"
Not a word can be said to belittle the gallant
feat of Perry, But I have known Admiral
Dahlgren again and again to move about from
vessel to vessel during the bombardments of
Charleston forts, and have myself accompanied
him in his barge on more than one such occa
sion. On the night of September 8, 1863, a gal
lant attempt was made to carry Fort Sumter by
storm. Major Stephen Elliott, who had relieved

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 107
Colonel Rhett in command of the fort about the
time when Gillmore reported that he had demol
ished it, made the following report : —
"Having for several nights expected a boat
attack, I had one-third of the garrison under
arms on the parapet, and the remainder so
posted as to reinforce with promptness. At i
A. M, this morning I saw a fleet of barges ap
proaching from the eastward. I ordered the
fire to be reserved until they should arrive
within a few yards of the fort. The enemy at
tempted to land on the southeastern and south
ern faces ; he was received by a well directed
fire of musketry, and by hand-grenades, which
were very effective, demoralizing him ; fragments
of the epaulment were also thrown down upon
him. The crews near the shore sought refuge
in the recesses of the foot of the scrap, those
further off in flight. The repulse was decided
and the asault was not, renewed
"His loss is four men killed, two officers and
seventeen men wounded, and fifteen officers
and ninty-two men captured. We secured five
stand of colors and five barges ; others were
disabled and drifted off. One gunboat and Fort
Johnson and the Sullivan's Island batteries en
filaded our faces, and contributed to prevent the
renewal of the assault. Many of the shots

io8 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
struck the fort. The garrison, consisting of the
Charleston Battalion, behaved admirably ; all
praise is due to Major Blake, his officers and
men, for the promptness and gallantry displayed
in the defence. Not one of my men hurt. One
of our gunboats assisted during the fight,"
This gallant attempt to storm a "demol
ished" work has been the subject of repeated
misrepresentation, Lossing says, " a portion of
the men of the squadron attempted the import
ant enterprise of surprising and capturing Fort
Sumter, without Gillmore's knowledge." Greeley
says, " no notice was given to, and of course
no cooperation invited from, General Gillmore.."*
Admiral Dahlgren says, in a narrative which,
I trust, will yet be published : —
" It was arranged that the columns should
co-operate — that of the squa.dron moving outside
of Cummings' Point, and that of the army from
the inside. It was past midnight, on the Sth
September, when a fine naval column of 450
picked men, well officered, pushed rapidly at the
gorge and South East faces, landed, and ran up
the debris of the gorge wall. The enemy opened
a rapid and destructive fire from above, while
Moultrie and Johnson flanked with a fire of shells
our boats and uncovered men. Thus the attack
¦?Lossing, vol, 3, p, 210, Greeley, vol. 2, p. 481.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 109
on a fort which Gen, G, assumes he had demol
ished, necessarily failed. So much did I desire
the ejfpected co-operation of the land column,
that I went in person to the scene of action to
secure the connection, but it came not. Gen,
G. says his troops were detained by low tide un
til after the naval attack had failed, which seems
far from satisfactory in view of the fact that it
was near midnight when Lieut, Preston returned
from Gen, G. with the assurance that the con
certed action was understood and arranged."
A part of the correspondence in relation to
this joint assault -has been printed in Gillmore's
book ; the rest of it will probably appear in the
Admiral's Memoirs, now in preparation by his
devoted and accomplished widow. The follow
ing dispatch is all I need offer to vindicate the
truth of history against the errors of Greeley
and Lossing : — Sept, 8th,
Admiral Dahlgren :
I deem it of vital importance that no
two distinct parties should approach Sumter at the
same time for fear of accident, I will display a red
light from the fort when taken — 1 ask you to do the
same if your party mounts first. Our countersign is
" Detroit," Let us use it in challenging on the water,
(Signed,) Gen, Gillmore,

no LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Among the officers here captured were Lieu
tenant Commander E. P. Williams, who after
wards perished with the ill-fated Oneida ; Lieu
tenants S, W, Preston and B. H. Porter, who
were killed at Fort Fisher, the former of whom
was attached to Admiral Dahlgren's staff.
Our historians have wandered far from the
facts in their statements touching the commerce
of Charleston pending our blockade. Whatever
may have been the " misinformation" upon which
Mr. Welles founded the statement in his report
for 1863 ; Greeley, Lossing, Boynton, and oth
ers, writing two or three lustrums later, have no
excuse for saying that "as soon as our iron-clads
were within the bar," July 10, 1863, "the harbor
of Charleston was entirely stopped."*
Mr. Greeley is here more deeply in error
than others ; he attributes this result to " the
terrible missiles of Gillmore." The fact is, block
ade running was not stopped, and never could
be wholly stopped, without more vessels than
Dahlgren ever had until after the fall of Wil-
mington. There are six different channels to
Charleston, of such configuration that vessels of
light draught, taking advantage of dark nights,
could elude the vigilance of the blockading fleet,
¦?Boynton, vol, 2, p, 486; Lossing, voL 3, p. 210;
Greeley, vol, 2, p. 482.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 1 1 1
Here is an advertisement from the Charles
ton Courier of December 1 7, 1 863 :
BLOCKADE STOCKS.
-DEE,
-L* CIlICORA, COBIA, PET,
Por sale by H, H, DbLEON.
461, King-street, opposite Citadel Square,
The same paper contains a much longer
advertisement from the Bee Company, of which
the editor says : —
" These gentlemen have already sold up
wards of $700,000 w/3rth of goods, which has
saved to the purchasers at least $150,000 to
$200,000 on the previous ruling prices,"
The following paragraph from the Charles
ton Mercury q{ April 26, 1862, shows how boldly
the blockade-running was carried on, before
the establishment of the inside blockade by the
capture of Morris Island ; it is a sample of many
more : —
"On Saturday last, nine sailing vessels
among which were the schooners Wave and the
Guide, started from this harbor to run the block
ade. Just as they were crossing the bar they
encountered the United States gunboat Huron,
Lieut. Downes, and other blockading vessels,
which immediately opened fire. The Wave, the.

112 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
Guide, and two others of the nine sailing vessels,
were forced to yield. The crews were detained
as prisoners on board the enemy's ships until
Wednesday last, when those who had been taken
aboard the Guide were landed on Gibbes Island."
On November 13, 1863, the Mercury an
nounced the payment of handsome dividends by
three blockade-running companies, one of them
being $500 per share.
During the whole of Dupont's command,
the Charleston newspapers reported the arrival
and departure of vessels from that port as reg
ularly and as openly, but ;of course not as nu
merously, as before the war. Even after Dahl
gren established his iron-clad fleet inside the
bar, and posted his pickets every night in the
throat of the harbor, between Sumter and Moul
trie, these arrivals and departures were from
time to time announced, but more guardedly,
except when the blockade-runner had been run
aground, or badly shelled.
We have been accustomed to berate the
commercial classes of Great Britain for export
ing goods to the Confederate States, in violation
of our blockade. But probably more goods were
carried into the Confederate States through the
instrumentality of merchants in the United
States than by all the merchants of Europe.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 1 3
More secrecy was observed by those residing in
New York, who engaged in this business, than
was observed in running the blockade of Mex
ico ; but it is none the less true, that, in the
Civil War as in the Mexican War, the munitions
of war were furnished in very large quantites
to the enemies of the United States by citizens
of the United States. Good old Horace Gree
ley used to say, not only in his despondent
hours, but also in his more hopeful moods, that
the ideas and vital aims of the South were
" more generally cherished " in New York than
in South Carolina or Louisiana,*
But I am satisfied that by far the greater
part of the importing and exporting business
that was carried on in violation of our blockade,
was carried on, not by clandestine merchants of
the North or of Great Britain, but by the Con
federate Government itself, by the Bee Company
of Charleston, and similar organizations at Wil
mington, Mobile, and other ports, together with
the various mercantile firms of the South.
The moral and religious sense of the South
was not at all offended by this traffic. The
Southern Christian Advocate applauded the Chi
cora Importing and Exporting Company of
Charleston for bringing through the blockade,
?American Conflict, vol. 2, p. 8.

114 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
gratis, twenty cases of Scriptures for the South
ern Bible Societies, when the freight thereon
would have been $10,000; and also for prohibit
ing the importation of any spirituous liquors up
on their steamers.
The attempt of Lieutenant W. T. Glassell
to blow up the Ironsides with the torpedo steam
er David, October 5, 1863, was equal in audacity
and adroitness to the more successful attempt of
Lieutenant Commander Gushing to blow up the
Ram Albemarle. With his little cigar-shaped
boat, he ran into the centre of the inside block
ading fleet, in the night, and steamed for the
Ironsides. When hailed by the officer of the
deck, he answered, " A boat from the Live Yan
kee — I am coming alongside," — at the same time
shooting the hailing officer,* and exploding the
torpedo which projected from his bow. Fortun
ately, the Ironsides escaped serious injury, and
captured Glassell and one of his crew. The
David and the rest of those on board returned
in safety to Charleston,
On November 4, 1863, fout of our scouts
effected a landing at the southeast angle of Fort
Sumter, After reconnoitering in the darkness
for a few minutes,- they were hailed by the sen
try, but they escaped.
¦* Acting Ensign Charles W. Howard. He was burled
on Morris Island, _

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. i r 5
On the night of November 19, 1863, Gen
eral Gillmore made an attempt to surprize and
capture Fort Sumter. He asked no aid from the
Navy ; but Admiral Dahlgren, hearing of it, and
anxiously desiring its success, ordered his pick
ets to' cover the assaulting party. His private
journal contains the following entry, dated No
vember 20th : —
" Last night the Army undertook to feel
the force in Sumter, and sent 200 men in boats
for the purpose. At 30 yards a dog barked and
aroused the garrison, which fired, wounding two
of our men. The- rumor was, the night before,
that an attack was to be made, and I ordered the
monitors on picket to cover our men. At 3 in
the morning I was aroused by a report that a
musketry fire had opened from Sumter. A few
shots were fired by the forts, and then there was
quiet. Our party concluded that there were 200
men in Sumter."
The. thoughtful care of the Admiral for the
Army column on this occasion shines by contrast
with the failure of Gillmore to support the
Navy column on September 6th,
On November 29, according to the Charles
ton newspapers, (which had published daily the
number of shot and shell fired upon the city,
since August 22,) the first fatal casualty occur-

ii6 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
red ; a negro being killed by a Parrott shell.
Two days later, a Mrs, Hawthorn was mortally
wounded by a fragment of shell. The use of St.
Michael's spire as a target for the Federal artil
lery, provoked a blast from William Gilmore
Simms, which began thus : —
"Ay, strike, with sacrilegious aim
The temple of the Living God ;
Hurl iron bolt, and seething flame,
Through aisles which holiest feet have trod ;
Tear up the altar, spoil the tomb.
And, raging with demoniac ire,
Send down, in sudden crash of doom.
That grand, old, sky-sustaining'spire."'*
On December 6th, the monitor Weehawken
suddenly sunk at her anchorage off Morris Isl
and. Both Greeley and Lossing attribute this
disaster to her hatches being left open when
a gale came on ; but neither of them can have
seen the testimony taken before the naval court
of inquiry convened on that occasion, or that
court's findings, though the entire record was
printed. The Weehawken had probably been
more seriously injured by getting aground, three
months before, than was discovered at the time ;
and her, loss was probably caused by the parting
of the hull proper from the " overhang," to
which the hull was secured by rivets. The story
of the gale coming on and filling her through
* Charleston Mercury, December 2, 10, 1863.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 117
the hatches', is without foundation.* Thirty-one
of her crew went down with her.
Another ' life " was lost, which " the dignity
of history " has not deigned to notice. The crew
of the Weehawken had a pet, (What man-of-
war's crew has not .') It was a noble chanticleer,
who felt as much at home on this iron-clad as in
his own native barnyard. He had many " taking
ways," and had done many things that his proud
ship-mates loved to tell of When the Atlanta
was captured, and Captain Webb came aboard the
Weehawken to give up his sword, chapman strut
ted to the ship's side, and " took a look " at the
captain ; he then mounted the pilot-house, flap
ped his wings, and crowed lustily three times ;
givit^g " the honors of war," in behalf of the
United States, to the distinguished prisoner.
When the Weehawken got aground one day,
near Fort Sumter, and lay with her hull badly
exposed, shelled by the Confederates, and in
desperate peril of destruction, chapman paced
the deck in pensive silence for four hours.
But as soon as she had been got off, without
loss, he mounted the pilot-house, and poured
from his melodious breast a song of thanksgiv
ing and joy, which was reechoed from the walls
of Sumter. Never did he hear the crew " piped
¦^Greeley, vol, 2, p, 484; Lossing, vol, 3, p. 211.

ii8 ¦ LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
to quarters," but his voice
"Rose like an anthem rich and strong,"
to second the call. After having thus " braved
the battle and the breeze" during the whole
cruise, this noble fowl was " sucked down " with
the Weehawken, and perished miserably with
the ship of which he was the pride and boast.
" If he had been killed in one of them long bom
bardments," said an " old salt," who had survived
him, " I shouldn't have felt so bad. That's what
we all expect. But to see him fluttering on the
waves and going down like a mere land-lubber ;
it's too much for me to think of," Then lifting
his sleeve to wipe the similitude of a tear from
his starboard cheek, he added, " I tell you, Judge
Cowley, on the word of a man, I'd rather 'a'.lost
half my prize money than have lost the cock of
the old Weehawken,"

CHAPTER VI,
Heroic Endurance of Charleston — Destruction
of the Housatonic and the Maple Leaf by Torpedoes —
Capture of the Columbine and the Water Witch —
Dahlgren's Council of War — Attempt to Surprise
Fort Johnson — Bombardment of the Batteries on the
Stono — Battle of Honey Hill — Battle of Devaux's
Neck — General Sherman at Savannah.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 1 9
The war had lasted nearly three years, when
William Gilmore Simms published, in Charles
ton, his famous Ode, " Souls of Heroes," the
third stanza of which ran thus : —
" There are thousands that loiter, of historied claim,
Who boast of the heritage shrined in each name, —
Sting their souls to the quick, 'till they shrink from the
shame.
Which dishonors the names and the past of their boast ;
Even now they may win the best guerdons of Fame,
And retrieve the bright honors they've lost ! "
No wonder that many faltered, for the con
flict had involved terrible sacrifices of life and
treasure ; and the dream of Southern Independ
ence was farther from realization than when An
derson hauled down his flag at Sumter, But the
spirit of the proud leaders remained unbroken,
Haskell, Cheves, Bee, Simkins, Ramsay, Ryan,
Pringle, Gary, Blum, Frost, Harleston, and many
more — the flower of the youth of Charleston —
had fallen in the bloody struggle ; but others
came forward with alacrity to carry on the con
flict. All ages and both sexes suffered, " A flre
consumed her young men, and her maidens were
not given in marriage."
" Our City by the Sea, as the Rebel City known,''
had earned her title to a fame hardly less than
Tyre, Syracuse, Jerusalem, La Rochelle, Lon
donderry, Saragossa, or Genoa, for the lion-

120 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
hearted courage and resolution and the heroic
constancy and endurance of her people.
If some had become reckless and desper
ate, it was no more than happens in all wars.
No such demoralization prevailed at Charleston
as was witnessed at Wilmington, which (as Cap
tain Wilkinson observes ) " was infested with
rogues and desperadoes, who made a livelihood
by robbery and murder. It was unsafe to ven
ture into the suburbs at night, and even in day
light there were frequent conflicts in the public
streets, between the crews of the steamers in
port and the soldiers stationed in the town, in
which knives and pistols would be freely used."
On February 17, 1864, Lieutenant Dixon
ran outside the Bar with the David, and repeat
ed upon the Housatonic the experiment of Glas
sell upon the Ironsides. The David was seen
and hailed by the watch officer of the Hovisa-
tonic, but it was too late. The David exploded
her torpedo with fatal effect; but both went 'to
the bottom together. The boats of the Canan
daigua saved most of the officers and crew of the
Housatonic ; but Ensign E. C. Hazeltine, and
four others, one of whom bore the famous name
of Theodore Parker, perished. Lieutenant Dixon
and all who were with him shared the same fate.
Many a man-of-war, and many a merchant
man, bears upon her books names that have been

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 121
assumed, (as that of this great " heretic " preach
er probably was,) to conceal the true name, and
to efface the memory of the man who bore it.
How many life tragedies have ended thus ! I
have known ship-masters, bankrupt merchants,
broken clerks, unhappy husbands, members of
the bar, physicians and clergymen, who had been
beaten on the race-course of life, finding the
shelter and oblivion, for which their hearts yearn
ed, in the Navy, shipping as George Washington,
John Adams, or Benjamin Franklin, but more
often and more humbly, as John Smith, John
Jones or John Brown.
The Federal Army Transport Steamer
Maple Leaf, was also sunk by a torpedo, April
1st, 1864, in the St. John's River, Florida. Nine
days later, another steamer of the same sort,
the General Hunter, was destroyed, and her
quarter-master killed, in the same manner in the
St, John's, t:^p|-o.,y- h-^r^-^ \^^-^0U^„^
If one Bavid lay at the bottom of the sea,
other torpedo-boats," built cigar-wise, were ready
to carry on the work of destruction. The
Steamer Memphis was attacked by one in the
North Edisto, March 6th, and the Steam Sloop
Wabash by another, off Charleston, April i8th;
but both were beaten off.
Other attempts were made at various places
to capture or destroy vessels of this squadron.

122 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
The Steamer Marblehead, attacked in the
Stono, off Legareville, on Christmas Day, 1863,
made a determined resistance, which, with
the aid of the Pawnee and other vessels, was
successful. But the attack on the little
Steamer Columbine in the St. John's, May 23rdj
and that on the Water Witch, in Ossabaw Sound,
June 3rd, were successful. Each of these
vessels was suddenly boarded in the night by an
armed force too powerful to be conquered, and
became a prize to the Confederate States.
Hundreds of casualties on both sides,
occurred from the precision of aim of the sharp
shooters. While General Taliaferro was in
command of Wagner, Captain Waring, of his
staff, was shot dead by a minnie ball from one
of our sharp-shooters, twelve hundred yards
distant, while standing by the side of his chief.
I have myself seen a sentry shot dead on Cum
mings Point by a minnie ball from Sumter,
five-eighths of a mile distant.
Frequent as these casualties were, hardly
any one ever guarded against them. The Duke
of WeUington, I may say, regarded such acts as
murders. They never decide any thing.
General Samuel Jones succeeded General
Beauregard as Confederate commander of the
Department of the South. On the Federal side.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 123
General John G. Foster relieved General Gill
more. Admiral Dahlgren having obtained
leave of absence. Commodore Rowan took
command of the squadron ad interim.
On resuming his command in May, 1864,
the Admiral held a council of his nine iron
clad captains touching the feasibility of another
naval attack on Charleston. All these officers
expressed themselves ready and willing to en
gage in another attack with the greatest alacrity;
but their judgment was against it. Only two
voted in favor of an attack ; and these were
among the youngest holding commands, — Lieu
tenant Commanders George E. Belknap and
Joseph N. Miller ; while seven voted in the
negative, one of the seven being Commodore
Rowan. If this prudence did not suit everybody, it
was enough for the Admiral, that it was approved
at the time by the Navy Department and
afterwards by Sherman. In a letter to the
Admiral, at the close of the War, General
Sherman wrote — what he has again and again
said in substance in my hearing, both before and
since — " I now thank you in person for not
having made the hazardous experiment ; for
when the time did come to act seriously, your
fleet was perfect, well manned and admirably

124 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
suited to aid me in the execution of the plan
which did accomplish the fall of Charleston, and
more too."
" In war," said Napoleon, " it is always and
everywhere difficult to know the truth." Some
time after this council was held, a clamor was
raised because Charleston had not been taken,
and two members of Congress called at the
Navy Department to urge that the Admiral
should be relieved by an officer of a more belli
cose mind. The question was put to these
gentlemem by Mr, Fox, "Whom do you recom
mend for this place .'"' "Well : Commodore Row
an," was the reply. "He is a fighting man ; he
is there chafing on account of the backward
ness of the Admiral, Put him in command, and
he will go into Charleston right off." Fancy the
blank looks which these Congressmen exchanec-
ed with one another, when Mr. Fox read to them
the Admiral's dispatch inclosing the report of
this council of war; by which it appeared that
he had again and again changed the form of the
question voted on, with the view to .get from the
council a vote in favor of an attack, while
Commodore Rowan and the rest of these
officers voted seven to two against the propo
sition in every form. One of the Congressmen,
General Hawley, who- fought like a Trojan under

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 2 5
Stevens at Secessionville, frankly owned his
mistake, and avowed his determination never
again to meddle with matters out of his own
sphere. Let no one draw from this an inference
unfavorable to the great merit of the present
gallant and honored Vice Admiral of the Navy,
His record throughout the War, especially
while in command of the Ironsides, is full of
proofs of his undaunted courage and extraordi
nary professional skill.
The Admiral afterwards told me that, if he
could have got from this council a vote that
would justify an attack, he would have made it,
whatever the result might have been, I recalled
to his attention the proverb, that councils of war
never fight, and Orme's explanation of that
proverb, — that "as the commander never con-
consults his officers in this authentic form ex
cept when great dificulties are to be surmount
ed, the general communication increases the
sense of risk and danger, which every one brings
with him to the consultation."*
I also cited to the Admiral all the ex
amples I had met with in history, where bril
liant victories had been won, on land and sea,
in battles which had been fought contrary to
the advice of such councils.
¦"Orme's History of Hindustan, vol. 2, p. 171.

