A Jaunt up the James VII- "North and South"

NORTH AND SOUTH.; Barbarism of the Union and Rebel Armies Compared. LETTER TO JOHNESTEN COOKE, IN REPLY TO HIS LETTER TO EDWARD EVERETT.

SIR: In a recent number of the Richmond Examiner, I find a letter over the signature of "A Virginian," addressed to Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, of Massachusetts. I think I cannot be mistaken in believing that you are the author of that letter. Before the war I knew the style and manner of every Virginian writer of note or promise; and no small part of their writings which they wished the world to see, or from which they hoped to gain either fame or money came before me while in manuscript. From no one of these have I read more, and with more pleasure, than from JOHN ESTEN COOKE. NO one seemed to me to possess so delicate a fancy or to be master of so graceful a style. There were always paragraphs in his communications which THACKERAY might have written. I find these characteristics in this letter to Mr. EVERETT. I do not think the last three years likely to have developed them in any other Virginian; and so I conclude that the "Virginian" who wrote the letter is yourself. That letter was copied into the NEW-YORK TIMES, and I avail myself of that medium far a reply.

Of Lower Brandon I know nothing, except from your letter. I presume that in quaint loveliness and genial hospitality it was all that you claim for it; that it furnished the original for those charming sketches of life and manners in the Old Dominion, which you never tired of writing or we of reading. I have no doubt that when Mr. EVERETT visited Virginia he was received at Lower Brandon with a cordiality not less than that which welcomed you when you visited New-York; that in his case, as well as in yours, host and guest felt that in offering and accepting hospitality, they were both receiving as well as giving honor. I think that you look back with sad memories upon those days of personal friendship, as well as upon those which followed, when pleasure and profit alike led you to send the choicest productions, of your thought and fancy to those Northern journals, at which you now fling a gratuitous sneer, hardly in keeping with your amiable nature.

I presume also that Lower Brandon has been laid waste during the war. It is not the first or only case of the kind. If I had been asked four years ago to name the two Virginians who were most likely to achieve something more than a provincial literary reputation, I think I should have named. JOHN ESTEN COOKE and DAVID H. STROTHER. STROTHER retained his loyalty to the Union; you did quite otherwise. Well, two and a half years ago, he was the possessor of a beautiful cottage at Berkely Springs, a place not unknown to you, while his father, JOHN STROTHER, was the proprietor of the hotel at the Springs. "Porte Crayon's" cottage was adorned with paintings, the work of his own cunning hand, the outgrowth of his fancy and observation. Early in January, 1862, a body of Confederate troops made a sudden dash upon the Springs. There was, I think, no resistance. Unmindful of how "the great Ernathian conqueror bade spare the house of PINDARUS," these troops cut in pieces the paintings of "Porte Crayon," and-burned his cottage. They took possession of the hotel in which the elder STROTHER lay upon a sick bed. They used his furniture for firewood, although the town was surrounded by forests, and finally went off, after plundering the place. The old man, noted for a generation for his noble character, died a week after in his wasted and outraged home. I shall not imitate your example by picking up from the filthy gutter of the Southern press vile epithets to designate the commander of the Confederate forces. They were led by THOMAS J. JACKSON, for whom you claim the character of a Christian hero. With him, as volunteer aid, came CHARLES J. FAULKNER, who had a few months before been United States Minister to France. Which do you think was the greater outrage, the breaking of the window-panes at Lower Brandon, or the mutilating the pictures at "Porte Crayon's" cottage?

And so Lower Brandon is now as desolate as "the Calypsos Isle of Blennerhassett." That, Sir, was an unfortunate allusion of yours. Was the proprietor of Lower Brandon the Blennerhassett of the modern Aaron Burr? Did he in his weakness and ambition suppose that the overthrow of a great nation was only another "Virginian Comedy;" that the Union might be set aside as easily as you fling down the scenes when the play is over? Treason may be a very gentle-manly crime, but those who undertake it should remember that it is a dangerous one. It is not well for any man to undertake to play treason.