126 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
As I expatiated on the battle of Plassy,
which was fought by General Clive after a
council had voted 13 to 7 against fighting, and
on which Great Britain founded her Indian
Empire, — the Admiral answered me : —
"And havent there been as many examples
to the contrary ? There was Benham over
here (pointing across Morris Island towards
Secessionville,) He' fought against the advice of
his commanders ; and you know the result. My
first business is to hold this coast. I am to run
no risk of loosing this ¦ coast, for the sake of
taking Charleston,"
At that time, the captains and pilots of
blockade runners received from $1,000 to $5,-
000, besides perquisites, for a single successful
trip, occupying a week. Common seamen were
paid $100 a month in gold, and $50 bounty at
the end of every successful voyage.
I had been of counsel, at an early period
of the War, for the keeper of one of the
Charleston hotels, and had succeeded in induc
ing Mr. Welles to release him from Fort Warren,
where he had been incarcerated for running the
blockade. And I should be sure of a welcome
reception from him if I went to Nassau, and
thence took passage in one of those long, low,
narrow, lead-colored, short-masted, rakish-look-

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 2 7
ing blockade runners to Charleston. I thought
that, with from $10,000 to $25,000 I could hire
pilots, in Nassau or in Charleston, to pilot our
iron-clads to the city, and I offered to try the
experiment ; though well aware that, in case of
discovery, I should die the death of a spy, like
Major Andre and Colonel Hayne.
If a blockade-runner could enter Charles
ton with a good pilot, so ( it seemed to me )
could our iron-clads, with one of the same
pilots; no matter how many torpedoes might lie
along the channel. But the Admiral had to
look at the question from other points of view ;*
and the attempt was not made.
According to the report of General Gillmore,
"it was the constant and studied practice of the
Confederate commanders to circulate exaggerat
ed and erroneous reports concerning the means
of defence ; — and to such an extent and with
such skill was this ruse made use of, that with
few exceptions, neither the inhabitants of the
city, nor the troops defending it, possessed any
correct knowledge of the channel obstructions.
"Such a semblance of necessary and system
atic labor in their construction, management,
and repair, was kept up, and such an affectation
of secrecy concerning their real character and
?Dahlgren's Maritime International Law, pp. 17, 78.

128 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
of confidence in their efficiency was assumed,
in order to keep all knowledge or suspicion
of the huge fiction from us, that the blockade-
runners themselves knew almost nothing of the
really harmless character of the hidden obstruc
tions they were told to avoid."
And General Gillmore contends "that there
was nothing in the shape of channel obstructions
or torpedoes that could prevent or seriously
retard the passage of our fleet up to Charleston
city or above it, in 1863 and 1864, by using the
channel left open for blockade-runners ; that
such channel obstructions and torpedoes as did
exist, were not regarded by the enemy as at all
formidable, or likely to afford them much protec
tion in the event of an actual attack ; and that
at no time during the war was their condition
any better, or their efficiency any more to be
relied on, to delay the passage of a fleet, than
when the city came into our possession in
Februjiry, 1865,"*
But if General Gillmore supposes that it
was the submarine obstructions alone that
prevented this council from favoring, or the
Admiral from making, another attempt to cap-
¦•Supplementary Report to Engineer and Artillery
Operations against the Defences of Charleston Harbor,
pp. 25, 27.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 29
ture Charleston in 1864, he is greatly mistaken.
How serious the torpedo and other submarine
obstructions were, sufficiently appears in the
affidavits and reports appended to Mr, Welles'
Report for 1865, pp. 252-300. But these were by
no means the only obstacles.
The officers who sat in this naval council, as
well as the Admiral, saw that, while Gillmore,
with the aid of the Navy, was engaged in cap
turing Morris Island and destroying the offen
sive power of Sumter, the genius and rescources
of Beauregard and his able lieutenants created
other and more powerful defensive works inside
of Sumter. So that Ripley could justly boast
that his second aud third "circles of fire" were
now more to be relied on than his first circle
at the time of Dupont's attack. Pollard puts
it well when ' he says, Beauregard " had re
placed Sumter by an interior position, had ob
tained time to convert Fort Johnson from a
forlorn old fort into a powerful earthwork, and
had given another illustration of that new
system of defence practiced at Comorn and
Sebastopol, where, instead of there being any
one key to a plan of fortification, there was the
necessity of a siege for every battery, in which
the besiegers were always exposed to the fire
of others,"* ¦*Pollard's Lost Cause, p. 437.

I30 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
On June 13th, 1864, .General Ripley, the
Confederate commander of the First Military
District of the Department, sent a letter by flag
of truce to General Schimmelfennig, the Federal
commander of the District, informing hiih that
five generals and forty-five field officers of the
Federal Army, prisoners of war, had been con
fined in Charleston, in a part of the city which
was. exposed, day and night, to the fire of the
Federal guns. A copy of this letter was at once
forwarded to the Admiral, who denounced it as
" a threat to murder," for which Generals Jones
and Ripley should be hanged, if they were
taken. But we had as many places where Con
federate shells fell as they had where our
shells»fell ; and it was determined to retaliate.*
The place finally selected by General Jones
for the confinement of Federal prisoners of war,
was the Charleston Race Course. It is strange,
that while the horrors of Andersonville, Sauls-
bury, Libby, and Belle Isle, have been recited,
more or less at length, in scores of narratives,
the hardships of the Charleston Race Course
have been left unnoticed and unsung.
Although the Federal Army and Navy at
once threatened to retaliate, it was brutal busi-
¦"See the correspondence on that subject, in Welles'
Report for 1864, pp. 351-355. It is of ten-fold greater
interest than much of the matter found in the histories.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 3 1
ness ; and human nature shrank from it. Three
months later, however. General Jones was
notified by flag of truce that six hundred Con
federate officers, prisoners of war, had been
confined, under the fire of the Confederate
shells, in a stockade, near Cummings Point,
Morris Island; that they had been provided with
tents, and with supplies of food approximating
as nearly as possible the rations allowed by the
Confederates to our prisoners ; and that when
ever General Jones should remove the Federal
prisoners from under our fire, and should give
notice by flag of truce of that fact, these six
hundred Confederate officers would be removed
from under the Confederate fire.
To the reproach of humanity, the Confed
erates persisted in keeping hundreds of our
prisoners upon the Race Course at Charleston.
" Here," wrote James Redpath, " upon an open
field, without shelter from burning sun or bleach
ing storm, our poor boys were turned out to
sicken and die. Their beds at night were the
sods of the earth — their habitations only such
burrows as they could excavate with their hands
in the sandy soil. Two hundred and fifty-seven
of these unfortunate heroes never left the en
closure alive, and were buried upon the spot
where they threw off their mortal armor." Of

132 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
course, the retaliatory stockade on Morris Island
was maintained as long as the Race Course out
rage was continued.
Early in the morning, on Sunday, July 4th,
1864, two regiments of infantry, the One Hun
dred and Twenty-seventh New York, and Fifty-
second Pennsylvania, with a detachment of sixty
men from the Third Rhode Island Artillery, all
under the command of Col.- William Gurney,
embarked in boats from Morris Island, hoping to
effect a landing on James' Island, and to surprise
and capture Fort Johnson and Battery Simkins.
These works are about two miles nearer Charles
ton than Cummings Point. This movement
was made in consequence of information that the
Confederate garrison then on James' Island, had
been reduced to a skeleton. It was a bold move
ment, and promised brilliant results. I could not
resist the impulse to accompany the assaulting
party as a volunteer, as one or two other naval
officers did. But the embarkation of the troops
was delayed two hours beyond the time assign
ed, and the tide had gone down, so that some of
the boats got aground, and failed to reach James'
Island. That portion of the assaulting party
that reached the island was even more unfortu
nate. Colonel Gurney, of the New York regi
ment, without the knowledge of his command,

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 1 3 3
remained on Morris Island, and in his absence
the command devolved upon Colonel Hoyt, ofthe
Pennsylvania regiment, who, however, seems not
to have been aware of the fact. He was separ
ated from his command, and taken prisoner.
Lieutenant Colonel Conyingham, upon whom
the command now devolved, looked about for
Colonel Hoyt, and became a prisoner himself.
Then ensued confusion baffiing description.
One company of the New York regiment
and the Rhode Island artillery-men landed un
observed within fifty yards of Fort Johnson ; they
were soon discovered by the garrison ; but upon
one volley being fired, some officer, (I could never
learn whom,) gave the order to retreat to the
boats, and thus this opportunity to capture these
important works was lost. The Confederate
force then on James' Island was small — some re
ports putting it as low as 1 50. Our loss in killed,
wounded and captured must have exceeded the
whole number of men in the two forts assailed;
for we lost 137 enlisted men and six officers.
At the late Mr. Greeley's request, I placed
in his hands my notes of this well-conceived but
abortive movement, to be used in his American
Conflict. He seemed well pleased to get thdse
notes, but probably never looked at them again.
No mention is made of this affair in his book.

134 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
nor in any other history of the war,* although,
as Admiral Dahlgren said, " it came near decid
ing the fate of Charleston."
It is related that once in their agony for want
of a good general-, the Scots exclaimed, " O for
an hour of Dundee." With Gurney lagging be
hind, with Hoyt and Conyingham captured, with
no known commander to direct them ; with bat
teries opening upon them from all directions, —
" cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them "
— in their supreme need of a general, our troops
looked anxiously to the mound where Strong,
Putnam, Chatfield and Shaw, had led their forces
to the jaws of death ; and then made their way
back to the place of embarkation. More fortu
nate than many others, I escaped, with only a
a flesh wound from a shell.
During the week following this attack on
Johnson and Simkins, the monitors Lehigh
and Montauk, and the Pawnee, McDonoughand
Racer were actively engaged in bombarding the
*It was reported in Mason's dispatches to the New
York Herald of July 12, and more fnlly in the Herald of
August 1st, which led to the convening /)f a court of in
quiry touching the conduct of Colonel Gurney. The
findings of the court have not been made public; but
General Schimmelfennig, in a conversation with me, con
firmed the strictures in the Herald. See letters and or
ders appended to Mr. Welles' Report for 1865, pp. 252, 346.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 135
batteries in the Stono. Admiral Dahlgren's dis
patches contain an account of these operations,
which our historians pass by unmentioned.
General Foster cooperated, three of his lieu
tenants playing important parts — Generals
Hatch, Binney, and Schimmelfennig. The last
named officer rose very high in the esteem of
both Army and Navy. When the history of
our Civil War is written as it should be, his
services will ensure his renown ; albeit
"  his dissonant, consonant name
Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame."
Some of the most interesting chapters yet
to be written in the history of the War, are
those relating the operations of sailors and
marines when transferred to the shore, and
organized as naval land batteries and sailor
infantry. Two such batteries, with four guns
each, were formed by Admiral Dahlgren in
November, 1864 ; and they were supported by
four half companies of sailor skirmishers, and
four companies of marines.*
Commander Preble was placed in command
of "the Fleet Brigade," as this force was
called ; and he has given an account of it in
the Preble Family Memorial. Although it
¦"Dahlgren's Dispatches, with Welles' Report for
1865, pp, 215—220, 346 ; Preble's Dispatches, Ibid,
308-312.

136 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
bore an important and distinguished part in all
the engagements' on the Tullifinny and the Coo
sawhatchie, this brigade is scarcely mentioned
in the histories of the War, The object of
these operations was to cut the Charleston and
Savannah Railroad, and prevent the Confed
erates from sending troops to oppose Sherman
in Georgia, by employing them here.
This object was largely accomplished, but
not without considerable loss ; the Confederate
commanders having a perfect knowledge of the
country, while the Federal commanders knew
nothing of it, and again and again mistook the
way. The most unfortunate battle in which the
Fleet Brigade participated, was that of Honey
Hill, November 30th.
Besides the Fleet Brigade, three brigades
of General Foster's army participated, com
manded, respectively, by General Hatch, Gen
eral Potter, and Colonel A. S. Hartwell of the
Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry ; together with
two batteries of the Third New York Artillery,
and two companies of the Fourth Massachusetts
Cavalry, The Thirty - fifth United States Colored
Troops led the assault, but stuck in an impassa
ble marsh which lay in front of the Confederate
Battery. There, a galling fire of grape and can-

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. . 137
ister, as well as musketry, was opened upon
them, and they were forced to i"etire.
Colonel James C. Beecher (half-brother of
Henry Ward Beecher) followed; but his regi
ment, the Thirty-second United States Colored
Troops, could not get near enough to produce
much effect. So with other regiments: the Fifty-
fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts: the Fifty-
sixth, One Hundred and Twenty-seventh, One
Hundred and Forty-fourth, and One Hundred
and Fifty-seventh New York; the Twenty-fifth
Ohio; the Thirty-fourth and One Hundred and
Second United States Colored Troops,
Although necessarily fighting at a disad
vantage, with the enemy behind entrenchments,
and themselves completely exposed, the Federal
troops fought nobly during seven hours. Previ
ous to the battle there were three hours of hot
skirmishing. The Confederate loss in this battle was in
significant. The Federal killed, wounded and
missing, numbered 740.
Among the wounded was the Rev. Colonel
Beecher, and Lieutenant Colonel E, C. Geary.
The best account of the battle of Honey
Hill is that of Samuel W. Mason who was pres
ent, in the New York Herald of December 9th,
1864.

T38 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Better success was achieved the following
week at Deveaux's Neck. After two engage
ments on December 6th and 7th, the railroad
was cut, and ten Confederate regiments, which
otherwise might have made trouble for Sherman,
were detained and kept on the defensive.
It was the universal testimony of the offi
cers present, both of the Army and Navy, that
the sailors and marines behaved admirably in
camp and battle. It was particularly remarked
by Army officers, that from the Fleet Brigade
there were no stragglers. So far from our tars
requiring to be forced to face danger and death
in any form, it was necessary to compel them, by
threats of punishment, to avoid exposing them
selves recklessly. Bayard Taylor said or sung :
" The bravest are the tenderest ;
The loving are the daring."
I have seen many illustrations of this. But I
have also seen many examples to the contrary.
The insensibility displayed by our motley force
of whites, blacks, mulattoes, and octoroons, on
the Tullifinny and the Coosawhatchie, was re
volting. I have again and again heard our men
carelessly shout, " You are gone up," to their
comrades falling mortally mangled by their side.
Familiarity with the horrors of war tends always
to make men brutes. For example : af ter the
battle of the Pyramids, (as Miot relates,) the

*• LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 139
whole way through the desert of Egypt was
tracked with the bones and bodies of men and
horses that had perished in those dreadful wastes.
In order to warm themselves at night, the French
army gathered up the dry bones and bodies of
the dead which the vultures had spared, and
made fires with them. By a fire composed of
this fuel Bonaparte and his jaded Generals lay
lay down in the desert of the Pharaohs to sleep!*
General Sherman burned the city of At
lanta on November 15th, 1864; and cutting
loose from his base in the West, struck out
boldly to find a new base in the South Atlantic
Blockading Squadron and in the seaboard which
that Sqtiadron had captured three years before,
and still held. In saying this I do no injustice
to the Army in this Department, which, as
General Schimmelfennig said," could at no time
be considered in any other light than as a landed
force serving to render the blockade more
effective." It has been argued that " the Grand
March," was really a retreat ; that Sherman had
moved too far from his base when he advanced
from Chattanooga to Atlanta ; and could not
have escaped destruction, had he remained
¦"See Miot's Memoirs of the War in Egypt, and Rocca's
Memoirs of the War in Spain.

I40 LEAVES ORFM A LAWYERS "
where he was. President Davis was weak
enough to call it a retreat and to predict for
Sherman " the fate that befell Napoleon in the
retreat from Moscow."
But to my mind this argument only enhan
ces the magnitude of the movement. Has any
captain since the days of Alexander ever con
ceived such a retreat? When, by any move
ment, a commander accomplishes all the sub
stantial result of a hundred victories, he has a
right to call that movement by the term that
best pleases him.
Sherman had not been cavorting over
Georgia many days before we learned from
Confederate deserters that he was moving at
the rate of fifteen miles a day, probably towards
Savannah or Port Royal, but , possibly towards
Pensacola, or even Mobile. On the 25th, we
learned that he had reached Milledgeville,
and was " smashing things." Exactly where
Sherman would meet us, we knew, must be de
termined by circumstances. So the Admiral
made preparations to meet him at Savannah-
River, at Wassaw Sound, at Ossabaw Sound, at
St. Catherine's Sound) and also at Brunswick.
Red, white, and blue rockets were sent up every
night by our gun-boats at all these points, to
inform the Army that the Navy was near. On

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 141
December 12th,* Captain Duncan and two
scouts, after having drifted down the Ogee
chee in a canoe, brought the Admiral a note
from General Howard, of Sherman's right wing.
They left Howard on the evening of the 9th, and
reached the Fleet in Ossabaw Sound on the
afternoon of the nth.
On the next day. General Kilpatrick, Sher
man's Chief of Cavalry, communicated with the
Bark Fernandina, Acting Master Lewis West,
one of our squadron, in St. Catherine's Sound.
On Monday morning, December 12th, I
was sitting as Judge- Advocate of a Naval Gen
eral Court Martial in the cabin of the Steamer
Canandaigua, Captain N. B. Harrison, at Port
Royal, trying Francis Anderson for stealing
$600 from Walter Allen, Paymaster ^ of the
monitor Nantucket, (now editor of the Boston
Daily Advertiser^ when the little Steamer
Dandelion ran in at full speed with Captain
Duncan and General Howard's dispatch.
This gratifying news spread like wild-fire.
It was wig-wagged from ship to ship — handker
chiefs being used where flag signals were not at
"¦See the reports of Sherman and his generals in Put
nam's Rebellion Record, vol. 9,^ pp. 6, 6, 7, 16, 24, 166
Also, the dispatches of Dahlgren and his commanders,
appended to Mr. Welles' Report for 1865. Also Sherman's
Memoirs etc.

142 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
command. While the Admiral was dictating
dispatches to Secretary Welles at Washington
and to General Foster up the Broad River, to
inform them of the fact, I sent the glorious
intelligence by the Steamer Queen to the New
York Herald, which must, of course, announce
the great arrival of Sherman " in advance of
all other journals."
The excitement, the exhileration, ay, the
rapture, created by this arrival, will never be
forgotten by the officers and crews of the Fed
eral vessels who then saw the beginning of the
end of the war, and of their own wearisome
service. The Admiral at once started South in the
Harvest Moon. As soon as the trial of Ander
son was finished, the flag of the Naval General
Court Martial was hauled down ; and the
Canandiagua followed the Admiral to the South.
Fort McAllister fell on Tuesday ; and on Wed
nesday, December 14th, General Sherman him
self came on board the Harvest Moon in Was
saw Sound, and remained with us all night. It
was arranged that Savannah should be attacked
simultaneously by the Navy in front, and by
the Army in the rear, and on the next day the
Admiral carried the General to Fort McAllister,
(which General Hazen's Division had captured

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 143
two days before,) where General Sherman left
us to rejoin his Army.*
Already the idol of the Army, this brilliant
officer became equally the idol of the Navy.
The General and the Admiral at once became
personal friends and faithful and indefatigable
coadjutors, and so continued to the end. The
severities of the service and the loss of his son
had told heavily upon the Admiral ; but from
the day when he caught the light of Sherman's
bright eyes as he stepped on board the Flagship
in Wassaw Sound, he seemed to grow younger
and more buoyant every day. The increasing
elasticity of his mind is manifest in all his dis
patches. Writing on that night to Secretary
Welles, while the jaded General lay near him
asleep, the Admiral said, — "I cannot express to
the department my happiness in witnessing and
assisting in this glorious movement, so accept
able to our great country. My only wish now
is to do my part."
How faithfully he did that part, the
General has repeatedly attested in words of the
warmest praise. The affection which the Ad-
tSee Report of Secretary Welles for 1874. The dis
patches printed with the Reports of the Navy Depart
ment for 1864 and 1865, contain full accounts of many
transactions not recorded elsewhere. This mine has
been little worked by the historians.

144 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
miral bore towards General Sherman was
warmly reciprocated. No doubt, no suspicion,
ever started on either side: their hearts were
as guileless as they were brave ; and they were
incapable of envy or jealousy. Most fit it was
that, five years later, when the Admiral died
suddenly upon his lounge, in Washington, the
first that viewed his lifeless form (outside of his
own family) was the illustrious General whom
he met on that memorable day in Wassaw
Sound. General Sherman came aboard again three
days later, and proceeded with us in the Harvest
Moon to Port Royal, where arrangements were
made to reenforce the Army at the head of the
Broad River with Carman's Brigade, with the
view to get possession of the Charleston and
Savannah Railroad, and prevent the escape of
General Hardee and the Confederate Army in
Savannah. On the night of December 20th,
General Sherman again came on board the
Harvest Moon, and proceeded with the Admiral
first by the Flag-ship, and afterwards (when she
grounded) by the Admiral's barge, to Ossabaw
Sound. Just before reaching Ossabaw next
morning, the Army Steamer Red Legs brought
a dispatch from Captain Dayton, Sherman's
adjutant, with news that Hardee had evacuated

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 145
Savannah the night before, and retreated to
Hardeeville. The Confederate commander saw
the scheme of Sherman to shut him up in
Savannah and there capture him. So he
"Folded his tents like the Arabs,
And silently stole away." j
Early in the following evening, the Admiral
received a note from Sherman, enclosing tele
grams from Howard, saying that the Confederate
Steam Ram Savannah, Commodore Tatnall,
lay .out of Howard's reach, and adding —
"Tatnall intends to run the Block
ade TONIGHT ! "
Never had Dahlgren received a more sug
gestive message. Could it be, that the Confed
erate Navy had rallied its powers on the
approach of death ? Would Tatnall repeat with
the Savannah the experiment of Webb with the
Atlanta .' If he did, the Nantucket and the
Passaic lay in his path, and the fate of Webb
would probably be Tatnall's too.
But war has its accidents. Might not a
daring and experienced officer, like Tatnall,
possibly pass our fleet ? He might, — though the
chances were strongly against him. Had he
succeeded in running the blockade with the
Savannah, he might have turned South and
raised the blockade of every port as far as the
Gulf of Mexico, by ramming and sinking or

146 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
driving off every one of our blockading ships.
What damage might he not afterwards have
done, whatever course he had taken 1 But
— never mind what he might have done — he
attempted nothing brilliant at all. He blew up
both his iron-clads, and fled.
On December 21st, the Admiral trans
ferred his flag to the Steamer Wissahickon,
Lieutenant Commander Andrew Johnson, and
we proceeded up the Savannah River, accom
panied by the Steamer Winona, Lieutenant
Commander Dana, and two tugs. At four o'clock
we anchored at Elba Island, a short distance
below Savannah; and the channel obstructions
making it dangerous to push the vessels up
further we proceeded to the city in tlie tugs.
The Army of Sherman had already entered
Savannah from the rear. The General himself
followed the next day, and established his head
quarters in the stately mansion of Charles
Green on Macon street, opposite St. John's
Episcopal Church.
None of us will ever forget the delight with
which we viewed the commercial emporium of
Georgia, sitting like a fair crowned queen upon
a high bluff, where the proud, lordly river bends
with a graceful curve, and folds (as it were) his
great arm lovingly around her. The poets, both

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 147
great and small, of our squadron, poured out
copious effusions on this occasion, which were
printed by the flag-ship press and in the papers
of the city. One of these, perhaps, might be
spared by an indulgent critic. It began thus : —
" My heart with rapture greets thee,
Savannah, O, Savannah."
Hardee's rear guard had not reached the
left bank of the river before General Leggatt's
Division entered the city. A bright little Jewess
living on one of the great squares of the city,
said to rae a few days later, — " When we retired,
the tent lights of our soldiers glimmered in the
square, the same as usuaK The following morn
ing those tents were gone, and others pitched in
their stead, occupied by blue-coated Yankees.''
Not wishing to give offence to the dark-eyed
daughter of Abraham, I spoke of the city as
" occupied " merely by us. In an unguarded
moment I used the word " captured." It had
barely passed my lips, when she replied with in
dignant emphasis, " Our city has not been cap
tured, Sir. Your General Sherman only came
here to save himself from being captured by
General Hood. Our army was short of stores,
and General Hardee, who is a personal friend of
mine, has merely gone away for supplies. He
will return very soon, and if your army don't get

148 LEAVES Prom A LAWYERS
aboard your gunboats and leave this city. Gen
eral Hardee will take them prisoners every one."
The city was barren of provisions, alike for
man and beast. Sherman's foragers and his
"bummers,'' who were excellent judges of horses,
had picked up some thousands of them on their
march.. Many of these perished for want of food
in Savannah; many others were killed to save
their board. For a time, there was danger of
famine. But this peril soon passed ; the weather
was delightful ; the scenery was beautiful ; rapid
communication was opened with the North, and
all were happy. The order that prevailed was
remarkable. Savannah was as quiet as it ever
was. No scenes of drunkenness, debauchery
and ruffianism, such as soon afterward disgraced
Wilmington, were witnessed there.
The intercourse of the officers of the- Navy
with the officers of the Army while at Savannah
was most cordial and joyous.
Upon getting acquainted with Sherman's
commanders, I formed a high opinion of almost
every one of them. Their confidence in each
other and in their chief was great, and it was
well placed. Great as is Sherman's military re
nown now, I cannot but think that it will shine
with a richer lustre hereafter.
Though no Puritan, he has some of the traits
of Oliver Cromwell. Historians say that Crom-

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 149
well " was accustomed to unbend among his offi
cers in a manner that none but a man with a
kind heart and a good con,science could do ;" — a
remark which I often recalled on seeing Sher
man's easy familiarity with the officers of the
Navy as well as those of the Army. His hearty
appreciationnof the alacrity with which the Ad
miral and all the officers of the fleet responded
to all his desires, was often expressed. Calling
at his head-quarters in Savannah, one morning,
while he was planning his march through the
Carolinas, I collected and took with me some of
the best maps that we had aboard the flag-ship,
of the region he was to traverse, " Just the very
thing I wanted," he exclaimed, with exhuberant
joy. When I told him the Harvest Moon and
the Pontiac had been placed at his service to
transport his right wing to Beaufort, he exclaim
ed, "Why, your' Admiral anticipates all my
wishes." That he is capable of unbounded wrath.
Secretary Stanton, General Halleck, and many
others, learned to their sorrow. But I never,
except once, saw him exhibit any but the noblest
and pleasantest, ay, the sweetest, traits. Even
his most serious hours were irradiated with
flashes of gaiety that recalled the traditional
elan of Napoleon.

I50 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
The time, the only time, when I saw him
displeased, was when he received news of the
manner in which Butler " craw-fished off," (as
Sherman expressed it,) after landing at Fort
Fisher. In consequence of the failure of Butler
on that occasion, it was doubtful, for some days,
whether Sherman's army would not be ordered
to proceed to North Carolina by sea, and thus
be prevented from cutting their expected swath
through South Carolina.
One reads with surprise the remark of the
Rev. Dr. Boynton, that, although "much impor
tant service was performed " by the Navy,
about this time, " particularly at Charleston and
Savannah," yet the limits of his work do not
allow " more particular mention " of that service.
One wonders why it is that " the assistance which
the Navy rendered the army of Sherman, after
it reached the sea, cannot be adequately pre
sented in " The History of the Navy during the
Rebellion." Where else should one look for it —
especially when all the compilers of more gen
eral narratives pass it over almost in silence .'
The bombarding of Charleston and its de
fences continued intermittently, month after
month, each day's operations being a repetition
of the last. I here give the record of one day,
as a sample of hundreds : —

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 151
On January 29th, 1864, 156 shots were
fired at the south angle of Fort Sumter, 139 of
which struck. The bombardment began at day
light and ceased at dark. One hour's work
repaired the damage which the fort sustained
during the day. In the afternoon the flagstaff
was shot away ; and the following account of the
replacing of it is from a journal kept by a
Confederate officer in the fort : — "it was first
replaced upon a small, and afterwards upon a
larger staff by Private F. Shafer, Co. 'A,' Lucas
Batallion, who stood on the top of the traverse,
and repeatedly waved the flag in sight of the
enemy. He was assisted by Corporal Brassin-
ham and Private Charles Banks of the same
corps, and by Mr. H. B. Middleton of the Signal
Corps, who was acting as adjutant of the post in
the absence of the regular officer. They were
exposed to a rapid and accurate fire of shells.
At the close of the scene, Shafer, springing from
the cloud of smoke and dust of a bursting shell,
stood long waving his hat in triumph. It was
a most gallant deed, and the effect upon the
garrison was most inspiring."
The Christmas holidays brought to the
Admiral at Savannah; information from Captain
Scott, senior naval officer off Charleston, that
Commodore Tucker, the commander of the Con-

152 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
federate naval forces in Charleston, meditated a
raid on the blockading fleet with his three Iron
clads, Chicora, Palmetto State, and City of
Charleston, assisted by several torpedo boats
like the David, It certainly would have been
creditable to Tucker to have made one more
effort to enhance the fame of the Confederate
Navy, If he had not destroyed or beaten off
the blockading fleet, he could, perhaps, have
run the blockade, stood out to sea, and fought
a gallant fight with such wooden steamers as
pursued him. But while he meditated, the
Admiral reenforced the fleet off Charleston; and
by New Year's Day, no less than seven of the
turtle-backs lay ready to give Tucker a warm
reception. The result was, no raid was at
tempted.

CHAPTER VII.
Port Fisher — Death of Preston and Porter —
Loss of the Patapsco by a Torpedo — Bon Mot of
Farragut — Destruction of the Dai Ching — Occupa
tion of Charleston and Georgetown — Captain Belk
nap's Memorandum — Charleston Prizes — The last
of the Blockade-Runners.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 5 3
While General Sherman remained at Sav
annah, and the Admiral's flag-ship lay in the
river below, I had my last opportunity to meet
Lieutenant Preston, formerly of Dahlgren's
staff, who, after being captured at Sumter and
subsequently exchanged, had been attached to
the staff of Admiral Porter. I made a visit to
the fleet off Wilmington, running up the coast in
the prize Julia, The weather was extremely
bad, and we encountered a gale which would
probably have been fatal to our rickety craft,
had it not been "on our quarter," or behind us.
The Julia lay low in the water ; and with her
convex deck which covered her half-way from
her stem tt) her waist, she cut through the
waves instead of leaping over them. The
strain on her was fearful. She shivered in
every part, and could not have shaken worse if
she had had a violent attack of St. Vitus'
Dance. I was never more impressed with the
awe, the power, and the mystery of the Sea,
than when tossed about in this fragile ship,
which seemed ready at any instant to break in
two or in three and leave us to the mercy of the
pitiless storm. Still, perhaps, it is this awe, this
power, this mystery, which lends to the Sea its
most powerful attraction. Somebody says —
Strip this old world of all its mystery, discover its
last and uttermost secret, and I am sure I should

154 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
find it a stupid and dreary place to live in. 1 believe
in God, not because I know him, but because I do not
know him ; because he is mysterious, the profound,
the infinite ; because he is ever and forever Unknown.
If my thought once could capture him and make him
its prisoner, it would immediately tire of him and
seek for a greater. Any thing th.at we can draw a
circle around straightway becomes no longer a goal,
but a point of departure. Hence, then as I stand
before Old Ocean, I hail it as a type of the infinite.
My soul revels in its vastness. Thankful for all it
reveals, I am still more thankful for all that it only
suggests. Here I have that sense of inward expan
sion, of soul-quickning, of slow up-climbing and out-
reaching of thought, which is always the effect of
standing in the presence of any great, grand, inspir
ing object in Nature or in art. No wonder sailors
are superstitious. The sea is more than they can
understand, familiar as they are with it. It speaks to
them in an awful voice ; it deals with them in most
impressive ways. It is at once their cradle and their
grave. At length, the storm ceased, and before we
reached Porter's flag -ship there was a great
calm. My recollections of that visit are most
pleasant ; though saddened by the reflection that
I shall never again see, on this earth, my gallant
friend, Preston, nor his gallant shipmate. Porter,
who was his comrade in the attack on Sumter,
his comrade in the Confederate prison, his com-

LIFE AFLOA T AND A SHORE. \ 5 5
rade in the fleet under Admiral Porter, and
finally his comrade in death at Fort P"isher. As
I was about to proceed to Fortress Munroe,
Preston said, " Ca,ll and see us on your way
back. We'll take a walk through the city to
gether." I replied, " I hope we shall, but you are
going on another forlorn hope, (alluding to the
assault on Sumter, and the expedition with the
powder-boat, as well as to the part which he was
soon to take in the second assault on Fort
. Fisher ;) and God alone knows how it will end."
' Well, it's a fact," he said, " that both of us have
had poor luck in volunteering to do more than
our own particular duty. You had your leg
smashed, and I had to rust in a rebel prison.
This thing that we are going into at our next
attack, is really soldiers' business, and not just the
thing for sailors ; but I hope we shall come out
all right. One thing I can tell you : we shall
take Fort Fisher next time, whatever may be
come of me. For myself, I feel a good deal like
Byron when he said,
' Here's a sigh for those who love me.
And a smile for those who hate ;
And whatever fate's above me,
Here's a heart for any fate.' "
"That's well put, Preston," I rejoined; "but
there is another verse of Byron's — the last he
ever wrote — which comes to my mind just now :

156 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
' Seek out — less often sought than found — ,
A soldier's grave, for tliee the best ;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
. And take thy rest.'"
Here Lieutenant Porter joined us. Mutual good
wishes were exchanged, and we parted — never
to meet again this side immortality. On the fif
teenth of that month, (January, 1865,) Preston
and Porter led a column of fourteen hundred
sailors and marines in an assault on the sea-face
of F'ort Fisher — a work calling for a column of
from six to ten thousand men ; — Fort Fisher fell,
but both these brave officers fell with it.
Preston possessed the elements of a great
commander. He was loved and admired by all
who knew him.* I shall not forget the cheerful
tones of his invitation : " We'll take a walk
through the city together." They rang in my
ears when, a few months later, I did " take a
walk through the city " of Wilmington. Though
alone, I felt that I was not alone; and if the
souls of heroes, ascended to glory, ever return
to the scenes of their earthly life, then I know
that Preston was indeed present with me ; and
*One of his admirers wrote an appreciative ode on
him in the Army and Navy Journal, beginning,
" Fallen at a stroke, and in an hour forgot I
O, brave young spirit, can this be the lot
Of all that great ambition that would soar
Above all heights that men had reached before?"

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 5 7
the interest that I felt in that city was doubled
by the thought that it was for this that Preston
had died. In anticipation of another naval attack on
Charleston, the Confederate Torpedo Corps
laid many new torpedoes along the channel by
which our vessels must pass, if they attempted
to reach the city. On the night of January 15th,
the monitor Patapsco passed over one of these
newly laid torpedoes, which exploded under her,
sending her to the bottom with eight officers
and fifty-four men. One old boatswain who sur
vived the loss of this vessel, grimly remarked, as
he came on board the flag-ship, with his clothes
dripping wet, " We were told to dredge for
torpedoes, and nobody need cry because we
found one." A remark not unworthy to be brack-
etted with the following bon mot of Admiral
Farragut. When he was fighting his great
battle below New Orleans, one of the best of
his ships, the Mississippi, was badly rammed
by the Confederate Ram Manassas. The
smashing which she received was fearful: but
Farragut merely remarked. You cant make ome
lettes without breaking eggs!
On January 26th, the steamer Dai Ching got
aground in the Combahee, exposed to the fire of
a Confederate battery. She was courageously

158 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
defended by Lieutenant Commander J. C, Chap
lin and all his officers and men for seven hours,
during which she was struck upwards of thirty
times, and her decks shot through in seven
places; she was destroyed. Acting Ensign Frank
lin S. Leach, commanding the tug Clover, having
disobeyed positive orders of his superior officers,
and deserted his duty during the combat in which
the Dai Ching was lost, was at once relieved of
his command, placed under arrest, and turned
over to me for trial by a Naval General Court
Martial. The case was clear and the offence
grave. But President Lincoln had often ex
pressed his unwillingness to approve a sentence
of death for offences committed in the Navy ;
and the conduct of the accused had previously
been good. The sentence of Leach was dismis
sion from the service and five years' confinement
at hard labor in the penitentiary ; and it was
approved by Secretary Welles. A part of it was
afterwards remitted by President Johnson.
After the occupation of Fort F'isher and
Wilmington, Charleston alone remained accessi
ble to blockade-runners ; and although a portion
of Porter's fleet was transferred to Dahlgren,
and the blockade made tighter than ever, the
necessities of the Confederate Army prompted
those engaged in this business to run the most

LIFE AFL OA T AND A SHORE. 1 59
desperate risks ; and, for a time, Maffit, Wilkin
son, and others of the most noted blockade run
ners, turned their eyes towards Charleston.
On February 1st, Captain Maffit in the Owl,
Captain Wilkinson in the Cameleon, (formerly
the noted Tallahasse,) together with the Chicora,
the Carolina, and the Dream, left Nassau with
supplies for the army of General Lee. "The proud
army which, dating its victories from Bull Run,
had driven McClellan from before Richmond,
and withstood his best effort at Antietam, and
shattered Burnside's host at Fredericksburg, and
worsted Hooker at Chancellorsville, and fought
Meade so stoutly, though unsuccessfully, before
Gettysburg, and baffled Grant's bounteous re
sources and desperate efforts in the Wilderness,
at Spottsylvania, on the North Anna, at Cold
Harbor, and before Petersburg and Richmond,"
was actually in peril of famine,* and well de
served these efforts for its relief.
The Stag and Charlotte were captured ; the
Owl had a shot through her bows, and went
back ; the Chicora got in and out again, and re
turned to Nassau on February 23, with news of
the evacuation of Charleston. " As we turned
'* American Conflict, vol. 2, p. 745. Here it is that the
generous Greeley, laying down pen and spectacles, and
waving- aloft his historic white hat, wafts to the Confed
erate Army a proud and tender farewell.

i6o LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
away from the land," says Wilkinson, with a
touch of real pathos, " our hearts sank within
us, while the conviction forced itself upon us,
that the cause for which so much blood had been
shed, so many miseries bravely endured, so many
sacrifices cheerfully made, was about to perish
at last." General Sherman moved like a thirty-day
clock. His march through Georgia occupied a
month ; he staid at Savannah a month ; he ca
vorted through the Carolinas in a month. The
incidents of his advance through the Carolinas,
far more important than his march through
Georgia, have been recorded in a terse and
graphic style in Sherman's own Memoirs, and
need not be repeated here.
By February 7th, Sherman had reached
Lowry's, and he wrote to Dahlgren in cypher :
"Watch Charleston close. I think Jeff. Davis
will order it to be abandoned, lest he lose its
garrison as well as guns."
Beauregard, who had, for the third time,
been placed in command of this Department,
viewed the situation as Sherman did. Hardee,
who had succeeded Ripley in command of the
Charleston District, concurred with Beauregard.
But Davis took a different view, and was incens
ed at Beauregard and Hardee for evacuating