You assure Mr. EVERETT that now "for the first time in the history of the world, have we seen a people pretending to be civilized, organizing expeditions for the pure and simple purpose of plunder and destruction, and instead of seek-ing to mitigate the miseries of a state of war, do-ing all they can to aggravate them." You of course mean it to be understood that this has been done by the Union and not by the Confederacy. It is quite possible that the Southern papers have not kept you well-informed as to the wanton destruction of property in the Confederate raids into West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri; nor of the murders and massacres of Union men in Tennessee. You probably had not seen Capt. SEMMES' account of the cruise of the Alalama, in which he tells how with a swift vessel fraudulently procured in England, manned with a crew of Englishmen raked up in the slums of Liverpool, and shipped under false pretences, he set forth on his cruise of pure destruction. You had not read how on the broad and peaceful ocean, by means of false colors, he lured within his grasp every American ship that came in sight; how he put the crews in irons and burnt every vessel, from the humble fishing-smack, or the poor whaler returning from a perilous three years' voyage, to the stately India merchantman. You had not read the fiendish exultation with which he speaks of strewing the ocean with Yankee merchandise, and lighting up the midnight sky with the blaze of burning vessels. You had not read this. I read it the very day on which I read your letter. You had not read SEMMES' own account, but you knew that in a few months he had in sheer wantonness destroyed more than sixty vessels.; that there were more than a score, of which any one was of tenfold the value of Lower Brandon. And yet you talk of the wanton destruction of property:

But even if you knew nothing of all this, a few steps out of your usual path would have taken you to the Libby Prison and the other slaughter-pens at Richmond. There you might have seen strong men in the flush and strength of manhood starved to skeletons in a month. Is this your idea of "mitigating the miseries of a state of war?" But if your fine, poetic sensibilities prevented you from looking upon such misery which you had no power to alleviate you certainly read for your papers were full of it, of the wanton burning of Chambersburgh. Did it never occur to you that each of the honored homes there laid in ashes was dear to its inmates as were the lawn and halls of Lower Brandon to their dwellers?

But the courtly family of Lower Brandon, when they abandoned the estate, left the happy negroes behind them, although "they might easily enough have removed men, women and children from tide-water, and transported them into Middle Georgia for security, or sold them at immense prices, and invested the proceeds in cotton bonds." Did it not occur to you that in writing that sentence you were overthrowing the theory of the idyllic happiness of the negroes at Lower Brandon. Do you imagine that any man or woman, black or white, can be perfectly happy, knowing that at any moment he or she is liable to be "sold at immense prices, and the proceeds invested in cotton bonds?" Knowing also that the same fate will be the heritage of their children and children's children? If these black men had been white, you would have seen in the alacrity with which some of them abandoned their "comfortable cabins, pot a feu, and garden patch," something more than a childish longing for "sojer's clothes and military grandeur." Had the dainty possessors of Lower Brandon in successive generations done so little for their slaves, that you could not conceive the possibility that some of these dusky beings might really think it worth periling their lives in the effort to do away with a system by which they and theirs might at any moment be sold, "and the proceeds invested in cotton bonds?"

You speak of some special cases of outrage and violence. Let me ask you, Sir, upon what evidence? You are estopped from bringing in the testimony of the negroes, for by your own laws not one or all of them could bear legal testimony against a white man. Have you any witness to produce whose testimony would be admitted by yourself or your courts?

But be the evils and sufferings of the war what they may, they are all of your own making, yours and such men as the owners of Lower Brandon. You sought by force and violence to destroy the Government, which alone rendered it possible that such a paradise as Lower Brandon could exist, from generation to generation. The United States never sought the war. Who attacked Harper's Ferry? Who plundered the public property at Norfolk? Who assailed Fort Sumter? Who threatened the National Capital? Who did all these and a hundred other like acts before the Union struck a blow? You of Virginia, owners of Lower Brandon and the like, did it. You did it because you thought that by so doing you would perpetuate a system by which you might forever retain the power of sending your slaves to Middle Georgia, or selling them at immense prices to the cotton-planters of the Gulf and the sugar-growers of the Mississippi. And now if you find that you have flung yourselves between the upper and nether stones of that slowly grinding mill of the gods which yet grinds so very fine, you have only yourselves to thank for it.

Commending this bit of ethics to your serious meditation, I have the honor to be, Sir, yours most respectfully, AN AMERICAN.

-New York Times, August 22, 1864

A Jaunt up the James V- Lower Brandon and Edward Everett

150 years ago this week the after effects of the raid on Lower Brandon enter the New York Times by way of this rather long missive. . .

   

THE REBEL PAPERS.; LETTER TO EDWARD EVERETT. Effects of the Bombardment of Petersburgh. What They Think of the Burning of Chambersburgh. THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS. MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. A Letter to Edward Everett. CHAMBERSBURGH.