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. i6i
Charleston. General Sherman gave the Con
federate President credit for more military sa
gacity than he really possessed.
General Foster had suffered so much from
an old wound, that he became unfit for active
service, and on February 9th, he was relieved by
General Gillmore. The manner in which Gill
more writes, in his supplement, of the move
ments made by the army in his Department, as
well as by Admiral Dahlgren's fleet, in coopera
tion with Sherman, is misleading. None of these
movements were serious. They were all feints.
The advance of Hatch's brigade towards Charles
ton along the line of the Charleston and Savan
nah Railroad ; the advance of Potter's brigade,
and of Captain Stanley's fleet up Bull's Bay ;
the advance of the Ottowa and Winona on the
Combahee ; the operations of the Pawnee and
Sonoma on the Togadoo and Wadmelaw ; the
bombarding of the batteries on the Stono by the
Lehigh, Wissahickon, McDonough, Smith and
Williams ; in a word, all that was done in aid of
Sherman, was done, as Sherman expressed it,
"just to make the enemy uneasy on that flank,"
and prevent the concentration of his forces
against Sherman's army.
Some of the incidents of the day when
Charleston was " repossessed," have been relat-

1 62 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
ed by Greeley and by Lossing,* but none of the
historians of the War relate the movements of
our fleet on that day. Captain George E. Belk
nap, who commanded the advance picket mon
itor, Canonicus, on the night of February 17th,
furnished me the following : —
" U. S. S. Canonicus, Port Royal, S. C.
Memorandum for Judge Cowley concerning the
Evacuation of Charleston.
On the night of February 17th, 1865, the
monitor Canonicus had the advance picket duty,
supported by the monitor Mahopac and several
tugs and picket boats. The wind was fresh from
the N. W. Throughout the entire night the army
and naval batteries on Morris Island kept up a
heavy fire on the rebel batteries on Sullivan's
Island, to which the rebels replied by an occa
sional gun from Moultrie during the first watch.
Heavy explosions were heard in the direction of
James' Island. Towards morning, heavy fires
broke out in the city, and explosions occurred
from time to time. At break of day, all the tugs
and picket boats, with the exception, of the tug
Catalpa, returned to the bar anchorage.
About 6.30, a. m., the Canonicus got under
way, and steamed up the channel towards Fort
Moultrie, the Mahopac and the Catalpa foUow-
*Greeley, vol. 2, p. 702; Lossing, vol, 3, p. 464.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 63
mg ; but the air was so hazy, and so filled with
smoke, that only a dim outline of the city and
the adjacent islands could be seen. About 7.30,
a. m., the sun cleared the atmosphere a little,
and the Canonicus approached to within long
range of Moultrie, and threw two shells into that
work, being, as events afterwards demonstrated,
the last hostile shots fired in the siege of Charles
ton. These shots eliciting no response, a tug
was immediately despatched to Captain Scott,
senior officer present inside the bar, to inform
him that no movement was discoverable on Sulli
van's Island. The rebel flag was still flying there,
however, as well as on Castle Pinckney, Fort
Marshall, and in the city ; and some twenty min
utes after throwing the shells into Moultrie, a
magazine blew up in Battery Bee. Judging from
these indications that a party of rebels still re
mained on the island to complete the destruction
of their stores and magazines, it was not deemed
prudent to risk a boat's crew on shore until the
state of affairs was better known, nor, (with the
recent fate of the Patapsco staring us in the
fgce,) was it deemed justifiable to risk the
Canonicus in a further reconnoisance up the
channel. Soon after the explosion in Battery Bee, all
bands were piped to breakfast, and the Canon-

1 64 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
icus steamed slowly down towards Wagner Buoy,
passing the Mahopac on our way down. When
nearly down to Wagner Buoy, an Army boat was
observed to push off from Cummings' Point, and
pull in the direction of Sumter ; and a few min
utes later, a boat, showing a white flag, was dis
covered pulling over from Sullivan's Island. The
Canonicus was immediately put about, and was
soon steaming up the channel again at full speed.
A boat was also manned, and armed, and sent in
charge of Acting Ensign R, E. Anson, to land
on Sullivan's Island, and bring off the rebel flag,
flying on Moultrie, if possible. In the meantime,
the Army boat and a boat from the Mahopac
had communicated with the boat carrying a flag
of truce, and now all three boats were pulling
for the coveted prizes — the Moultrie flag. The
Army boat had the start, however, and after a
hard pull reached the beach a few lengths ahead
of the other boats.- Mr. Anson then changed
his course, and landing at Fort Beauregard,
hoisted the national colors on that work ; the
Mahopac's boat, pulling in the opposite direc
tion, soon put the flag on the flag-staff of Battery
Bee. Slow-matches, leading into all the princi
pal magazines, had been fired, but all-, with the
exception of the one applied to the magazine at
Battery Bee, failed to go off.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE.. 165
While this exciting s'cene was being enacted,
another boat pushed off from Battery Gregg, on
Cummings' Point, filled with our soldiers, who,
in a few minutes, occupied Sumter, and placed
the. flag again on the ruins of that work. As the
officer jumped ashore with the colors in his hand,
the crews of the Canonicus and Mahopac joined
with the Army in nine rousing cheers at the glo
rious termination of all their trials and discom-
fltures, anxieties and hard work, at this fountain-
head of treason and rebellion. A little later,
the tug Catalpa steamed into the harbor, and
took possession of Mount Pleasant Battery, while
a boat from the Catskill landed at Battery Mar
shall. By this time Captain Scott had arrived at
the front, and about one o'clock the Admiral ar
rived, and went' up to the city in the Harvest
Moon. The evacuation of Sullivan's Island
must have been very hurriedly conducted, as the
guns and amunition were left in perfect condi
tion, very few of the former being spiked. In
some of the batteries, cartridges were found ly
ing on the gun carriages, and projectiles imme
diately under the muzzles of the guns, as though
they had been abandoned in the act of loading.
The last shot fired at the naval branch of
the seige, was fired from a rifled gun in Moul
trie, at the Canonicus, on the 4th' of February.

1 66 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
The projectile was an eight-inch shell, and struck
the ship just abaft the smoke-stack, exploding
on the impact, but doing no other harm than cut
ting away a boat davit.
May 12, 1865.
GEORGE E. BELKNAP."
Landing on Sullivan's Island, some time af
ter, I found silence, solitude and desolation on
every side. I examined all the fortifications, not
forgetting the solitary grave of Osceola ; and
then, like the priest in the Illiad, I
" Silent went to the billowy beach ofthe vast and
voiceful sea."
Gazing on the wrecks, old and new, of blockade
runners, strewn all along the beach, and on the
many deserted works of defence, hearing no
sound save the melancholy plashing ofthe waves,
I thought of the awe-inspiring scene which lives
forever on the canvas of Tintoretto — showing
the earth, desolate and disordered, as it may ap
pear when the race of man shall have passed
away. Passing up the channel, we gazed intently
through our glasses upon the fortifications form
ing the second and third circles of fire, of which
we had heard so much ; pilotted by a pilot lately
captured from a blockade-runner, whom the
Fleet Captain threatened with immediate death
if he ran us upon a torpedo ; and, finally, with a

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 1 67
tumult of conflicting emotions, we landed on the
wharf safely.
And thus, after a siege which will rank
among the most famous in history, Charleston
became ours. " A scarred city,'' it was, as Pol
lard well says, "blackened by.fire, with evidences
of ruin and destruction at almost every step."
All the aspects of Nature were delightful. The
warm sunshine, the fresh air, the foliage of the
wild orange, the palmetto, the roses in bloom,
the violets, the geraniums, &c., were as delight
ful as when Macready landed in Charleston,
twenty-one years before.* He says, "The white
houses, with their green verandahs and gardens,
were light and lively to me, and the frequent
view of the river afforded often a picturesqe ter
mination to the street."
But the grass was growing in the deserted
streets, and scarcely a white face was to be seen^
To the Afric-Americans, it seemed as if the
trumpet of Gabriel had really sounded, and the
"year of jubilee" had come. They went into
ecstacies as they thought that, at last, at last,
they were free. Never, while memory holds
power to retain anything, shall I forget the thrill
ing strains of the music of the Union, as sung
by our sable soldiers when marching up Meeting
"¦Macready's Reminiscences and Diaries, p. 539.

1 68 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
street, with their battle-stained banners flapping
in the breeze, their black skins shining and their
white eyes glaring with wild delight ; —
" Softening with Afric's mellow tongue
Their broken Saxon words."
The conduct of the Mayor of Charleston
was not what would have been expected from an
experienced lawyer and a gentleman of culture
like Mr. Macbeth. He neither called the city
council together, like the Mayor of Savannah ;
nor came out to meet the Federal forces, like
the Mayor of Columbia. He merely sent "two
aldermen sandwiched between two other citi
zens,'' to say that the Confederate Army had
gone. The most ignorant hoodlum that the
caprices of rumsellers ever tossed into the civic
chair, could hardly have acted with less dignity
in a critical hour. Had the city officials of
•^Charleston kept their wits about them, and at
tended vigilantly to their duty, the terrible de
struction of life and property which occurred
upon the withdrawal of General Hardee, might
have been avoided. When Georgetown was
evacuated, one week later, the authorities there
acted far more becomingly than those of "the
Liverpool of the South." They sent at once to
Admiral Dahlgren the following surrender, sign
ed by the Intendant and. Wardens : —

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 169
Sir : Whereas the confederate forces have evac
uated this town, the undersigned, intendant and
wardens in council assembled, agreeably to your de
mand, do hereby surrender the town of Georgetown
to tbe United States forces under your command,
pledging ourselves upon honor in our ofiBcial capacity,
as far as lies in our power, to prevent any act inimi
cal to the United States forces garrisoned here, claim
ing such protection of persons and property as is us
ually accorded to communities in our situation.
Thereupon the Admiral issued a proclama
tion, putting Georgetown under martial law, but
continuing the intendant and wardens in the ex-
.ercise of many of their functions ; providing for
the poor, and prohibiting "the sale or gift of all
spirituous liquors." The senior naval line offi
cer present was made Post Commandant ; the
senior marine officer was made Provost Marshal ;
while the Judge-Advocate of the Fleet was des
ignated as Provost Judge. This arrangement,.
of course, ended when, a few days later, the
Army arrived.
To correct the falsifications of various
writers, it may be stated that the first troops to
enter Charleston were two companies of the
Fifty-second Pennsylvania Infantry, and a sec
tion of about thirty men of the Third Rhode
Island Artillery. Other troops poured in rapid
ly during the afternoon, and marched through

I70 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
the streets singing "John Brown's body lies
mouldering in the grave," "Shouting the Battle
cry of Freedom," and other Union songs, in
tones that must have made the bones of John
C. Calhoun rattle in his coffin.
General Schimmelfennig, after fighting and
winning, with the loss of ninety men, a battle on
James' Island, (which later events proved to be
unnecessary,) approached Charleston from the
southwest, crossed the Ashley, and, entering the
city, proclaimed martial law, and put an end to
the disorder of the morning.
Fifteen prizes were captured or destroyed
at the approaches of Charleston during Dahl
gren's command, and a larger number at the ap
proaches of Savannah and other ports guarded
by this squadron. The Charleston prizes were
the Beatrice, Clotilda, Cyclops, Constance, Celt,
Columbia, Deer, Flora, Lady Davis, Mab, Presto,
Prince Albert, Syren, Transport, and a lighter.
The Columbia, which was an iron-clad ram of
the Atlanta pattern ; the Lady Davis, which was
the first vessel put in commission in the Confed
erate Navy ; the Transport, the Mab, and three
torpedo boats, like the David, were captured at
the evacuation of the city, and were not sent to
a prize court, because, in the opinion of the Navy
Department, they wfere not distributable as

LIFE AFL OAT AND A SHORE. 1 7 1
prize. This opinion would seem to be in accord
with the decision of the Supreme Court,* though
this interpretation of the prize act was new ; and
the blockaders of Charleston thought it hard
that it should be applied to their prizes.
One of Dahlgren's prizes was the Evening
Star, which afterwards acquired a terrible re
nown. She was lost at sea, October 3, 1866,
when 244 passengers, including a whole French
opera troupe, perished with her.f A famous law
suit in New Orleans turned on the question
which of two of her passengers survived the
other. By the Common Law, the younger is
presumed to survive ; but by the Civil Law,
both are held to perish together.
The last prize taken at Charleston was the
Deer,| which entered the harbor, lulled to sleep
* The Syren, 13 W,allace, 329 ; 1 Lowell, 282 ; Dahlgren's
Maritime International Law, p. 146. Strange to say, this
case is not noticed in Baker's admirable edition of Hal-
leck's International Law.
fSee note to Browne's Divorce and its Consequences.
X 1 Lowell's Decisions, 95. The appendix to Mr. Welles'
Report for 1865, p. 466, requires correction. The actual
captor of the Deer was the Catskill, Lieutenant Command.
er Edward Barrett. The extraordinary ovations with
which Captain Barrett and his officers have been honored
on ascending the Mississippi in the Plymouth, show that
the cities of the southwest are full of hearts that are
gladdened, as of yore, at the sight of the Star Spangled
Banner flying at the peak of a Federal man-of-war.

172 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
by the old Confederate signal fires, (which were
now kept burning for the purpose of decoy,)
and was seized before she discovered her rhis-
take. The Federal fleet now occupied the in
ner harbor, while the three Confederate Rams,
which had so long guarded the channel — the
Chicora, Palmetto State, and City of Charleston
— lay in fragments beneath the waves, having
been blown up by Commodore Tucker.*
It was claimed by certain traders that the
occupation ofthe city terminated, if so facto, the
blockade of the port ; but I held that it did not,
and that Charleston and Savannah were closed
for all purposes of commerce until reopened by
the Proclamation of the President. This view
was sustained by the Secretaries of State, and
of the Navy ; and the blockade remained till
the close of the war.
The pretence put forth by Boynton, after
the repulse of the Monitors in 1863, "that the
"¦"The burning and blowing up of the iron-clads
Palmetto State, Chicora and Charleston, was a magnifi
cent spectacle. The Palmetto State was the first to ex
plode, and was followed by the Chicora, about nine o'clock,
and the Charleston, about eleven, A. M. The latter, it is
stated, had twenty tons of gunpowder on board. Pieces
of the iron plates, red hot, fell on the wharves and set
them on fire. The explosions were terrific. Tremendous
clouds of smoke went up forming beautiful wreaths." —
Charleston Courier.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 1 73
occupation of Charleston was of very little im
portance," is unworthy of any historian. It is
the fox's cry, "Those grapes are sour." Equal
ly untrue is it, that "Admiral Dahlgren, with his
monitor guards within the bar, sealed the port of
Charleston as effectually as if his fleet had been
anchored between Sumter and the wharves*."
Perhaps, it is true, that "it could have been
captured by a determined attack, such as was
made at New Orleans, Mobile and Fort Fish-
er."f But it is no disparagement to either side
to say that the Confederates made far greater
efforts in defending than the Federals in attack
ing it, and that thereby they kept us out of it.
When, at last, it fell into our hands, Pollard,
the. Confederate historian, took up the cry of
"sour grapes." He says : "The vital points of
the Confederacy were far in the interior, and as
we had but few war vessels, our ports and har
bors were of little importance to us,"
It was a bon mot of Henry Ward Beecher,
" Whom God abhors he sends to sea." And so
thousands of our sailors felt, during the long
blockade. Lord Macaulay says, "No plade is
*Professor Bernard's book on the Neutrality of Great
Britain during the American Civil War, pp. 286 — 291,
contains much that is of value touching blockade- running
at Charleston. fBoynton, vol, 1, p. 430—431,

174 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
so propitious to the formation either of close
friendships or of deadly enmities as an Indiaman,
[or a man-of-war blockading a hostile coast.]
There are very few people who do not find a
voyage which lasts several months insupportably
dull. Anything is welcome which may break
that long monotony — a sail, a shark, an alba
tross, a man overboard. * * The inmates
of the ship are thrown together far more than
in any country-seat or boarding-bouse. None
can escape from the rest except by imprisoning
himself in a cell in which he can hardly turn.
All food, all exercise, is taken in company.
It is every day in the power of a mischievous
person to inflict innumerable annoyances ; it is
every day in the power of an amiable person
to confer little services. It not seldom happens
that serious distress and danger call forth in
genuine beauty and deformity heroic virtues
and abject vices, which, in the ordinary inter
course of good society, might remain during
many years unknown even to intimate associ
ates."* Most grateful was the relief which
came with the occupation of Charleston.
Upon getting acquainted with the people
of Charleston, I found them frank, affable, and
free from sectional* bitterness. As the South
"¦Macaulay's Essay ^(Hastings.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 175
Carolina pickets were among the first to aban
don the barbarous practice of shooting our
pickets ; so the St)uth Carolina people were in
my experience among the first to recognize the
fact that their construction of the Federal
Constitution was no longer admissible,
I often mentioned the fact, that, when the
Constitution was formed, their construction of
that instrument was as common in the North
as it afterwards became in the South, and that
those who contended for our modern interpre
tation of it resisted its adoption because it was
open to that interpretation. In the Massachu
setts Convention of 1788, the delegates from
Middlesex voted 25 to 17 against its adoption.
"The vote of the whole Convention was 187
to 168, — only a majority of 19 in favor of the
Constitution, in Massachusetts. Had the Con
stitution been submitted to a vote of the people
of Massachusetts, it is highly probable that it
would have been rejected.
Seldom has a greater result depended upon
so small a cause. The change of ten Delegates
from the Valley of the Merrimack would prob
ably have defeated the adoption ofthe Constitu
tion of the United States. Such a change
would clearly have placed Massachusetts against
that scheme of government ; and Madison,

176 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
looking anxiously out of his Virginia home,
wrote : — 'The decision of Massachusetts, in
4
either way, will decide the vote of this State.'
Those views of State Rights and State
Sovereignty which culminated in our Civil War,
were as strenuously maintained by thousands of
the men of Middlesex and other Northern
Counties, in 1789, as in Charleston or any other
Southern City in 1861."*
Just as the entire coast blockaded by this
squadron had thus been recovered, I had an
attack of pneumonia, which, though short,
was severe and sharp, and for a time seemed
likely to be decisive. It had been my fortune
to confront death in different forms — in perils
from sickness, and from railroad accidents, as
well as in perils of the sea and of battle, both
on land and sea ; and whether I contemplated
it as the end of life or as only an event of life,
I had come to look upon it with something like
equanimity. I was not destitute of the " good
hope," which John Moriey says creates at the
hour of sunset no mean paradise, — " that the
earth shall still be fair, and the happiness of every
feeling creature still receive a constant augmen
tation, and each good cause yet find worfliy
•Cowley's Historical Sketch of Middlesex County, in
the Middlesex County Manual p. 77.

LIFE AFL OA T AND A SHORE. 1 77
defenders when the memory of my own poor
name and personality had long been blotted out
of the brief recolfection of men forever."
Brilliantly as Mr. Moriey sets forth "the
blessedness of annihilation," and " the peace of
anticipated non-existence," no pomp of rhetoric
can conceal the wretched affectation that lurks
beneath. Whatever sublime stoic philosophic
indifference pious positivists like Mr. Mill, Mr.
Moriey, and Miss Martineau, may educate
themselves to feel touching their own immor
tality, " the gift of eternal life " is a priceless
boon. A million times better than this " good
hope " of Mr. Moriey, at the supreme moment,
is the humble prayer-hymn of Toplady, so often
sung by the open coffin-lid : —
" Rock of ages, cleft for me.
Let me hide myself in thee."
For hours I lay in such exquisite pain that
I was unable to move hand or foot ; yet near
enough to the ward-room to hear the careless
remarks of the officers present. If what was
said of my character and services was sufficient
ly flattering, I was not greatly edified by such
remarks as these :¦ — -"I guess the Jack will
never be hoisted for him again," (alluding to the
flag which is always hoisted when a Naval
General Court-Martial convenes.) "I understand
Captain  is going to take his place,"

178 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
" It is a good time for him to die now ; the Ad
miral will give him a big funeral," &c., &c.*
More encouraging was a remark made by the
Doctor : " Well, if he lives till this time to-mor
row without getting worse, I guess he'll pull
through." A few days later, the body of Lieutenant
Bradford, son of the Fleet Surgeon, was taken
from the Potters' Field, where the. Confederates
had buried it, (he having been captured in the
assault on Sumter and died in prison in Charles-
Ion,) and buried with all naval and military hon
ors in the Magnolia Cemetery. Returning from
these obsequies with Fleet Captain Bradford, I
was told by him that, had I died as he expected,
the Admiral designed to give me " the funeral of
an Achilles." Since then, the Admiral, the Fleet
Captain, the surgeon who attended me with such
thoughtful care, and the captain who expected
to succeed me, have all descended to the tomb,
while I, for whom the grave then yawned, sur
vive them all !
¦^People that are not hard-hearted sometimes make
most brutal remarks. A friend of mine, who once lay
sick of yellow fever in a New Orleans hospital, and who
recovered when, by custom, he should have died, says, he
heard the head-surgeon twice inquire of a. subordinate
in impatient tones, two days in succession," Aint  dead
yet ?" The cot he lay on was wanted for another.

LIFE AFL OAT AND A SHORE. 1 79

CHAPTER YIII.
De,-!truction of the Harvest Moon — Death of Gen
eral Schimmelfennig — The Federal Flag restored over
Sumter- — Distinguished Visitors in Charleston — As
sassination of President Lincoln,
On March 1st, occurred the last casualty in
our fleet by the sub-marine devices of the Con
federates. The steamer Harvest Moon, used for
the time being by the Admiral and his staff, in
lieu of the flag-ship, was steaming down Win-
yaw Bay, when, before breakfast, the explosion
of a torpedo was heard below, and in less than
a minute the vessel lay at the bottom. Fortu
nately only one man was killed ; — and the vessel
not being entirely submerged, everything of value
was soon recovered. Several Confederate ves
sels were lost accidentally by torpedoes intended
for the Federals.*

*See Barnes' Sub-marine Warfare. Also, Admiral
Porter's article in the North American Review, September-
October, 1878 ; Captain Simpson's article in the Galaxy,
September, 1877; Edinburg Review,' a.'o.A Westminster
Review, October 1877. By a slip of the pen, or an error
of the types, Admiral Porter is made to say that the Wa
bash and the Minnesota were " lost," by torpedoes,
(p. 231,) which is not true.

i8o LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Within a month after the recovery of Charles
ton, several officers of the Federal Army and.
Navy had purchased, plantations near that city,
and prepared to make their abode there. The
inducements to do this were strong, and the
prospect of making handsome returns on capital
invested in cotton-planting was highly flattering.
It was demonstrated to me by my managing man
that the plantation which I had bought, between
the Ashley and the Wando, would yield ten
thousad dollars in crops, in one season, after
paying all expenses.
The sceptical spirit in which I offered to
give all the profits of that year, exceeding two
thousand dollars, to any man who would pay me
that sum therefor, semed to surprise my neigh
bors, who, however, admitted my doubts to be
well founded when, at the end of the year, I
found myself a loser rather than a gainer by my
experiment as a cotton-planter.
On April loth, 1865, Gen. Schimmelfennig
was compelled by failing health to relinquish
the command of the Northern District of this
Department and return North after twenty
month's service. In his farewell letter to Ad
miral Dahlgren he traced with rapid strokes the
history of his own services, and said: —
"When General Grant forced the enemy

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. i§i
back from the Rappahannock to Richmond,
troops in my front received marching orders.
I immediately attacked ; these troops were not
sent north, and the commanding officei; in
Charleston called for re-enforcements from
Virginia. , "When General Sherman fought his battles
before Atlanta, I again, under orders from Gen
eral Foster, attacked the enemy, and the result
was that troops were sent from Atlanta t.o
Charleston, though the enemy outnumbered us
two to one.
"Once more, when General Sherman was
about to force his way over the North Edisto
river, I attacked and harassed the enemy con
tinually for a week. Not a man was detached
from Charleston ; and when General Hardee
finally evacuated the city he had a force nearly
double to that of all the troops operating
against Charleston under General Gillmore.
"I mention these facts, Admiral, merely in
order to add that I should never have been
ABLE TO ATTAIN THESE RESULTS WITHOUT THE
HEARTY AND MOST EFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF
THE FLEET UNDER YOUR COMMAND."
The Admiral had become much iittached'
to this officer, who was a Prussian by, birth, aijid
who had been trained in the Army of the

1 82 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Kaiser. On going aboard the Steamer Mas
sachusetts, which carried him to Philadelphia,
he was honored with a salute by the Navy,
which touched him much. "I thank your Ad
miral," he said ; ''I thank him much, and you,
too, and all your brothers ofthe Navy. You have
all been good brothers to me; I never wanted
any thing done, but you did it. But all is past
now. I shall never have another command."
Then, suddenly realizing his own condition,
struggling with his feelings as though his great
heart would break, he added " I am going home
to die. Judge Cowley; I am going home to die!"
A few weeks after, this intrepid spirit passed to
the life beyond life.
Many of the ladies and gentlemen who
assisted in restoring the Federal flag over Sum
ter, April 14, 1865, published accounts of that
event and of Charleston as it then was ; but the
best articles that I have seen touching the terri
tory about Charleston are those in Harper's
Magazine for December, 1865, and November,
1878. No historian of these times has omitted
the restoration of the flag by Anderson to the
fort which he had surrendered, four years before.
President Lincoln took a deep interest in
that event, and invited George Thompson of
England, the eloquent coadjutor of Clarkson

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 1 8 3
and Wilberforce, to unite with William Lloyd
Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher and other cham
pions of freedom in America, in the services of
that memorable day.
The oration of Mr. Beecher was worthy of
his renown. He commenced with his head un
covered, as usual ; but the high wind behaved
outrageously and blew his hair about in all direc
tions, like smoke and flame from a burning brush-
heap. So Mr. Beecher quietly put on his hat,
(a black, felt, uncanonical article,) and wore it to
the end. One battery was delayed in firing
the salute ordered for the occasion, so that its
guns were booming after the oration began. The
reports happened to be so timed that they fell
upon the ear .exactly at the close of sentences.
Collusion was suspected between the orator and
the gunner, but the orator denied all privity with
any plan to punctuate his oration with cannon.
Two or three extracts indicate--the elevated spirit
of this oration :
" Are we come to exult that Northern hands are
stronger than Southern ? No; but to rejoice that the
hands of those who defend a just and beneficent gov
ernment are mightier than the hands that assaulted
it ! Do we exult over fallen citief ? We exult that
a Nation has not fallen. We sorrow with the sorrow
ful. We sympathise with the desolate. We look
upon this shattered fort, and yonder dilapidated city,

i'84 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
with sad eyes. We exult, not for a passion gratified,
but for a sentiment victorious ; not for temper, but for
conscience ; not — as we devoutly believe — that our
will is done, but that God's will hath been done."
" There is scarcely a man born in the South who
has lifted his hand against this banner, but had a
father who would have died for it. Is memory dead ?
Is there no historic pride ? Has a fatal fury struck
blindness or hate into eyes that used to look kindly
toward each other; tlia' read the same Bible; that
hung over the historic pages of our national glory ;
that studied the same Constitution ?"*
The peroration was admirable. The follow
ing sentence was spoken with marked emphasis,
and was most heartily applauded ; none dream
ing that when the tidings of this event reached
the capital, Abraham Lincoln would be welter
ing in his blood :
" We ofi'er to the President of these United
States our solemn congratulations that God has sus
tained his life and health under the unparalleled
burdens and sufferings of four bloody years, and per-
initted him to behold this auspicious consummation
of that national unity for which he has waited with
so much patience and fortitude, and for which he has
labored with such disinterested wisdom. * * * *
¦"This paragraph was put in type by William Lloyd
Garrison in the office ofthe Courier, which published the
oration and an account of the commemorative services,
on the following day.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 185
To the officers and men of the army and navy,
who have so faithfully, skillfully and gloriously up
held their country's authority, by suffering, labor and
sublime courage, we offer a heart-tribute beyond the
compass of words.
Upon those true and f'aitlifnl citizens, men and
women, who have borne up with unflinching hope in
the darkest hour, and covered the land with their la
bors of love' and charity, we invoke the divinest bless
ing of Him whom they have so truly imitated.
But chiefly to Thee, God of our fathers, we ren
der thanksgiving and praise for the wonderous provi
dence that has brought forth from such a harvest of
war the seed of so much liberty and peace."
There were passages in Dr. Storr's prayer
which fell upon the ear like harmonies of celes
tial music :
"Eemember those who have been our enemies
and turn their hearts from wrath and war to love and
peace. Let the desolations that have come on them
suffice, and unite them with us in the ties of a better
brotherhood than of old; that the cities and homes
and happiness they have lost may be more than re
placed in the long prosperity they shall hereafter
Help us who are here assembled before Thee, and
who never again shall be so assembled until we stand
before Thy bar, to consecrate ourselves afresh, on this
historic da}', to the welfare of our land ; to the cause,
and the cross, and the truth of our Lord ; that we may

3 86 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
live evermore to Thy glory, may walk in Thy light,
may die at last in Thy perfect peace, and may rise to
our rest in the bosom of Thy love."
The lofty charity expressed in these pas
sages shone by contrast with the barbaric bit
terness and sectional rancor that disfigured the
famous funeral sermon at Savannah, which
Bishop Elliott preached, a few months earlier,
over Bishop-General Polk : yet, the sermon of
Bishop Elliott was not wanting in passages of
exquisite tenderness and beauty. Addressing
the dead body before him, he said : "Thou art
very welcome to me, my brother; welcome in
death as in life. * * Thy ashes shall repose
beneath the shadow of the Church of Christ."
On the day following the Sumter fete, an
immense throng crowded the African Church to
greet and hear William Lloyd Garrison, George
Thompson, Henry Wilson, and others from the
North. Thousands being unable to gain admit
tance, a supplementary meeting was held at Cit
adel Square. There was one scene in the church,
pre-arranged by Mr. Redpath, which those who
witnessed it will never forget. It was that of the
eloquent natural orator, Samuel Dickerson, and
his two daughters, full-blooded blacks, and eman
cipated slaves, presenting to the brave old Gar
rison a wreath of the most beautiful flowers of

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 187
that semi-tropical climate, together with a wel
come to Charleston, and the thanks and bene-
diclions of their race.
That scene, I venture to predict, will live
again hereafter on the .painter's burning canvas
and on the historian's pictured page.
Mr. Garrison's unstudied speech, — "I have
been an out-law, with a price set upon my head,
for thirty years, for your sakes ; but I never ex
pected to look you in the face, or that you would
ever hear of anything I might do in your be
half," — showed how truly he had learned and
practiced that duty of self-sacrifice and of self-
denying labor for others which Christianity en
joins as the sublimest duty of man.
The principal addresses on that day rose to
real eloquence. What contributed to make them
so was the consciousness that the speakers were
greater than their words — that there was in
them "something greater than all eloquence, —
action, — noble, sublime, God-like action."
The most eloquent of the speakers on that
day was George Thcjmpson, whose decease, at a
ripe old age, in his own native land, has been
telegraphed by the Atlantic Cable since these
pages were put in type.
"It is hard," he said, "to believe that I am at
once in the cradle and the grave of treason, secession

1 88 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
and slavery. To me it has been given to see two
great, pure, signal, glorious triumphs effected. To me
has been given the unspeakable privilege of being a
co-laborer with Wilberforce and Clarkson, who led the
way in the great struggle for British abolition — the
abolition' of the internal slave-trade, and its child,
slavery. To me, also, it has been given to see their
triumph, to see them go up to heaven, presenting at
the throne of the heavenly grace a million of broken
manacles, and Africa redeemed from her English
spoiler. Now it is my privilege to be the co-worker and
companion in joy of the Wilberfoj^ce of America —
William Lloyd Garrison. For thirty years aud more
my heart has been with you ; with you on the planta
tion, with you on the auction block, with you in your
unrequited toil, with you in your sufferings, separa
tions, and scourgings ; and now I am with you in
your freedom. *******
During the thirty years that have elapsed be
tween my flrst and last visit, a revolution has taken
place at the North. I left the colleges on the side of
slavery. I returned and found the colleges on the
side of liberty. I left America when there was but
one man [John Quincy Adams] in the House of Con
gress who dared to present an anti-slavery petition.
I returned and found scarce a man in Congress who'
would not deem himself honored by being selected to
present such a petition. I left America with the news
papers of the country and the literature of the country

LIFE AFL OA T AND A SHORE. 1 89
on the side of slavery. I returned and find the news
papers and literature, the best iind most popular works
published in the country, on the side of freedom. I
flnd the man who towers the highest in the estima
tion of the people of the North is the man most earn
estly, most sincerely, most uncompromisingly devoted
to the cause of universal, impartial freedom."
In the evening of that day, a delegation of
colored women called on Mr. Beecher. Four
of these women had been caught in the act of
carrying food, medicines, and bandages in the
night to prisoners on the Race Course, and had
been lashed on their backs for thus seeking to
do what the Church prays God to do — " to show
pity upon all prisoners and captives." One of
them had received seventy-five lashes on her
bare back for her humanity and kindness toward
these suffering men.
On'Easter Sunday, April i6th, Mr. Beecher
preached in the same Church. But as the hour
struck when the the sound of the church-going
bell would have been heard if all the bells of
Charleston had not been removed or melted into
cannon, I left for Cuba in the Steamer Mary
Sanford, and'did not hearhim.
" From the^sublime to the ridiculous," said
Thomas Paine, "there is but a step." Parting
from Beecher at Charleston, when in the zenith

I90 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
of his fame, I met him again, ten years later, in
the Supreme Court at Brooklyn, when brought
to trial there by one who went with him to
Charleston as his parasite and protege.
Previous to sailing, I took a walk with Sen
ator Wilson to the churchyard of St. Michael's
Church, and showed him, in a thicket, covered
with brambles and wedds, the grave of the elo
quent Hayne, the antagonist 'of Webster, Wil
son's own predecessor in the Senate, in the great
Nullification Debate of 1830. Neither of us
spoke for some minutes. Words had lost their
power, as we stood by the grave of that apostle
of secession, and gazed on the ruin which his
doctrines had brought upon the city of his love.
Tears filled Mr. Wilson's eyes, and his fea
tures bore the evidence of strong emotion as he
stood thoughtful, silent, motionless, as if rivetted
to that charmed spot. At length, I broke the
silence by saying that, if I only had the power
of a painter, I would try my hand on a scene
which, in the hands of a good artist, would live
for centuries. " What do you mean ?" inquired
Wilson. " Why, I would take for my subject
' The Successor of Daniel Webster at the Grave
of Robert Y. Hayne!'" " It would be good,"
Wilson rejoined. " I would not have missed this
for all there is in Charleston besides !"

Flag Ship "Philadelphia."
Cliurlcstoii Harbor, S. C. April (9, 1 86 5.
A grievous affliction has fallen upon the
[Nation. President Lincoln has been as
sassinated. The vessels of this command
will wear their colors at half mast, until
I further orders.
On the receipt of this order twenty-one
Imiiuucguns will be fired from every vessel
in the squadron, beginning with the senior
I vessel ; each vessel following in the- order
[of senority. The minute guns will be re
peated at sunset.
The Officers will also wear crape on the
[left arm. [This badge of mourning con
tinued to be worn for six months.]
Other orders will be issued by the Navy
I Department.* The sorrow we all feel for
our loss, indicates the above as the first
proper manifestation.
JOHN A. DAHLGREN,
Rear Admiral, Commanding
South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

*Thcse orders directed among other things, that
I the commandants of squadrons, navy yards, and
I stations cause the ensign of every vessel etc. to be
hoisted at half-mast, and a gun to be fired every |
half hour, from sunrise to sunset.

192 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
The news of the murder of President Lin
coln reached Charleston April 19th, during my
absence ; and I give, on another page, the order
issued by Admiral Dahlgren on that occasion.
The Admiral had a strong personal affection for
the President, and was much beloved by him, in
turn. While commandant of the Washington
Navy Yard, he often contributed to fill the ach
ing void in the President's saddened heart. " I
like to see Dahlgren," said Mr. Lincoln. " The
drive to .the Navy Yard is one of my greatest
pleasures. When I am depressed, I like to talk
with Dahlgren. I learn something of the prepa
rations for defence, and I get from him consola
tion and courage. On the whole, I like to see
Dahlgren,"

CHAPTER IX.
A Trip to the Tropics — Havanna — Cuban Scenes
— Charles the Fifth's Judge-Advocate — Palmetto
Politics — Close of Admiral Dahlgren's Command.
The path of the Mary Sanford lay off the
coast of the beautiful Sea Islands. We were
four days from Charleston when the weekly mail
steamer for Havanna, which left New York the
Saturday before, came up with us, wearing her

LIFE A FL OAT AND A SHORE. 1 93
flag at half-mast. We sent a boat to her for the
news. The boat soon returned with copies of
the Herald., Tribune, Times, and World, and
also — horror of horrors ! — the news of the assas-
ination of President Lincoln ! The feeling pro
duced upon all on board was intense ; and tears
rolled freely down the cheeks of old sailors,
who, before the abolition of flogging, had taken
their forty stripes save one without flinching. It
seemed as if every man had lost his best friend
— "as if the hunter's path, and the sailor's, in
the great solitude of wilderness and sea, were
henceforth more lonely and less safe than be
fore." We were now off the coast guarded by the
East Gulf Blockading Squadron, and " dipped
our flag " to Admiral Stribling as we approached
his flag-ship. Blockaders had few attractions for
us, then ; so we pushed on towards the " ever-
faithful isle."
On Friday night, I could smell oders of
tropical vegetation wafted across many leagues
of sea. The canopy of heaven seemed studded
more thickly than ever with what Prince Albert
called " terraces of stars ;" — (which I think a fe
licitous phrase, though Humboldt sneered at it
as too fanciful.) Among the many strange con
stellations, I soon recognized the Southern Cross
marching in triumph across the sky.

194 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
How few of those who " make Havanna" by
doubling the western capes of Cuba, give a
thought to that isthmus or promontory which, in
by-gone ages, connected Cuba with Yucatan }
Yet there can hardly be a doubt that the penin
sula of Yucatan was once thus united to " the
ever faithful isle." But when and how they were
divorced, are problems for geologists.
Just as the Lord of Day was making his
preparations '' to quit his chamber in the East,"
the look-out shouted, " Land ho !" For several
hours our path lay along the coast of a veritable
paradise. The dwelling houses of the planters,
painted in various bright colors, shone resplen
dent in the morning sun-light, and I fancied that
they were imitations of the domestic architecture
of the Moors of Spain. Then, those lofty palm
trees — how finely they contrasted with the pal-
mettoes — those bastard palms — of the South !
But I will not attempt — what so many others
have failed to do — to convey any adequate idea
of the gorgeous beauty of this tropical land
scape. It was, as the only living lady on board
the Mary Sanford repeatedly said, " perfectly
splendid ;" and yet I would not exchange the
cranberry of New England for any product of
the tropics, Havanna has been many times described,

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 195
and I found it pretty much as others have found
it, save that its harbor, (which is shaped exactly
like one half of a bisected bottle lying with the cut
side upwards,) contained a dozen or more of
those long, low, rakish-looking steamers, with
short masts and convex-decks, painted lead col
or, which we had often fired at during the long
blockade. Walking in the Plaza di Arma, and other
squares and streets of Havanna, I seemed to be
transported to the times of Ferdinand and Isa
bella, and of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. On
Sunday, I heard a sermon in sonorous Spanish
in the Cathedral ; and having attended three
masses in the morning, I followed the custom of
the city, and witnessed five bull-fights in the
afternoon. To my taste, these combats between
armed men and horses, on the one side, and in
furiated bulls, on the other, seemed utterly re
volting. But custom will make men anything.
Not only the senors but the fair senoretas also,
went wild with delight when the poor horses
were gored and disemboweled by the maddened
bulls, or when the poor bull, stung almost to
death by torpedoes in his flesh, was thrust by the
fatal lance, and fell reeling to the earth.
It was with great reluctance that I turned
away from the passeos behind Havanna, of which

196 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
no one who has ever driven over them in those
grotesque volantes will need any description,
while to those who have not seen them, no words
of mine could convey any adequate conception
of their marvellous attractions and rich tropical
— I might say magical — beauty. They are to Ha
vanna all and more than all that the Central Park
is to New York ; and nothing save the Bois de
Bologne of Paris could excel them in the sights
which they present with their thousand light vo
lantes — the wheels at one end, the mounted
steed at the other, and the stately, bare-headed,
white-robed senoretas sitting serenely between.
The courts of justice in Havanna are com
modious apartments, elegantly furnished, and
contrasted finely with the cabins and ward-rooms
in which I had so long been administering jus
tice according to the criminal code of the Navy.
Some of them displayed full-length portraits of
Queen Isabella, and of her predecessors on the
Spanish throne.
I was fortunate in making the acquaintance
of Senor  , a learned advocate who had
travelled in Europe and the United States. He
showed me an old book which he had picked up
in Madrid, entitled De Re Militare et de Bello,
written in Latin, by Pierino Bello, in 1558, and
published in Venice in 1563. This treatise was

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 197
the first effort ever made to reduce the, practice
of nations in the conduct of war to a system of
judicial rules. Bello, otherwise called Bellinus,
was a native of Alba, in Piedmont, and was Judge-
Advocate of the Army of the Emperor Charles
the Fifth of Germany during his war with Fran
cis the First of France in the North of Italy, and
afterwards Chancellor of War and of State to
the Emperor's son, Phillip the Second of Spain.
He was born in 1502, and died in 1575, and was
at the time of his death High Chancellor of Sa
voy. His work served as a guide to that of
Albericus Gentilis de Jure Belli,* published
forty years later, and also to the great work of
Grotius, on the Rights of War and Peace, in 1625.
The next effort of this kind was made by
Balthazar Ayala, the Judge - Advocate of the
Spanish Army in the Netherlands, under Alex
ander Farnese, the Prince of Parma, to whom
the work was dedicated in 1581.
The third was made by Albericus Gentilis,
in 1598, while teaching at Oxford, and dedicated
to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the favorite
and the victim of Queen Elizabeth.
Judge-Advocate Bellinus was the true Fa
ther of International Law : yet in the works of
'*See Judge-Advoeate-General Twiss on Albericus Gen
tilis, in London Law Magazine and Review, Nov. '77 —
Feb. '78.