From the Richmond Examiner.

To the Hon. Edward Everett, Massachusetts:

SIR: In one of those peregrinations made by you, several years ago, in the Southern States of what was then the American Union, in which you were pleased to instruct the Virginians and others on the subject of the character of GEORGE WASHINGTON, whereof theretofore they had been deplorably ignorant, you visited, if I mistake not, the ancient seat of "Lower Brandon," on the James River, and partook for a season of that elegant hospitality which formerly held sway in its delightful halls and gardens. You may, perhaps, have forgotten your brief sojourn there, and care little to recall it. What you have since written and spoken of the Southern people induces the belief that if you retain any remembrance of the peaceful homesteads in which you were once received as a welcome and honored guest, and of the kind proprietors who greeted you with so much warmth upon the threshold, it is associated only with the wish that these homesteads may be laid waste and these proprietors reduced to beggary.

You will, therefore, be gratified to learn, beyond a doubt, that "Lower Brandon" is a ruin; and, as the journals of civilization, as well in your enlightened and humane City of Boston, as elsewhere throughout the great, glorious and free United States, are not full and circumstantial with regard to the devastations of the Federal troops, you will probably be thankful for some account, from a Virginian, of this latest acheivement of your arms. It is enough for the Northern newspapers to state, in brief, that such a mansion has been pillaged and consumed, so many acres impoverished and reclaimed to the military possession of the Federal Government. Nor do the official reports of your plundering commanders go beyond a general statement of desolation. The Federal General makes it a solitude and calls it a restoration of the Federal authority. He does not descend to the vulgar incidents of spoliation and ravage, nor narrate how he has endeavored to convert his acquired territory into a wilderness.

You may recollect, Sir, the fair lawns across which lay the walk from the river to Brandon mansion. Nowhere, I think, on this continent did the turf wear a richer green, nowhere did the roses display more grace and profusion. The darksome converts which the mocking-bird made musical; the tall elms which looked down upon the quaint old edifice and caught upon their quivering leaves the too fierce heats of the Virginia sun; the trellises of honey-suckles, murmurous with insect life; the ample width of greensward, with here and there a vase overrun with myrtle; all these surroundings gave an indescribable charm to the place, and harmonized with the repose and refinement that dwelt under the rooftree. The visitor saw all around him the evidences of taste and culture, the growth of a century or more of uninterrupted occupancy by the same family.

These lawns, you will be pleased to know, have been despoiled; not the Calypso's Isle of Blennerhassett, in the beautiful river of the West, whose mournful defacement our own WIRT described with so much pathos -- not the festive Villa Borghese, just outside the walls of Rome, when cruel war and Republican rage has shattered its foundation and prostrated its foundations, could have presented a picture of destruction more complete and -- satisfactory. If the owners of "Lower Brandon" were rebels, and upheld the ancient firm of Virginia in the hour of her agony and trial, they have been well repaid in this waste of the grounds they so loved to adorn. The traitorous turf has been cloven and cut up by the hoofs of the Federal cavalry; the rebellious roses may, perhaps, burst forth in their beauty again with the smiling Spring, but it will be only to mock the fallen state of the whole establishment; and every disloyal Dryad that frequented the copses around has been scared away into her native woods.

The Brandon House, as you may or may not remember, was a very crazy, rambling, old-fashioned, age-colored building, that would have been thought shabby in New-York or Massachusetts. Quite unlike the marine villas that sparkle on the heights of Staten Island, altogether different from the superb structures that line the banks on the Hudson and crown the hills around Boston. Not an Italian corridor, not a mullioned window about it. Bricks, small and glazed, brought out in GEORGE the Second's time from England. Rooms rather large and wainscoted, windows low and narrow, fire-places huge, staircases also objectionable as regards economy of space. What furniture these deserted rooms still contained, most of it mellowed by time, was taken out by the Federal cavalry and burned upon the lawn, as was proper. You will likewise approve the tearing down of wainscots, the breaking up the paneling of the doors, and the demolition of the stone pavements of the porticoes. Of the windowpanes, a word.

It had been the habit of the Brandon people to preserve on these fragile tablets the autographs of their visitors for many, many years past. When a party came, in the season of strawberries or in the midst of the Christmas cheer, and made pleasant holiday at Brandon, they were asked to scratch their signatures with a diamond on the panes before their departure. The names of many eminent gentlemen of England, France and the United States, were thus recorded. Your own most illustrious name was there, with the names of MILLARD FILLMORE and MARTIN VAN BUREN. The pretty custom was always honored, and looking over the inscriptions, from the more recent to those of a generation gone by, the past with its dear associations and rosy faces, long missed, but unforgotten, came back upon one in a strange, sudden sort of way, that made the eyes moist and the lips tremulous. Somebody once wrote some verses about these panes, in which the diamonds, and the bright eyes, and the far away festivities of other Christmas seasons were mixed up and made metrical in a truly memorable manner. Well, the window-panes were all smashed. Why, bless you, it was great fun for the hulking cavalrymen to knock them out with the point of their sabres! Que voulez vous!

Among the dwellers in Brandon, at the time of your visit, were a dozen or more graceful ladies and gentlemen in the gay flowing costumes, the ruffles and point lace of that stately period of which Sir ANTHONY VAN DYCK and Sir GODFREY KNELLER have transmitted to it so many charming representatives. There was the Earl of Orrey and Halifax, and Col., the Hon. WM. BYRD, of Westover, Esq.., and the Colonel's fair daughter, Mistress EVELYN, and other historical personages. They had been members of the Brandon household from the beginning, and lived on the walls of drawing-room and dining-room, giving very little trouble to anybody, and passing their time in the hours of daylight in looking placidly down on the good cheer and social enjoyment which belonged to these apartments. There was a tradition that, sometimes in the silent watches of the night, during Christmas time especially, they came down from their frames and held wassail at the board, or danced a minuet de la cour in the ruddy glow of the blazing yule.

Your satisfaction in hearing the details of the Brandon raid may possibly be lessened by the fact that the ladies and gentlemen were not made prisoners by the United States army, having accompanied the living members of the family to Richmond, when they were constrained by a well-founded distrust of Yankee chivalry, to leave their beautiful home and carry their cherished Lares and Penates with them. Ceta incommode. But there is a compensation in the thought that the negroes belonging to this estate, to the number of one hundred or more, were taken off, despite the earnest entreaties and protestations of many of them, and made to accept their freedom at the end of the cowhide and the point of the bayonet, Cela Console

Ah, the negroes! There are some facts connected with those remaining at Brandon since the commencement of the war, and their abduction therefrom, to which I beg to call your attention. The first is, that the owners of them, any time these three years, might easily enough have removed men, women and children from tide water, and transported them to Middle Georgia for security, or sold them at immense prices and invested the proceeds in cotton bonds. The owners did not do this. Not that they were blind to the danger that threatened the estate, not that they were too humane to resort to such measures. Oh, no! They knew nothing of humanity, of course. Humanity has her home in Boston. The promptings of pity, the teachings of tenderness for white or black sorrow, sickness or adversity, all the emotions that belong to what STERNE calls the "sweet sensibility of man's nature," stir not the hearts of slaveholders.

Let us suppose that the Brandon proprietors permitted the negroes to remain on the estate through the stolid inattention to their own interest which characterizes the Virginian -- because they "wern't smart." Be that as it may. Leastways, anyhow, nevertheless, notwithstanding, there the negroes did remain in close, comfortable cabins, each head of his family with his pot au feu and his garden patch to supply the same, and his picaninnies toddling around him, like little patches of shadow in the sunshine, darkly happy, these negroes, dreaming not of disturbance, a picture, as you will say, of degraded domesticity and benighted contentment. One member of the Brandon family -- of the "white folk" I mean -- had remained with them, not so much for the maintenance of discipline as for the preservation of their health, a kind doctor, doing good, as you think, but not for good's sake at all, but from motives purely mercenary, that the "property" might be kept up to a marketable standard of physique -- this "property," look you, which was all along at the mercy of the enemy, and which the owners would not sell even to save it from robbery.

Thus cared for, the Brandon negroes flourished until the Federal cavalry came down like the wolf on the fold and carried off the wooly innocents in a manner quite in keeping with Yankee philanthropy. Some of the negroes went with alacrity, pleased with the idea of "sojer" clothes and military grandeur; others bade adieu to their cabins with an intensity of grief that might have moved even a Black Republican; others again were mutinous, and could only be urged forward by the lash laid on with true Yankee ferocity (see the managerial conduct of "Lagree," a Vermont overseer, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. H.B. STOWE); and let it be understood that only such were taken, rejoicing or reluctant, as were of sound health and matured strength; the helpless infants, the aged and infirm were left behind.