198 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Wheaton, Kent, Phillimore and Halleck, he is
hardly named. Judge - Advocate Ayala fares
little better. Grotius, whoSe own services ought
to secure an immortality of fame, has honors
heaped upon him unbidden, which justly belong
to Bellinus and Ayala.
From the days of Bellinus and Ayala to the
days of Halleck, Holt and Twiss, the Judges-
Advocates of the Armies and Navies of Europe
and America have not failed to make constant
efforts, by their writings, as well as by their prac
tice, to improve the several systems of law, which,
in their two-fold character as Judges and as Ad
vocates, they have been called to administer.
Here also I saw the secret memoirs of the
Count of Aranda, one of the ablest and most
trusted ministers of Charles the Third of Spain,
printed in Spanish a few years before. From
these memoirs I quote the following remarkable
letter, written by him in confidence to his sov
ereign, upon signing the treaty of 1783 : —
" I have just concluded and signed a treaty of
peace with England, and this negotiation has left
in my mind a painful sentiment. We have recognized
the independence ofthe English colonies, and that is
to me a subject of grief and of dread. France has few
possessions in America; but she ought to have remem
bered that Spain, her intimate ally, has many, which
now remain exposed to terrible convulsions. I will not

LIFE AFL OAT AND A SHORE. 1 99
stop to examine the opinions of statesmen, as well
countrymen as foreigners, who agree with me in esti
mation of the intrinsic diflSculty of preserving onr
domination in America. Without entering into those
considerations it suffices to content myself with refer
ring to the perils with which we are menaced, on the
side of the new power just created in a part of the
earth where no other power exists capable of with
standing its progres:^. This new federal republic has
come into being a pigmy, so to speak, and in order to
attain its independence has needed the support and
the forces of two great powers, France and Spain. The
day is at hand when in those regions it will be a giant
— a terrible colossus. Then it will forget the benefits
which it has received from us, and will think only of
its own aggrandizement. The liberty of conscience,
the facility of establishing new populations in im
mense territories, and the peculiar advantages held
forth by the new government, will attract thither cul
tivators and artizans of all nations, since men rush in
pursuit of fortune ; and thus, in a few years, we shall
witness with sorrow the menacing existence of the an
ticipated colossus. The first step of this power, when
it shall have grown to strength, will be to possess it
self of the Floridas, in order to command the Gulf of
Mexico. After having thus interposed itself in the
way of our commerce with New Spain, it will aspire
to conquer that great empire, which it will not be pos
sible to defend against a formidable power, establish
ed on the same continent, and what is more, coter-

200 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
minous with it. These apprehensions are well founded,
and cannot fail to be realized within a few years, un
less indeed, before then, revolutions still more disas
trous should break forth in our Americas,"
With so clear a view of the future of the
nascent Union, it is not to be wondered, that
this great man sought to ward off this peril from
Spain by creating semi-independent monarchies
out of the Spanish Colonies, to be governed^by
vassal Spanish princes under Charles as emperor
of Spain and the Indies, the latter retaining the
immediate government only of the Islands of
Cuba and Puerto Rico.
It has often been said that England " bit off
her own nose " in extinguishing the French
dream of domination in America by the conquest
of Canada. She certainly thereby provoked
France to incite that discontent and rebellion
which culminated in the independence of the Uni
ted States. Spain, also, "bit off her nose," by raid
ing the revolted Colonies. So thought this far-
sighted Count of Aranda, whose prophetic words
came freshly to my mind as I pondered, not with
out hope, on the prospect that Cuba will yet'be-
come a member of the American Federal Union.
Had the counsels of Aranda prevailed, Span
ish America might have been spared twentyyears
of anarchy and civil war, as Portugese America

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 20 1
was by the timely adoption of the same wise
policy. Whether the Count of Aranda had heard of
Governor Pownall of Massachusetts, I know not ;
but it is remarkable that Pownall sought to an
ticipate the independence of the British Ameri
can Colonies by making them, members of a
great British Federal Union.
This Senor  , I may say, was admir
ably fitted, by culture and tastes, for public life ;
yet under the despotic system of Cuba, there
was no more chance for a political career for
him, than there would be in -some of the Irish or
German wards of Boston, New York, St. Louis,
or Cincinnati ; and perhaps it is an open ques
tion, whether the rule of one narrow-minded
bigot is not more tolerable than that of a mob of
narrow-minded bigots.
I left Havana with several purposes unful
filled. One of these was a trip to the Valley of
the Yumuri, immortalized first by the hand of
Nature, and again by the pen of Maria Brooks.*
My visit was one of uninterrupted enjoy
ment, which was greatly augmented by the many
attentions of Charles Dudley Tyng, one of the
¦"See Maria del Occident, in Harper's Magazine for
January, 1879.

202 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
Tyngs of Newburyport, then commercially dom
iciled in Havana. i
Some of the last of tbe blockade-runners
lay in the harbor of Havana when we left ; and
one of our officers, with a turn for poetry, adap
ted to " the Last Blockade Runner " Lord Ma-
caulay's lively " Lay of the Last Buccaneer."
Had the noble poet lived to see these adapta
tions, I fear he would have punished the adap
tor as unsparingly as he punished Robert Mont
gomery and John Wilson Croker.
I had received from Captain John S. Sleeper,
formerly editor of the Lowell Journal, and after
wards of the Boston Journal, some vivid ac
counts of the pirates who infested these waters
early in the present century.* I had also read of
the famous buccaneers of the seventeenth cen
tury ; but never till I visited their favorite cruis-
ing-ground, did I realize that the buccaneers
were the natural outcome from the peculiar cir
cumstances of their time. Mr. Froude well says :
" The privateers, Spanish, French, English,
Scotch, and Flemish, who in time of war learnt
the habits of plunder under a show of legality,
glided by an easy transition into buccaneers
*See the admirable paper on these pirates, read by
Captain Sleeper before the New England Historic, Gen
ealogical Society in 1877.

LIFE AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 203
whenever peace withdrew from them their licen
ces. The richness of the possible spoils, the
dash and adventure in the mode of obtaining it,
and the doubtful relations of the courts of Eu
rope to each other, which made the services of
such men continually valuable, and secured them
the partial connivance of their respective gov
ernments combined to disguise the infamy of a
marauding profession. The pirate of to-day was
the patriot of to-morrow."*
In a few hours a terrible storm came on,
and before we were aware of it we were in the
paradiseof the wreckers on the coast of Florid^..
The sea ran mountains high, the wind blew tow
ard the land, and for hours we were in peril of
running on the lee shore.
" In such a tempest, borne to deeds of death.
The wild, weird sisters scour the blasted heath,"
At length the storm ceased ; and having
made the Gulf stream, that remarkable " river in
the ocean," we were soon once more in Charles
ton, There I soon learned that, though out of
sight, I had not been out of mind to my Charles
ton friends, during my trip to the tropics. They
had been holding what they called a " Union
League Mass Convention," for the purpose,
?Proude's History of England, vol, 5, p. 135. This
was equally true of the pirates of 1800-1820,

204 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
among others, of recommending some one to
President Johnson for the office of Provisional
Governor of South Carolina ; and knowing 1;hat I
was about to quit the Navy, they had voted to
recommend me for that position.. This expres
sion of confidence on their part was most grati
fying ; though I was not conscious of any special
fitness for that office. In fact I had signed a
petition for B. F. Perry, whom the President
soon after appointed.
Having assisted in organizing the Republi
can party, and helping it into power in the Pal
metto State, I protest that I am wholly innocent
of the crimes by which the names of too many
of the Republican leaders were afterwards
"damned to everlasting fame." Not a hint had
yet been heard, of those portentous frauds by
which that once - glorious commonwealth was
humbled in the dust, and burdened with a weight
of debt which will retard her prosperity for gen
erations to come.
I lingered too long in the tropics to fulfil a
promise to my friend, Mr. Redpath, to deliver an
address, in Charleston, on the day of the deco
ration of the graves of the martyrs of the Race-
Course. James Redpath, I believe, is the real
originator of the practice of publicly decorating
the graves of the men who died in our military

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 205
or naval service during the Civil War. His col
ored clients at Charleston, where he was then
Superintendent of Public Instruction, were the
first decorators ; and I barely escaped the honor
of giving the first decoration-day oration. I had
made some preparation for that most welcome
service ; had gathered together from all access
ible sources the history of the Race-Course
Prison, and also of the Morris-Island Stockade ;
(for I meant to treat both sides with equal fair
ness,) Some tribute I would gladly have paid
to those unnamed heroes who, lingering from
week to week, suffered the bitter pains of ten
thousand deaths, when they had only to re
nounce their allegiance to the Union in order to
be released. " To play the part of heroism on its high
places and in its theatre," as Rufus Choate once
said, " is not perhaps so very difficult." But to
^play it continuously for months, with no prosp^t
of relief, unseen by any sympathizing human
eye, frowned on by all around them, save their
suffering, starving comrades, was the sad trial
and the supreme triumph of the martyrs of the
Race-Course. Nor would I have withheld the honors due
to those unnamed heroines, whose backs were
scored by the lash, because they dared to visit

206 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
our prisoners in the night, and carry bread to
the hungry, bandages to the wounded, and med
icines to the sick, and to receive the last messa
ges of the dying.
The Confederate soldier or sailor, who hon
estly held that his highest allegiance was due to
his own state, and to the southern Confederacy,
and who in that faith fought the forces of the
Union on land or sea, should have heard no
word of reproach ; nor would I have stung his
pride by calling him a rebel or a traitor. But to
those wretches who aggravated the asperities of
the war by reviving barbarities which even sava
ges have abandoned, I would have shown no
mercy. Generally, they were not soldiers, Ihough
they had donned military attire. For them even
the bitter words of Lord Macaulay were too
sweet : — " Shame on those cruel eyes
That dared to look on torture,
But dared not look on war."
The time now came for the reduction of the
Navy to a peace basis, and for the union of the
North and South Atlantic Squadrons under one
commander. At the end of June I accompanied
Admiral Dahlgren to the capital in the Pawnee.
The flag of the South Atlantic Blockading Squad
ron, which Dupont unfurled at Fortress Munroe

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 207
on the 29th of October, 1861, was hauled down
by Admiral Dahlgren at Washington, on the 1 2th
day of July, 1865; and the books of that com
mand were closed forever.
Previous to leaving Charleston, the Admiral
issued two farewell orders, in one of which,
among other things, he pays his compliments to
each officer of his staff by name ; while in the
other he traces with rapid strokes the history of
the squadron during the two years of his com
mand.* I cannot allow the beloved and honored
name of Dahlgren to drop from my narrative
without making, at least, this attestation : — that
a more intrepid spirit never walked this earth in
human form; that his -steadfast soul knew no
such thing as fear ;f that his constant, utmost,
only aim was to render to his country the great
est and best service possible ; that, alike in fight
ing and in forbearing to fight, he never hesitated
to sacrifice himself, his fame, and his hope of
*See Secretary Welles' Report for 1865, pp. 343-346.
fWitness the sublime daring with which ^he pushed
off" in his barge, and pulled through a heavy sea and a tre
mendous flre of shells to the Passaic, when that renowned
little turtle-back got aground under Fort Moultrie, and
when none but the utmost efforts of all her consorts could
have saved her from destruction or what was infinitely
worse — capture.

2o8 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
higher fame, for the good of his country ; that in
his private relations with me, (which were as in
timate and as confidential as those with any other
officer of his personal staff,) I found him always
kind, generous, frank, cordial, sympathetic and
confiding ; and that I never met one who meri
ted " the grand old name of Gentleman " more
than he. Much more I would add, especially
concerning him as a man of science, and the in
ventor of the best forms of ordnance, but for
the fact that his biography is now in preparation
by able and loving hands ; so that no further
account of him is needed.
It is, however, worthy of mention here, that
he obtained the idea of the formation of his un
rivalled gun from observing the formation of the
soda-water bottle. This he told me himself ; and
a moment's inspection will demonstrate that, in
the bottle as in his gun, the weight of metal is
thrown into the breech.
I can indulge no better hope for our Amer
ican Navy, than that, in all the ages of its future,
it may never want officers to improve its gun
nery and to command its squadrons, who shall
be equal to the ingenious, the intrepid, the chiv
alrous, the high-souled Dahlgren.

•CHAPTER X,
Courts-Martial and Civil Courts compared —
Some Points in Military and NavaJ Law — Unity in
the Methods of Procedure in the two Services.
I have often been asked, since my return to
civil life, what are the advantages, or the disad
vantages, of courts-martial as agencies for ad
ministering criminal justice. The advantages
are : first, greater freedom from technicality in
describing the accused and the time, place and
manner of the offence ;* second, greater certainty
that the tribunal which passes upon the facts,
{i. e. the court sitting as a jury,) will possess the
requisite special knowledge, in cases requiring
special knowledge ; third, the evidence is pre
served entire for the examination of the review
ing power. Often, when cheated out of " excep
tions to rulings at nisi frius," by slippery judges
*The Cilley case, however, in the S. A. B. Squadron,
in 1863, and some others, broke down for want of suffi
cient allegations as to the place of the alleged offence.

2IO LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
who would substitute their after-thoughts for
rulings suddenly and inconsiderately made, I
have sighed for the full record of the court-mar
tial, made at the moment, and like " the law of
the Medes and Persians, which altereth not."
The disadvantages are, the proneness of
courts-martial to convict in cases of doubt ; the
exclusion of all oral examination and cross-ex
amination of witnesses ; the depriving the ac
cused of the advantages that are often secured,
in civil courts, by the power of forensic elo
quence. But I have seen juries more alarmingly,
— ay, scandalously, — prone to convict than any
court-martial with which I ever sat as judge-
advocate, or before which I have ever appeared
as counsel for the accused. The boasted advan
tages of cross-examining witnesses viva voce, of
firing into them rattling vollies of confusing
questions, and of badgering, them into apparent
contradictions, have been much over-estimated
by such lawyers as Lord Erskine* and Lord
Abinger in Great Britain, and by Judge Lord,
Charles O'Conor, General Butler, and Judge
FuUertori in the United States. Such, I know,
*Erskine, by the way, was as successful before naval
general courts-martial composed of British officers, as be
fore "the Twelve" in courts of common law. Witness
his defence of Admiral Keppel.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 2 1 J
was the mature opinion of Charles Sumner ; and
it was strikingly illustrated in the trial of Tilton
,v. Beecher, in which Mrs. Moulton, on the one
side, and Miss Turner, on the other, successfully
withstood the best efforts of Mr. Evarts, and Mr.
Fullerton, respectively, to break the force of
their testimony by the tactics of a most skillful
cross-examination. The triumph of Mrs. Jenks
over Mr. Butler, when cross-examined before the
famous Potter Committee, was even more re
markable than that of Mrs, Moulton over Mr,
Evarts, or of Miss Turner over Mr. Fullerton.
A cross-examination is very often more damag
ing to the cross-examiner than to his adversary.
The acquittal of Sickles, one of the most bril
liant forensic victories of modern times, was
largely due to the adroit abstention of Mr. Brady
from any cross-examination save what related
strictly to the testimony-in-chief Like the di
vine gift of eloquence, it is often perverted to
purposes of injustice — " to put a face of truth
upon a body of falsehood " — rather than "to exe
cute justice and to maintain truth."
Referring to the judge-advocate, who com
bines the functions of a judge with those af an
- advocate, Charles Sumner says : — "As a judge,
conversant with the law and the practice of
courts, he is to advise the members on such

212 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
questions of law as the case presents, and to be
of counsel for the prisoner, according to judicial
custom, when the prisoner was not allowed
counsel in his defence. At the same time, he
is to be the prosecuting officer for the govern
ment, and withal, the 'recorder of the court.
The military (or naval) officers become a jury,
with power to decide the law and the fact, and
to assign due punishment on conviction. The
judge-advocate is in truth the judge ; and, as in
these trials, anciently, no counsel was allowed
the prisoner, the judge-advocate might without
any great difficulty see to the proper manage
ment both of the prosecution and defence.*"
In some respects, the practice of courts-
martial might be improved. In an age of expert
stenographers, like ours, the time of the whole
court ought not to be wasted, as it now is, while
the testimony is writtg.n out in full in long-hand.
The report of a sworn stenographer, verified, of
course, daily, by the court, would be full as trust
worthy as the long-hand minutes of a judge-
advocate. The Bar, too, should have a recognized po
sition. In dealing with counsel, courts-martial
*6 Law Reporter, p. 5. See also Mr. Sumner's learn
ed article on the Mutiny of the Somers, North American
Review, vol, 57, pp. 195-241.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 2 1 3
now stand about where the courts of Athens
stood two thousand years ago.
The practice of military courts and that of
naval courts are nearly alike already, (naturally
and necessarily so,) and they might be made
entirely uniform. The 'statutes which govern
their proceedings require but the slightest chan
ges to make the practice of courts in the two
services entirely £,like ; and while there is much
to be said for uniformity, the points of difference
are such that there is absolutely nothing to be
said against it.
Why, for example, should the law require
that the judge-advocate of a naval general court-
martial should be sworn before he administers
the oath to tbe members, and that the judge-
advocate of a military general court-m,artial, and
the judge-advocate, (or recorder,) of every other
judicial tribunal in either service, should admin
ister the oath of office to the members of the
court before he has been sworn him-selff* Why
not make the practice uniform in all courts of
both services .''
Again : why should the law prescribe that
the president or senior member shall administer
the. oath to witnesses before naval general, and
?Revised Statutes of the United States, Title XIV.,
Chap; 5, Articles 84, 85, 117 ;— Chap. 10, Articles 28, 40, 58.

214 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
summary, courts-martial, and yet permit wit
nesses before all other tribunals in either service
to be sworn by the judge-advocate ? Why not
permit them to be sworn by either the president
or the judge-advocate, in all cases .'' These ques
tions are important ; for if an oath is adminis
tered by one who is not, at the time, qualified to
administer it, it is extrajudicial, and the violation
of it is not legal perjury.
By a singular inadvertence, the oaths pre
scribed for judges-advocates and members of
naval general courts-martial and naval courts of
inquiry, and for the recorders and members of
summary courts-martial, do not contain the form
ula, " So help you God," or any other words
equivalent thereto ; though this is of the essence '
of all oaths.
In dealing with cases of theft, under the
seventh and eighth articles of war,* our naval
general courts-martial often found it impossible
to impose a penalty adequate to the offence. By
the construction which the Navy Department
has put upon these articles ever since their en
actment, it is only in cases " where it is author
ised to adjudge the punishment of death," that
*In Dynes v. Hoover, 20 Howard, 81, the United States
Supreme Court put a different construction on these arti
cles, less favorable to the accused.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 2 1 5
a court-martial may adjudge the punishment of
imprisonment for life, or for a stated term, at
hard labor.
It must be considered here that the punish
ments imposed by courts-martial are additional
to those imposed by the civil tribunals.* It was
not foreseen that a time would come when crimes
would be committed within any state in the
American Union, when there would be no civil
court therein in which the offender could be
prosecuted. To remedy this mischief, several
courts-martial sought to impose confinement at
hard labor in a penitentiary as a punishment
for theft ; but the Department set aside all such
sentences as unauthorized and void. •
The Department was manifestly right. If
it were otherwise, a man might be sent twice to
a penitentiary for the same offence — once by a
civil court, and again by a court-martial. The
authority of Dynes v. Hoover is without weight
*It seems that Judge Woodbury, Chancellor Kent,
Judge Betts, and Charles Sumner, eminent as they were,
all erred in supposing crimes cognizable by a naval gen
eral court-martial as violations of the law of the sea, were
not cognizable also by the civil courts as violations of the
law of the land. See the decision of the United States Su
preme Court in Moore v. State of Illinois 14 Howard, 18 ;
Caleb Cushing's opinion in Steiner's Case, 6 Opinions of
Attorneys-General, 413, and cases there cited; Charles
Sumner on the Case of the Somers, 6 Law Reporter, 4.