One poor woman thus deserted, whose children had been torn from her arms, followed the train, howling out a heart-broken appeal that she might be permitted to accompany them. Considering how much maudlin sympathy has been snuffled in Yankee lecture-rooms and printed in Yankee newspapers, for thirty years past, about the cruel separation of black mothers from their children under Slavery, one might suppose that this appeal would have been heeded. It seems not. Her ululation soon became annoying, and this weeping, dusking Rachael was knocked down by a blow on the head from the butt end of a musket, and left senseless bleeding in the road. Thus, while their cabins were left blazing behind them, the freed blacks moved down to the Yankee boats. Poor creatures! did they know what lay before them, they might, indeed, have piteously bemoaned their fate. Many a wretched negro beyond the Potomac now bitterly laments his sad fortune of freedom; day by day the miserable exile, dying of destitution or disease in the crowded cribs of Washington or the squalid purlieus of New-York, gives his latest sigh for "Ole Virginny" --

Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.¹

Such, Sir, was the calamity that overtook "Lower Brandon." It is so far from being an exceptional case, that this country seat was the only one within the enemy's lines that had not been wasted or pillaged at the close of 1863. Exceptional, in this respect, the estate was till BUTLER and Barbarism came together into tide-water Virginia.

Ah, some war-makers of the North will say, telle est la fortune de la querre² -- this is the reward of rebellion, and rebellions are not to be subdued with rose-water. Sad, very sad, we grant, but inevitable. You recollect, they add, what old KASPER told PETERKIN and WILHELMINE in the ballad about the famous victories -- there must be burning cottages and suffering of women and children, and a thousand nameless horrors in the midst of war. Yes, worthy war makers, but for the first time in the history of the world have we seen a people pretending to be civilized, nay, claiming all the civilization of a continent, organizing expeditions for the pure and simple purpose of plunder and destruction, and, instead of seeking to mitigate the miseries of a state of war, doing all they can to aggravate them.

The Brandon business was a wholly gratuitous piece of barbarity. The work of "subjugation" was not assisted by it in the least. The bombardment of Charleston, in like manner, contributes not at all to the weakening of BEAUREGARD, conduces in no degree to the reduction of the place. It is pure diabolism, the gratification of a fell spirit of hatred. Indeed, when we take into account the boasted refinement of the North, and the fiendish malignity with which they have carried fire and sword over Southern fields and into Southern dwellings; when we look at Beast BUTLER, and accept him at the hands of The Atlantic Monthly, as the representative of the culture of Boston, we may well believe that the familiar theory of the Latin poet about ingenious arts was ingenious nonsense, that after all they brutalize manners and convert men into savages.

Oh no, the spoliation of the South is not an unavoidable incident of the war. It is the very object the war has in view. Long ago has the hope of subjugation been abandoned, and this purpose of ruin has become fixed in the breasts of Northern people as the amiable alternative. The children of Massachusetts, Mr. EVERETT, are wiser in their generation than to desolate the fields they expect to divide among themselves, to deface and demolish the dwellings they hope hereafter to occupy. If they believed that the next year or the year after would find them masters of the South, they would take care not to impoverish their future possessions. When GRANT's or BUTLER's lines had fallen in pleasant places, these canny commanders would not have despoiled their goodly heritage. It is the conviction that their tenure is a fleeting one which induces them, in baffled rage, to employ the particular estate in ruining the reversion. The idea is not a new one. It occurred to LOUVOIS when he ordered the devastation of the Palatines. The historian records it as a stain upon the memory of LOUVOIS, as a lasting infamy upon the name of his Minister, that in wanton malice they determined to destroy what they were unable to retain. It was an "atrocious thought," says Lord MACAULAY, but the North now nurses it fondly, and the North has long been, serenely indifferent to the imputation of atrocity.

You will tell me, perhaps, that for one you have not relinquished the hope of subjugation, and, if I am not deceived, you undertook to show, in your discourse at the inauguration of the cemetery at Gettysburgh, that there was nothing in the blood-shed, the life-long hatreds, the wide waste and widowhood, the mutilations that may not be computed, the legacies of revenge for crimes that may not be named, of this Lincoln war, to make reconstruction and a restoration of fraternal feeling impossible. The demonstration must have been grateful to the author of the strife who sat in your hearing. But forebodings of a different kind must have filled your soul three years ago, before the first gun had been sounded, when in Faneuil Hall, (5th Feb., 1861) you invoked the name of Heaven to allow the Southern States to "depart in peace." And if you think the conquest and subjection of eight millions of people a practicable thing -- people who, during these three cruel years, have developed traits of character which have excited the admiration of mankind. It is clear that your views have undergone a most remarkable change since you addressed the noble youth of Amherst College, in the year of grace 1835, on the theme "Education Favorable to Liberty, Knowledge and Morals." In that finished oration (see Everett's Orations and Speeches, vol. first, page 703) I read as follows:

"The degree of force required to hold a population in subjection, other things being equal, is in direct ratio to its intelligence and skill; its acquaintance with the arts of life; its sense of the worth of existence; in fine, to its spirit and character. There is a point, indeed, beyond which this rule fails, and at which even the most thoroughly organized military despotism cannot be extended over the least intellectual race of subjects, serfs or slaves. History presents us with the record of numerous servile wars, and peasant wars, from the days of SPARTACUS to those of TUPAC AMARU and PUGATSCHEF; in which, at the first outbreak, all the advantages of authority, arms, concert, discipline, skill, have availed the oppressor nothing against humanity's last refuge, the counsel of madness, and the resources of despair."

Commending this bit of political philosophy to your serious mediation.

I have the honor to be, sir,

Yours most respectfully,

A VIRGINIAN.

-New York Times, August 14, 1864

¹ "Remembers his beloved Argos, as he dies."- Virgil

² "Such is the fortune of war"

A Jaunt Up the James III- "Proceeding up the river until within a short distance of Fort Powhattan . . ."

General Charles Kinnaird Graham

On Sunday morning the 25th of January 1864 an expedition consisting of the gunboats Flora Temple*, Smith Briggs, General Jessup and the large government steamer George Washington, under the command of Brigadier General Graham, accompanied by a force of about thirty of the harbor police of Norfolk under command of Captain Lee together with one hundred and fifty of the Twenty-first Connecticut commanded by Captain Brown left Old Point Comfort to make a reconnoissance up the James River. Proceeding up the river until within a short distance of Fort Powhattan the troops were landed at what was called the Brandon Farm. Two small howitzers were placed in position on the banks of the river. As soon as the forces were landed they made a reconnoissance back into the country some two miles and succeeded in surprising a rebel signal station which was captured with all its apparatus and appurtenances among which were messages deploring the change of sentiment in North Carolina and the possibility of the return of that State into the old Union, also information of the movement of a large rebel force through Richmond to North Carolina and letters relating to the removal to the city of Richmond of a large quantity of grain and provisions then stored at the Brandon Farm. Having secured their prisoners and all the valuables that could be removed the force returned to pay their respects to the stores on the farm which the rebels intended to transport to Richmond for the use of the Confederate army. They found the farm in charge of Surgeon Ritchie formerly of the United States navy whom they made a prisoner.

They succeeded in destroying bacon flour corn oats hay and other property to the amount of from two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand dollars. This being the estimate made by the rebels it is not likely it was exaggerated.

The gunboats had not been idle during this time but had captured a schooner laden with tobacco also a sloop not loaded On board the schooner were Jews with a large amount of money in gold and silver United States notes and Southern bank funds together with a large assortment of jewelry. The vessels were taken to Old Point Comfort with cargo and prisoners where the flotilla arrived Monday evening The following is a list of the booty brought back by the expedition Twenty two prisoners one schooner laden with tobacco one sloop light ten horses one hundred and fifty three contrabands and many other articles of importance By some mistake three of the members of the Twenty first Regiment were left behind on the return of the expedition. Finding themselves alone in the enemy's country and anticipating a rather unhealthy reception from the rebels they took to the woods where a council of war was held to determine what course to take to get back again to the Union lines Concealing themselves in the woods until night they resolved to make an attempt to reach Old Point Comfort They proceeded down the river about eight miles where they found an old boat in which they undertook to cross the river but the boat sank with them and they were forced to abandon it. They constructed a raft but that also sank and had to be abandoned Proceeding further down the river they luckily found another boat concealed in the bushes with which by constant bailing they finally succeeded in crossing. They then struck across the Peninsula in the direction of Williamsburg Traveling only at night and keeping concealed during the daytime they eluded all pickets and patrols and after three nights of rapid marching much of the way through deep swamps and tangled woods with almost nothing to eat they arrived at Yorktown bringing in with them three refugees from the rebel army. From Yorktown they were furnished transportation to Old Point Comfort and from thence to the regiment at Newport News where they entertained their comrades with the story of their sufferings and adventures.