2i6 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
as to this. But as no such sentence as was in
flicted on Dynes will probably ever be approved
again, it may stand for ages without being over
ruled. And as few writers in this country know
or care much about military or naval law, this
case may pass for ages unchallenged.
While the late Caleb Gushing was one of
the Commissioners to revise the statutes, I pre
pared, at his suggestion, a schedule of amend
ments whereby all these minor differences would
have been removed, and the practice of all courts
in the Army and Navy made uniform. He as
sured me that they were all desirable, wondered
they had not been suggested sooner, filed my
schedule carefully away, and — probably never
looked at it again,
Mr. Sumner's suggestion, — that "there be
an individual learned in the law, controlling, as
a judge, the 'legal course of the trial," — would
reduce the court to substantially the position of
modern juries, who are judges of facts but not
judges of laws. The biases of the Army and
Navy lead them to prefer that their courts should
retain the position of the ancient juries who, in
criminal cases, were — as the ballad ran —
" Judges alike of the facts and the laws."

CHAPTER XI.
From the Palmetto State to the Old Bay State —
Researches in the History of Divorces and Divorce
Ijegislation in America — An Unwritten Chapter in
Our Colonial Life.
Few commonwealths have ever presented a
more pitiable spectacle than the Palmetto State
at the close of 1865, when I disposed of my plan
tation and returned North. A large portion of
her white male population had perished in the
war ; another portion had become demoralized.
Hundreds of families, previously wealthy, or well
to-do, had been impoverished. Disaster, debt
and ruin were everywhere. The population, how
ever, inheriting the blood of English Cavaliers,
Scottish Covenanters, and French Huguenots,
had immense recuperative power; and she might
have been spared that other later and sadder
chapter of calamities, had the remnant of her
old white population done their duty. The ig
norance of the horde of blacks, who were sud-

2 1 8 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
denly invested with political power, might have
|)een largely prevented from working further
ruin, bad the whites, who had owned them, ac
cepted the situation, and exercised over the
freedmen the influence which men of culture and
property can always exert over the ignorant, the
poor, and the depressed. But in this crisis, when
their moral, their intellectual, and their social in
fluences were more needed than ever before, the
old white population chose, blindly and madly,
to abandon their state to its fate, and to sit down
sullenly, like Achilles sulking in his tent. The
result was, that the rapacity of the Northern im
migrants combined with the ignorance of the
blacks, and reduced South Carolina to the con
dition which Mr. Pike has so well portrayed in
his " Prostrate State."
Unquestionably, the Civil War brought great
dnd wide-spread demoralization, as most wars
do. All our historians, from Ramsay to Greeley,
concur that the moral condition of the people
sadly degenerated during the War of the Revo-
lutian, and during the War of 1 8 1 2. Returning to
Massachusetts, I have been witness to schemes
of corruption only less heinous than those which
blacken the history of South Carolina ; of which
those incident to the Hoosac Tunnel and the
Hartford and Erie Railroad may be mentioned as
striking examples.

LIFE AFLOAT AND A SHORE. 2 19
It happened that, after returning to Massa
chusetts, and entering upon the practice of my
profession in Boston, I was retained in numer
ous cases of domestic litigation. This led me to
inquire when, where, and how, the courts of the
United States, (or the Colonies,) first began to
exercise jurisdiction in cases of divorce.
The establishment of the first judicial tri
bunal in America, exercising jurisdiction in
matters of divorce, would seem to deserve a
a place in history. But I soon found that this
event, which took place in 1639, had never been
recorded with anything like accuracy by any
writer whatever.
Supremely important and far-reaching in
their influence, as were the early divorce laws of
Massachusetts, Rhode Island- and Connecticut,
I found that they had generally been entirely
overlooked by the historians'of those times.
Only one of those historians who have
taken New England for their field, — Mr, Palfrey,
— and only one of the historians of the United
States, — Mr. Bancroft, — have referred to the
matter at all. In his account of the early courts
of judicature in Massachusetts, Palfrey says, the
inferior courts "had jurisdiction in cases of di
vorce ;" vyhich is not true. In the tenth chap
ter of his history, treating on the condition of

220 LEAVES FROM A LAWYERS
the United Colonies of New England, Mr.
Bancroft says: "Of divorce I have found no
example." But the original records of the
colonial court of assistants contain several
such 'examples in Massachusetts. There were
others in Rhode Island, and also in Connecticut.
Of the historians of Massachusetts, Hutch
inson alone mentions the subject of divorce ;
but from his narrative, which is generally so full
and so particular, it is impossible to say, within
fifty years, when this jurisdiction was first ex
ercised. Daniel Webster wisely said : —
"There are two sources of information on
these subjects, which have never yet been fully
explored, and which, nevertheless, are overflow
ing fountains of knowledge. I mean the Stat
utes, and the proceedings of the Courts of Law.
At an early period "of life, I recurred, with some
degree of attention, to both these sources of in
formation ; not so much for professional purposes
as for the elucidation of the progress of Society.
I acquainted myself with the object, and pur
poses, and substance of every published Statute
in British Legislation. These showed me what
the Legislature of the country was concerned
in, from time to time, and from year to year.
And I learned from the Reports of controver-

LIFE- AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 221
sies, in the Courts of Law, what were the per-
suits and occupations of individuals, and what
the objects ^which most earnestly fengaged atten
tion. I hardly know anything which more
repays research than studies of this kind."*
The first act expressly or tacitly authorizing
the dissolution of marriage by judicial decree,
in any dependency of the English Crown,
was passed by the general court of Massachu
setts in 1639, and reenacted in 1658, in an im
proved form, as follows : —
"That there be two courts of assistants
yearly kept at Boston, by the governor, or depu
ty governor, and the rest of the magistrates, on
the first Tuesday of the first month, [March,]
and on the first Tuesday of the seventh month,
[September,] to hear and determine all and only
actions of appeal from inferior courts, all causes
of divorce, all capital and criminal causes, ex
tending to life, member, or banishment. "f
The first decree of divorce under this act
was that of one James Luxford of Boston. It
*¦ Address before the New York Historical Society.
fCompare Massachusetts Colony Records, vol 1, p.
276, with Charters and General Laws of the Colony and
Province, edition of 1814, p. 90, and the advertisement.
In the editions of the Colony laws printed in 1658 and 1660,
(now extremely rare,) the act above cited is found on
page 23. The same act is reprinted ou page 36 of the
edition of 1672, in which President Woolsey erroneously
says " there is no mention made of divorce,"

222 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
was entered in 1639, and is recorded in the first
volume of Massachusetts Colony Records, 283.
Neither Bancroft, nor Palfrey, 'nor Barry,
nor even Washburn, who has preserved so many
interesting facts in his Judicial History of Mas
sachusetts, seems ever to have seen the volume
of records of the court of assistants,* from
March 3, 1678, to. March 23, 1691-1692, in the
office of the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial
Court for the Commonwealth, in Boston.
I presume that Governor Hutchinson, who
wrote in 1767, had seen the records preserved
in this volume, as well as those which are lost,
and doubtless had them in mind when he
said, — "I never heard of a separation, under the
first charter, a mensa et thoro. Where it is
practiced, the innocent party often suffers more
than the guilty. In general, what would have
been cause for such a separation in the spiritual
courts, was sufficient, with them, for a divorce
a vi7tculo."'\ ¦"Dr. Ellis has objected to Hawthorne's great romance
of The Scarlet Letter, tha-t nothing in the history of the
Colony justified him in portraying Hester Prynne wear
ing the letter A upon her breast as a badge of infamy.
But in this volume we flnd Ruth Reed condemned to
stand in the market-place in Boston, and to wear an ad
vertisement tenfold worse than that of Hawthorne's
heroine. This was in March, 1673. From 1640 to 1673,
the records of this court are lost.
fHutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. 1, p. 393,

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 223
How Mr. Bancroft could overlook the dis
tinction between separations from bed and
board, and divorces from the bond of matrimony
— or, how he could infer from this passage that
absolute divorces were unknown here — I can
not understand : yet it was probably this passage
in Hutchinson which suggested the following in
Bancroft : — "Of divorce I have found no exam
ple ; yet a clause in one of the statutes recog
nizes the possibility of such an event. Divorce
from bed and board, the separate maintenance
without the dissolution of the marriage contract,
— an anomaly in Protestant legislation, that
punishes the innocent more than the guilty, —
was abhorrent from their principles."*
In the docket of the Massachusetts court
of assistants, to which I have referred, eighteen
cases are recorded without regard to formality..f
One of the first acts passed by the general
court of Massachusetts, under the Province
*For a fuller exposure of errors in Bancroft's His
tory of the United States, Centenary Edition, vol. 1, p.
374 ; Palfrey's History of New England, vol. 2, p. 17 ;
Arnold's History of Rhode Island, vol. 2, p. 175 ; Wool-
sey's Essay on Divorce and Divorce Legislation, p. 183 ;
and in The New-Englander, for July, 1868, p. 438 ; — see
the author's pamphlet entitled "Our Divorce Courts &c."
jThe pamphlet, entitled "Our Divorce Courts " &c.,
contains an account of all these cases, and also of the
early New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut cases.

224 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
Charter of 1692, provided that "all controversies
concerning marriage and divorce shall be heard
and determined by the Governor and Council,"
Under this law divorces continued to be granted
from year to year until the Revolution.* Will
iam and Mary were on the throne when this act
was allowed. Archbishop Tenison was then
Primate, and Lord Chancellor Somers, (one
of Lord Macaulay's heroes,) was President of
the Council. The Colony of New Haven was almost as
unfortunate as Massachusetts Bay in respect to
her records. From April, 1644, to May, 1653,
these records are lost. I have had no access to
the dockets of the early courts of Connecticut,
but in Trumbull's Public Records of that Col
ony I find eleven divorces.^
While the Colony of New York was held
by the Dutch, the liberal divorce laws of Hol
land, of course, prevailed ; and an examination
of the dockets of her courts during that period
may yield as many cases of this class as these
early Massachusetts records.
""See the cases in Cowley's Famous Divorces of All
Ages, pp. 271-275. This law, however, did not prevent
the general court itself from granting divorces, as the
records of the Province in several cases attest.
?Connecticut Colony 'Records, Trumbull, vol. 1, pp.
275, 301, 363, 379 ; vol. 2, pp. 129, 292, 293, 322, 326, 327,
328 ; vol. 3, p, 23 ; vol. 4, p. 59.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 225
The " Historical Manuscripts " in the office
of the Secretary of State at Albany, endorsed
"1630- 1664: Dutch : Part i," contain, at least,
three cases ;* and the records of the Patroons'
courts may contain others.
For the period between the English con
quest of that colony and the Revolution of 1776
the Historical Manuscripts in the same office,
endorsed "English Documents: 1664-1776,"
contain evidence of curious intercst.f
Among the circumstances which combined
to render the practice of divorce acceptable,
were — the general rejection of the sacramental
view of marriage ; the solemnization of marria
ges by civil magistrates rather than by clergy
men ; the frequent coming to the Colonies of
men who had " left their wives at home ;" the
great practical difficulty of living here and car
rying on agricultural pursuits without wives, and
the necessity of affording to enterprizing men
and worthy women an opportunity to reconstruct
their domestic relations, and take a new depart
ure on the voyage of life,
*Vol. 6, p. 49 ; vol. 8, pp, 415, 417, 419.
tSee vol. 23, pp. 269, 390 ; vol. 25, pp. 84, 85. Presi
dent Woolsey's Essay, (p., 190,) requires correction, as to
both the Dutch and the English periods.

CHAPTER XII.
Law of Privilege in Civil Courts and Courts-
Martial — Commander Seely's Trial — Brief for the
Accused. There have been few leaves in my life as
a Massachusetts lawyer, which would natur
ally find a place in the same volume with my na
val reminiscences. As counsel for the Grand
Lodge of St. Crispin, I had the satisfaction to
contend with success for their right to a place
among the corporate bodies of the State,* as
well as their right to collect debts by legal pro
cess, in spite of the cry that it was against pub
lic policy. With still greater satisfaction do I
recall the part I have taken in restricting, by
penal law, the hours of labor of women and chil
dren in the factories to ten hours a day. Massa
chusetts, which is generally so forward in meas-
¦*See Act to incorporate the Massachusetts Grand
Lodge of the Knights of St. Crispin, chapter 281 of the
Acts of 1870. Snow et al, v. Wheeler et al., 113 Mass. 179.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 227
ures of reform, was many years behind England
in the passage of this beneficent law ; — but she
is now moving to secure similar enactments in
other States.* Other just and beneficent meas
ures, I have labored for, with no barren result ;
but I will make no further note^of them here,
•A
I shall close this volume with a brief record
of two cases, in which I have been personally
concerned ; — one involving the law of Privilege,
applicable alike to civil courts and to courts-
martial ; — the other a trial by a Naval General
Court-Martial, In preparing for the argument of the ques
tion of privilege, I was surprised to find that, in
stead of having been elucidated by the depisions
of the courts in which it has so often arisen, it
has been reduced to an almost unintelligible jar
gon by the conflicting crotchets of different
judges.- As the result of my inquiries, I'submit
the following four propositions as a correct defi
nition of the law of privilege
I. Where an advocate, a party, or a witness,
is charged with false and defamatory utterances
•^See Act to regulate the Hours of Labor in Manufac
turing Establishments, chapter 221 of the Acts of 1874,
amended by chap. 207 of the Acts of 1879. See, also, chap.
37 of the Resolves of 1879.
For a striking illustration of the abuses which were
formerly tolerated, see Cowley's Reminiscences of James
C, Ayer, pp, 14-16,

228 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
in the course of judicial proceedings; if the
words used were pertinent to the matter in is
sue, and were uttered without the knowledge, or
the belief, that they were false, they are privil
eged, Revis V. Smith, 18 Common Bench, 126.
Henderson v. Broomhead, 4 Hurlston & Nor
man, 569,
2, Where defamatory utterances are made
in good faith, in the belief that they are per
tinent, and in the belief that they are true, they
are privileged ; although in fact they are not
pertinent to the matter in issue, and although
in fact they are not true. And if not so made,
they are actionable. Watson v. Mower i [ Ver
mont 542, cited and approved in Hoar v. Wood,
3 Metcalf, 193. Kidder v. Parkhurst, 3 Allen,
393. Newfield v. Cofferman, 1 5 Abbott, Pr. N.
S. 360. White v. Carol, 42 N. Y., 161. White
V. Nicholls, 3 Howard U. S. 267. Seaman v.
Netherclift, L. R. i C. P. D. 540. Hodgson v.
Scarlett, i Barnewell & Alderson 241.
If this were otherwise, a man might be
mulcted in damages, merely for an error of
opinion on a doubtful question of law. Greater
privilege than this could not safely be claimed
bya judge, upon trial before the Senate upon
articles of impeachment containing the matters
here set forth.

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 229
Upon this ground, the decisions of several
cases may be sustained, in which the courts
seemed to hold that the privilege of parties,
counsel and witnesses was absolute. Astley v.
Young, 2 Burrows, 809 ; and Kennedy v. Hil-
liard, 10 Irish Common Law, 195, where this
"absolutist" doctrine is strikingly qualified by
Mr. Justice Fitzgerald.
3. Where an advocate, a party, or a wit
ness, utters defamatory words, which he knows
to be false, and which he utters maliciously, with
intent to injure another, such words are not
privileged, although they are uttered upon a
privileged occasion, and although they may re
late to the matter in controversy. Every such
utterance is made in abuse of his privilege ;
and a wilful lie can never be justified as perti
nent to any issue whatever. White v. Nicholls,
3 Howard U. S. 267. Marsh v. Ellsworth, i
¦ Sweeney, 52, Smith v. Howard, 28 Iowa,' 51.
Calkins v. Sumner, 13 Wisconsin, 193.*
4. Where an advocate, a party, or a wit
ness, confederates with others in a scheme of
fraud or defamation, and does any thing]?in aid
of such a scheme, he is liable in an action of
conspiracy for the damages caused thereby. See
Fitzjohn v. Mackinder, 9 C. B. (N. S.) 506-534,
*These cases are referred to for illustration, not as
entirely supporting the text.

230 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
Among the English cases relating to the
law of Privilege, in proceedings before military
and naval courts, as well as before civil tribu
nals, the most valuable is that brought by Col
onel Dawkins against General Lord Rokeby, 7
House of Lords Cases, 755.
In 1869, the Pawnee, one of the most valu
able vessels of Admiral Dahlgren's squadron,
returned from a cruise in the South Atlantic.
Shortly before her arrival at Portsmouth, her pay
master was robbed, and a liberal reward offered
for the detection of the thieves. The master-at-
arms, stimulated by this offer, proceeded lo play,
at once, the part of a detective, and of a tyrant,
but without the knowledge — so far as it appear
ed — of any of his superior officers. He actually
"triced up" three of the crew by the wrists, in
direct violation of law, with the view to "induce
them to confess the theft.
It was, of course, expected that Captain
Glitz, who then commanded the Pawnee, would
be brought to trial, not for causing these punish
ments to be inflicted, (for he probably had no
personal knowledge that they had been inflicted,)
but for not using such dilligence as would have
prevented them. But this was not done ; neither
were any of his officers, with one exception, held
amenable to discipline in not preventing these
illegal inflictions.

LIFE AFL OA T AND ASHORE. 23 1
The executive officer, however, (Mr, Seely,)
for no other reason than that he was the execu
tive officer, was brought to trial, and convicted
of neglect of duty in not preventing these ille
gal punishments. The men aggrieved having applied to me, I
advised that they ask for an investigation. But
that investigation failed to fasten any knowledge
of, or participation in, these irregularities, upon
any officer, or petty officer, except the master-at-
arms. Being convinced that Commander Seely
was wholly innocent, and the men who had ap
plied to me for counsel, being also •convinced of
his innocence, I assisted him professionally in
his defence. For the neglect already mentioned, and not
upon any other flnding, the Naval General Court-
Martial suspended the accused from duty for
one year. If the accused was really responsible in the
premises, this sentence was not unreasoi;iable.
But other cases of illegal, punishment in other
vessels were then fresh in the public mind, and it
was urged that an example should be made. The
Court was reconvened, and rebuked for not hav
ing imposed a severer sentence.
Under these circumstances, and under the
influence of Mr. Bolles, who was sent to as-

232 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
sist the Court in revising its sentence, the ac
cused was sentenced to suspension from rank
and duty for four years. A part of this sentence
was afterwards remitted by Secretary Robeson ;
but in the meantime, several officers junior to
Commander Seely passed over him in the Navy
Register. As this case has led to the passage of an
act of Congress, and also to the promulgation of
a departmental order, designed to prevent some
of the points made in my brief in this case from
arising again, I deem it of sufficient interest to
those who may peruse this book, to append this
brief hereto. I will only add that, in my judg
ment. Commander Seely has suffered great in
justice in this case ; — that he is a very kind-
hearted and highly meritorious officer, who would
scorn to inflict any cruelty whatever upon men
under his command ; and that either the De
partment or Congress ought to grant his request.
Here is an apt illustration of the injustice
incident to sentences to suspension from rank
for a particular time. Had Mr. Seely stood fif
teen numbers lower on the Register, his rank
would not have been affected by this sentence.
If an officer's rank is to be affected at all, the
sentence should specify how many numbers he
is to lose. Nothing should be left to chance.