Thus ended the expedition which had proven a great success and if we may believe their own reports was a severe blow to the rebels and the results accomplished reflected much honor upon both officers and men composing the expedition.

-The Story of the Twenty-first Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, During the Civil War. 1861-1865
William Stone Hubbell, Delos D. Brown, Alvin Millen Crane
Press of the Stewart Printing Company, 1900


*A week later an expedition consisting of these same vessels turned sour, as the Flora Temple ran aground on Chuckatuck Creek. The Flora Temple incidentally derived her name from the well known trotter of the time, the "bob tailed nag" of Camptown Races.

Up the Irawaddy Part VI

AN OFFICER'S DIARY OF A TWO MONTHS BOAT

EXPEDITION IN BURMAH.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

September 18th. — Thermometer 104 degs. in sun, in shade 88 degs. Dull work lying here inactive, in a crowdy boat along the river's muddy bank, too hot to step ashore. The only break in our monotony is watching the natives, men, women, and children, come out to bathe, and swim astern of our boats, in which art all are alike adepts, hanging on from time to time for rest by our "painters," with the exciting change of watching their pantomimic critiques upon our manner, acts, and gestures, all squatting on their hams or "sit-upons," with arms across, both men and women, like so many overgrown apes. From morning to dewy eve they sit in wondering rows upon the summit of the bank, especially at meal times on deck, watching in jibbering amazement each movement of the spoon, or knife, or fork, to them great novelties, no doubt, chewing the eternal "betel nut," and chunem wrapped together in a green leaf, and carried by the convenient round perforation in the "ear-lobe." They use this betel preparation to blacken their teeth, and turn their lips a rose colour vermilion red; in Burmese man or woman, the outward proof of style, or fashion, in fact, the Burman equivalent for crinoline or peg top. As I was taking my accustomed bath at the stem of our boat this morning, an unmistakable sniff came floating down to leeward, I looked, and lo, a Burman corpse with bloated face upturned, swimming by me in the current, just clearing me in its course.

September 19th. — thermometer 103 degs air, shade 86 degs. Sunday, our usual tin of hot cocoa and biscuit at 5 a.m. Our more than usual dressing to-day after the swim, previous to the performance of Divine Service, after which (I presume the better day the better deed) we found ourselves in the midst of a rather strange scene. Our friend, the "Head man" of the town, having got up, I suppose for our amusement, a "piece" of a regatta with four of his war canoes, each paddled by some forty naked warriors accompanying each stroke most vigorously with all kinds of passionate gesticulations and outlandish yells. These canoes are low, and very long built of a single log, high-stemed where the steersman stands to ply his powerful guiding paddle— each carries a gingall in the bows; they are very swift, and with their many squatting paddlers convey to one's mind the idea of an enormous centipede, no doubt as venomous in war. The chief got up a "match," or kind of Indian ballet-dance, in which the Burmese women excel as in the drama too, to edify us barbarians when all the rank and beauty were assembled to gaze upon us "lions." One of our consorts went yesterday (to amuse a victim) to Sumbawa, a village said to be hostile, a short distance off, but returned at evening without the expected adventure. We also had a letter off, from the chief of a village a little higher up, scratched with a nail upon a piece of plantain leaf, most primitively, which being interpreted, we were told meant that the said chief being in league with Ava, challenged us to meet him at our own time. Our crafty chief of Hausedah (being a wooding station for our steamers) wished to destroy the message without interpreting it to us, fearing to lose the protection of our boats, being doubtless compromised with Ava, by aiding and supplying us with necessaries. Thermometer this day in air 102 degs., in shade 90 degs., water 85 degs.

Tuesday, September 21. — Glass in air 103 degs., shade 91 degs. Four or five cases to-day and yesterday occurred of vertigo and diarrhoea.

September 22nd. — Air 100 degs., shade 90 degs. ; wet and overcast. A boat came up to-day to say the Dacoits were at Sooloon, but not trusting to the informant's good faith or correctness of recital, we told the chief to send his war canoes to punish them.

September 24. — Air 103 degs., shade 91, weather hot and dry. I find that vertigo and diarrhoea are on the increase. Still at anchor; our first case of cholera appeared to-day.