LIF.E AFLOA T AND ASHORE. 233
Fointe aii<l .A^uthorities in. support of the re
quest of Commander Henry B. Seely to be
restored, to his original position on the IN"avy
.Register. 1. It is submitted that the proceedings of the Naval
General Court-Martial, upon whose sentence Commander
Seely was suspended from his rank, were null and void,
because that court consisted of seven members only,
when thirteen might have been assembled without injury
to the service. Mr. Solicitor Bolles admits that where a
sentence is void, it must be set aside, although it may
have been approved by the President ; and such is un
questionably the law. Even where the sentence is not
void, if it is clearly shown to be contrary to the justice
of the case, it should be set aside by Congress, though
previously approved by the President. See the cases of
Surgeon-General Hammond and Major-General Fitz-John
Porter. 2. Attorney-General Wirt, giving an opinion touch
ing a similar court, said, it "was not a legal court if thir
teen could have been convened without manifest injury to
the service." 1 Opinions of Attorney-General, 299. On
page 300 ofthe same volume, he adds, "It is difficult
to conceive an emergency in time of peace so pressing as
to disable the General Officer ordering the Court from
convening thirteen commissioned officers on a trial of
life and death, without manifest injury to the service.
And if a smaller number act without such emergency,
I repeat, that they are not a lawful court."
3. It is a fact of public history, well known to the
Department and to the Court, that the United States were
at peace with all the world in 1869, and had more com
missioned officers in the Navy than the exigencies of the
service then required. At no time in our national his
tory, could thirteen commissioned officers have been con-

234 LEA VES FROM A LA WYERS
vened upon a General Court-Martial, with less inconve
nience to themselves or less detriment to the service.
Several such officers, not members of the court, nor
witnesses on either side, were actually present as
spectators during the proceedings in open court.
4, With the knowledge that there was then no emer
gency to prevent the assembling of thirteen officers, the
Secretary of the Navy could not, — and therefore he did
not, — certify to the court, in his order convening it, or in
any subsequent communication thereto, that a greater
number could not be convened without injury to the
service. 5. "When a General Court-Martial is originally con-
.stituted with less than thirteen members, an omission to
add in the order convening it, a statement to the efffect
that no officers other than those named can be assembled
without manifest injury to the service, is latal to the
validity of the proceedings." Opinions of the Judge
Advocate General, XL. 208. Winthrop's Digest, 22, 267.
6. In conformity with this view, section 142 of the
"Orders, Regulations and Instructions for the Adminis
tration of La-vv and Justice in the U. S. Navy," issued in
1870, ( the year succeeding this trial, ) provides that such
a statement shall always be added to the order convening
a General Court-Martial, and says, "it is to be' regarded
as an essential part of such order as showing that the re
quirements oS, the statute relating to both number and
rank have been complied with as far as the interests of
the service would allow."
7. Judge-Advocate General Holt holds, with Attor
ney General Wirt, that this is "au essential part of the
order." In the case of William Campbell, Acting Second
Assistant Engineer, U. S. S. "Dai Ching," S. A. B.
Squadron, in 1864, the sentence of a Naval General Court-
Martial was declared by Secretary Welles to be "null
and without any effect," because "the court was composed

LIFE A FL OA, T AND A SHORE. 2 3 5
of flve acting members aud one supernumerary member."
Although the Admiral who convened the court had cer
tified that a greater number of officers could not be
convened without injury to the service. Secretary Welles
held that the presence of a supernumerary member
showed that at least one more could have been convened,
and said, "a supernumerary member can be ordered only
when the court is composed of thirteen acting members.',
8. The opinions cited b.y Solicitor Bolles merely re
peat what the Supreme Court decided in Martin v. Mott,
12 Wheaton, 16. The order cnnvening the Court in that
case contained the statement that a greater number of
officers could not be convened without injury to the
service, and also stated the reason why no greater num
ber could be so convened. It was rightly held that the
decision of the convening officer touching the sufficiency
of that reason, was final. Of this there can be no doubt.
But in Commander Seely's case the Secretary did not so
certify, and could not so certify, in the face of public
facts. 9. With respect to all courts of special jurisdiction,
the rule is, that every fact necessary to give jurisdiction
must appear upon the face of the record — and the omis
sion of the statement above mentioned in the order con
vening the court, renders all its proceedings void as
coram non judice ; the fact being that a full number of
officers, or a number greater than seven, might have been
convened without injury to the service. As to this rule
see Kemp vs. Kennedy, 5 Cranch, 172. State vs. Eichmond,
26 N. H., 232; Damp vs. Dane, 29 Wisconsin, 419; State
vs. Berry, 12 Iowa, 58 and cases there cited ; Kansas City,
Missouri and Council Bluffs R. E. Co. vs. CampbeU Nel
son & Co., 26 Mo. 584 and 288. The court iu this last case
says, — "This is a jurisdictional fact, and without it is
apparent on the record, the court whose aid is sought,

236 LEA VES FROM A LA WYER'S
whether possessing special or general jurisdiction, is
powerless to take any valid step in the premises."
See decisions ofthe highest courts of ditferent States
collected in United States Digest, First Series, vol. 4,
title. Courts, sec. 352, p. 69.
10. "Objections to the jurisdiction may be taken at
any time before or even after judgment. Elder vs.
Dwight Manuf 'g Co., 4 Gray, (Mass.) 204; Carey vs.
Daniels, 5 Metcalf, (Mass.) 236; Jordan vs. Dennis, 7
Metcalf, (Mass.) 590.
11. Many palpable irregularities marked the pro
ceedings of this court, and appear on many pages of the
record. On page 165, (for example,) where tlie "new
sentence" is recorded, it does net appear whether the
"new sentence" was imposed in lieu of the former sen
tence or in addition thereto. If it was imposed as an
additional sentence, it was void, since the court could
impose but one sentence. There beiug two sentences of
record, and it not appearing affirmatively that the
latter was imposed as a substitute lor the former, both
are void. 12. It is not the Executive officer, but the Command
ing officer of a ship, who is responsible for the discip
line of the ship. The Executive officer is merely his aide.
Section 1469 of the Eevised Statutes, ( Title xv, Chapter
4,) is a declaratory enactment, which merely formalates
the law as it existed before. There being no evidence
that the accused had any knowledge of, or participation
in, the illegal punishment, he should have been acquitted,
13. It appears from the order of the Secretary re
convening the Court, and from the report of Solicitor
Bolles on this case, that both those officers failed to dis-
ting'uish between cruel punishment ^Hnjlicted" by order
of the accused, (of which there is no proof whatever in
the record, ) and cruel punishment not prevented by him,

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 237
and not even known to him. The case was merely this :
cruel punishment having b^en infiicted, the Executive
Officer — not the Captain — was held guilty in not discov
ering and preventing it.
14. The failure of the Secretary thus to distinguish
between acts ordered, and acts done which by greater
vigilance the accused might have prevented, was the
cause of the reconvening of the Court.
15. It was upon the reconvening of the Court that
the absence of the full number of Line Officers was most
prejudicial to the accused. The question, what punish
ment should be imposed upon the Executive Officer of a
ship, (the Commanding Officer not being brought ,to trial
at all, though ohargealile with the same omission as the
accused,) for not using more vigilance to anticipate, dis-
cov er aud prevent a violation of law, was pre-eminently
a question for Sea Officers, for those who had seen tho
parties and had heard all their evidence, and who were
experienced iu such duties. The flrst sentence shows
what seven Line Officers, all of whom had repeatedly
held commands, regarded as a proper punishment when
the facts were fresh in their minds.
16. But when the Court reassembled, when the Secre
tary's letter ignoringthe important distinction above re
ferred to, was read to them, and when a civilian officer, who
likewise ignored that necessary distinction, was introduc
ed to " assi,<t the Court in its deliberations," it was no
difficult matter (in perhaps a divided Court) to sway four
officers out of seven by suggestions and influences
which would have been ineffectual to carry seven out of
thirteen. 17. This requirement of the law touching the num
ber of members is a most judicious one. Officers re
quire help from deliberation with their associates, and
especially when the accused is sought to be punished as if

238 LEAVES FROM A LAWYER'S
he had done actively and wilfully, what the evidence
shows he only did not prevent, having no reason to appre
hend its occurrence.
18. P.ir what purpose was Mr. Bolles superimposed
upon the Court but to influence its action and procure a
sentence adequate to offences which he regarded (as he
says in his report) as "heinous, monstrous, horrible," but
which the record shows to have been merely a neglect to
exercise extraordinary vigilance? He was not, as he
says, "the Judge Advocate at the trial." There was a
Judge Advocate, and an Associate Judge Advocate, (an
officer unknown to the Law,) at the trial, and they were
both present when the Court reassembled. By what au
thority was Mr. Bolles introduced as a Special Judge
Advocate?" There is no authority for imposing such an
officer upon the Court.
19. Mr. Bolles' order- shows that he was sent to the
Court to " assist in its deliberations." There can be no
doubt tliat he obeyed that order. What suggpstions he
made the record does not show. But it would be unjust
to him to assume that he sat in Court in silence, wlien
his orders were to "assist." But any influence exerted
in a closed Court wa.s irregular. He ought not to have
been present at all.
20. "As he has uo vote, he [the Judge Advocate] is
not entitled to meddle with the sentence." O'Brien, 283.
"When the Court is passing sentence, there can be no
doubt, the Judge Advocate ought not to interpose his
opinion. On this point all writers are agreed."
O'Brien, 284.
21. Mr. Bolles says, "When the Court met to consider
its sentence, it had no open session at which the accused
was or rightfully could be present :"— thence he infers
that he was properly added to the Court, and sworn in
the absence of the accused. But it is submitted that the
fact, that the Court had "no open session at which the

LIFE AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 239
.accused could be present," is a sufficient reason (were
there no otlier) vvliy no one could be present excejit the
members ot the Court, and tlie Judge Advocate, who had
been sworn as such at the trial iu presence of the
accused. 22. No new memlier can be added to a closed Court,
nor can its members permit any one to be present when
voting upon the sentence, (except themselves and the
Judge Advocate,) without violating their oath not to
disclose the sentence or the vote or opinion of any
member. 23. It is submitted, finally, that the presence of Mr.
Bolles, with such orders, in a closed Naval General Court-
Martial, was unprecedented, irregular, improper and un
lawful ; that a sentence obtained under such circum
stances is null and void, and should be set aside, ju.st as a
verdict would be set aside because of the presence witli
the jury of any third person, even though he were the
presiding Judge of the Court to which that verdict must
be rt turned.

INDEX.
" America," yacht, blockade-runner, captured, 84.
Appleton's Cyclopaedia, 29, 67, 70.
"Atlanta," Confederate Eam, captured, 77.
Aranda, Count of ; secret letter from him, 198.
Ayala, Judge-Advocate under Parma, 197.
Bancroft's History of the United States, 219-223.
Battle of Port Royal, 42-47.
Battle of Port Eoyal Ferry, 49.
Battle of Secessionville, 68-65.
Battle of Pocotaligo, 68.
Battle of Coosawhatchie, 68.
Battle between Confederate Rams and Federal Gun
boats, off Charleston, 68-75,
Battle between the Iron-Clads and the Ports of
Charleston, 80-83,
Battle of Honey Hill, 136,
Battle of Deveaux's Neck, 138.
Beauregard, General, 64, 74, 78, 85, 86, 91, 122, 159,
"Beauregard," privateer, captured, 32.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 189; his hon mot, 173; his
oration in Port Sumter, 183-186.
Belknap, Captain, 123 ; his memorandum, 162.

242 INDEX.
Benham, General, 51, 64 ,74.
Blockade-running, 110-13, 126.
Blockading Squadrons, 15-18.
Bombardment of the Batteries on the Stono, 135.
Boynton's History of the Navy, 32, 45, 70, 74, 81, 82
110, 150, 172, 173.
Brief for Commander Seely, 233-239,
Charles Port, its ter-centennary, 56.
Charles the Fifth's Judge-Advocate, 197.
Charleston, occupied, 169.
Charleston Prizes, 24-33, 84, 170. .
"Columbine, " captured, 122.
Courts-Martial and Civil Courts compared, 209-216.
Dahlgren, Admiral ; takes command, 85 ; his descent
on Morris Island, 89; his offer to Taliaferro, 1025
bombards Wagner, 92 ; assaults Sumter, 108 ; his
attachment to Sherman, 143 ; enters Savannah,
146 : enters Charleston, 167 ; his prizes, 170 ; his
character, 102, 207.
Dahlgren's Council of War, 123,
"Dai Ching," destroyed, 157. •
.'iB^fid," torpedo boat, sinks the Housatonic, 121,
'Deer," last of the Charleston blockade-runners, 1 71.
"Dixie," privateer, 29 ; captured, 84,
Drayton, General, 46 ; Drayton, Admiral, 44, 80.
Dupont, Admiral, 17, 32, 49, 50, 64, 77, 85; his victory
at Port Royal, 42 — 46; his battle with the forts
at Charleston, 80 — 83; his prizes, 84.
Evans, General, his victory, 69. '
Farragut, Admiral, 17, 18, 77; his bon mot, 157.

INDEX. 243
Fleet Brigade, 138.
Fort Johnson, attacked, 132-134.
Fort Moultrie, attacked. 80-83.
Fort Sumter, attacked, 80-83, 107-110, 161,
Fort Wagner, stormed, 90-102 ; evacuated, 1®6.
Foster, John G., General, 123, 136, 159, 161,
"General Hunter," destroyed by a torpedo, 121.
Georgetown, captured, 168,
Gillmore, General, 86, 92, 102, 108, 127, 128, 129 ; his
demand for the surrender of Charleston, 103.
Greeley's " American Conflict," 25, 27, 32, 45, 50, 53,
64, 63, 68, 74, 90, 9l, 92, 99, 100, 102, 108, 110,
413, 116, 160, 162, 218.
Hardee, General, evacuates Savannah, 144; evacuates
Charleston, 172.
Harper's " History," 32, 45, 50, 52, 63, 54, 63, 64,100.
"Harvest Moon," flag-ship, sunk by a, torpedo, 179.
Havanna, 194.
Heroic Endurance of Charleston, 119.
"Housatonic" sunk by a torpedo, 121.
Hunter, General, 47, 60, 51, 62, 85.
Ingraham, Admiral, attempts to raise the blockade at
Charleston, 68—77.
"Ironsides," 80, 82 ; attacked by the David, 114.
"Iroquois" in chase of the R, E, Lee, 19,
"Jefferson Davis," privateer, lost, 28,
Jones, General, puts prisoners under fire, 131.
Kearney, General, killed at Chantilly, 66.
".Lady Davis," Confederate steamer, captured, 170.
Law of Privilege, 227-230,

244 INDEX.
Lee, Robert E., General, 48, 63,
Lincoln, President, 10, 28, 46 ; his asassination, 191.
Lossing's History of the Rebellion, 33, 44, 49, 60, 53,
63, 68, 74, 83, 92, 100, 102, 108, 110, 116, 160.
Macaulay, Lord, 14, 44, 173, 202, 206.
"Maple Leaf," destroyed by a Torpedo, 121.
Mason and Slidell's Mission, 35.
Morris Island Stockade, 131
Morris Island, evacuated, 106.
Napoleon, eludes Nelson, 40, 41, 60, 67, 98, 99, 100,
124, 139, 149.
Napoleon the Third, 70.
'CN^ashville," not a privateer, but a Confederate Naval
Steamer, 33 ; destroyed by the Montauk, 34.
Nelson, Lord, in chase of Napoleon, 40—43.
New York Times, 78, 193.
« Herald, 137, 142, 193.
« " Tribune, 193.
" " World, 193.
Paris, Count of; his History of the Civil War, 14, 35,
45, 50, 63, 54, 63, 68. 100; on the Navy, 16,
Palmetto State Politics, 217.
"Patapsco," 80, 92, 106 ; sunk by a torpedo, 157.
Pemberton, General, 63, 64, 65,
"Petrel," privateer, captured, 30,
Pollard's History of the Lost Cause, 46, 64, 86, 92, 173.
Porter, Admiral, 13, 17, 77, 179.
Preston, Flag-Lieutenant, with Lieutenant Porter,
captured at Sumter, 113 ; killed at Fisher, 166.
Putnam's Rebellion Record, 68, 76, 78, 181, 32, 60,
61, 64, 68, 101, 141.

INDEX. 245
Ribault's Settlement at Port Royal, 55-58.
Ripley, General R, S., 78, 79, 83, 91,
Romance and Reality of War, 87, 100.
"Savannah," privateer, captured, 25.
Schimmelfennig, General; his battle, 170; his letter,
180 ; his death, 182.
Sea Islands, captured and occupied, 48.
Sherman, Thomas W,, General ; his army, 47-49,
Sherman, William Tecumseh, General, joins Dahl
gren, 142-146 ; at Savannah, 146-150 ; his march
through the Carolinas, 168-160.
Small, Robert, runs away with the Planter, 63-65.
Steam Navies, 11, 43.
Stephens, Commodore, 106.
Stevens, General, 49, 59, 61-67 ; his death, 66.
Strong, General, George C. 85 ; killed at Wagner, 94.
Sumter, Federal Flag restored over, 182.
Tatnall, Commodore, 145.
Torpedo defences of Charleston, 128.
Trip to the Tropics, 192-202.
Tucker, Commodore, 72, 80, 151, 172.
Unwritten Chapter in Colonial Life, 219,
"Water Witch," captured, 122,
"Weehawken," sunk off Charleston, 116,
Welles, Secretary, 14, 45, 46, 82, 110, 141, 143,
Wellington, Duke, 44, 122,
Wilson, Senator, at the grave of Hayne, 190,

CHARLESTON WAR NEWSPAPERS FOR SALE.

FILES of the Charleston Coukiee, and also of the
Charleston MERCUKy, during the Civil War, —
nearly perfect, — weM placed by their owners in tbe
Author's hands for rererence in preparing these leaves
for the press, and aiq now for sale. The best brains of
the South enriched these journals; the best hearts of
the South throbbed inijiem. Such files are very rare.
For historical societ^^\and authors they are of inesti
mable value. Address
CHARLES COWLEY.
12, Middle Steeet, Lowell, Mass.

WORKS OF THE AUTHOK.

Upon receipt of the price set against either
of the works named below, by the Penhallow
Printing Company, by mail or otherwise, at
12 Middle Street, Lowell, Mass., a copy will
be forwarded by mail, free of postage, to any
address in the United States,
Leaves from a Lawyer's Life Afloat
AND Ashore. Cloth binding, ^1,25 ; paper
binding, ^i.oo. 1879.
Reminiscences of James C. Ayer, and
THE Town of Ayer. In paper, ^i.oo, 1879,
History of Lowell. In cloth, ^1.25.
1868. Not many copies remain unsold.
Historical Sketch of the County of
Middlesex. Printed in the Middlesex Cotmty
Manual. Price ofthe "Manual," in cloth, ^i.oo,
in paper, fifty cents. 1878.
Cowley's Dahlgren's Maritime Inter
national Law, 1877, Very scarce.

Our Divorce Courts : Their Origin and
History : Why They are Needed : How They
are Abused : And How They may be Reformed.
Paper' covers. Twenty-five cents. 1879.
Famous Divorces of All Ages. Cloth
binding, $1.25 ; paper binding, ^1,00. 1878.
It is said in the preface to Peter Burke's "Cele
brated Trials connected with the Aristocracy," that a
knowledge of them "forms, in some measure, a
necessary adjunct to the history of the country."
And the same is true of Judge Cowley's singular
series of narratives, of which it may be truly said,
in the words of another and far greater Burke, that
they "exhibit man as he is in action and principle,
and not as he is usually drawn by poets and specu
lative philosophers."
Browne's Divorce and Its Consequences.
Paper covers. Twenty-five cents. 1877.
''No case has ever occured, which illustrates
so strikingly some of the abuses and defects of our
present Divorce Code, as that which Judge Cowley
has so graphically recorded in this book."
Indian and Pioneer Memories of the
Region of Lowell. Paper covers. Fifty cents.
1862. But few copies unsold.
PENHALLOW PRINTING CO.
12 Middle Street, Lowell, Mass.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 02429 0257

.M'„i Kk.jtmisiui

^^ati

oMHUga

aw

9pi^^

Vs..

i-^V^'

i^Vff'fff

a£f'>: -^

*¦ ^i

'*4r

.>*

* /

Vft¥

il*"

rfjk-. .f