On the 26th, I find that I have been so busy for the last few days that i can scarcely now collect and resume the thread of my subject. On the 24th we all went to a "sing song pigeon," or dramatic entertainment, got up by the Rajah in our honour, first having sailed some few miles up the river through a narrow creek— so narrow that we frequently got jammed in the coarse bulrushes, and had to drag the boat through it by main force, which, added to the invitation of the mosquitoes (now in full swing, as bad as ever), and a lurking attack by the Burmese being momentarily apprehended, exposed as we were to be raked by them from the canoes, whilst our gun could do nothing, made the prospect of a night spent so exceedingly uncomfortable, when, much to our relief by dint of sheer exertion, we found ourselves at midnight, again out in the open "Irrawaddi," and soon were back to our old anchorage. Tired out by the exposure of the day, I was in the land of dreams, of sweet and balmy slumber, when I was roused at three o'clock in the morning by an officer coming from one of our consort boats with a sick man who proved to be the most able of our party, now prostrate in the collapse of cholera. The pulse weak and fluttering, the countenance cadaverous, blue and pinched, not half the size of health an hour before, dry and parched, with eyes so far retreating as though the head were eyeless, having only hollow sockets, the extremities cold, shrivelled, bloodless, blue, in fact, a living corpse within three hours to be a corpse indeed. We interred him on the same morning on an uninhabited island beyond the river, marking his rude grave with a bamboo cross. Peace to his manes.

Up the Irawaddy Part V

AN OFFICER'S DIARY OF A TWO MONTHS BOAT

EXPEDITION IN BURMAH.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

September 14th. — External air 103 degs., shade 85 degs. by the glass. The process of serving out the morning ration of "bark," as a preventative against intermittent fever, affords an excellent opportunity to the "wits" in the boats to launch their jests at one another, as each by name is mustered to take his dose; the rum part of the ration by all being said to be most rational; they think "one good thing spoils the other," and would, to a man, prefer the alcohol by itself alone. No more formidable enemy, however, as yet, has attacked us than our old friends the mosquitoes, which, though of a smaller breed than those in the "Panalan creek," made up the deficiency in the vigour of their attacks, and prevented us all night enjoying the favours of much-courted "Somnus."

September 15th. — We turned out early this morning, and gazed at one another with a feeling much akin to wonder at seeing our mutual safety, and being able tolerably to recognise each other's features, which afterwards became impossible in many cases, so blurred and blotched, and openly ulcerated were several, both in limb and face, that even their "long-billed tailors" would have scarcely sworn to their identity, if in their debt, unless by coats alone. We got under; way with the "grey" of the morning, and sailing on for a mile or so in a narrow creek, made the main river again, when we fell in with one of our consort boats, she having "come to" during the night, at the opposite side of an island, which we, in ignorance of the river's course, unsurveyed, and new to all of us, poking our way without an interpreter of any kind, had simply circumnavigated. Previous to our dropping on her, we had landed at a small village, where the work of desolation had been completed about a month previously. Our inducement to land here was a suspicious-looking boat lying alongside the bank, which we rightly supposed belonged to the Dandas or Dacoits; but we found ourselves too late, as these gentry had stripped the villagers, our allies, of every moveable, even the clothes of their scanty wardrobe, and burned the houses. However, we succeeded in securing a few stray fowls, and a savage looking wild water buffalo (which, by the way, had to be knocked over by a musket ball), for the boats' crews; for which the Head-man of the village received an "Indent" on the Indian Government for payment. The herds of wide-horned buffalo are here quite wild and unmanageable,"feroces natura"* and on being driven up out of the muddy river, to be honoured, by one being selected from amongst them, for that morning breakfast, be it said, and our dinner subsequently, the chosen one appreciated not the honour; but charging with down-pressed head, and butting into the midst of us, upset in a trice a tiny midshipman, who, naturally, most terrified by the fierce brute's sudden angry foray, was flung right over its body without annihilating him, as all (himself included), thought must be the case, or even bruising him severely.

September 16th, 17th.Thermometer in external air 102 degs.shade 86 degs. Having breakfasted and dined off this beef yesterday which, though very tough, furnished a welcome change for the crews from the continued salt meat, we find a small portion remaining this morning to be quite tainted, and unfit for use! The bullock that was nigh routing our assembled forces yesterday morning is this morning unfit for human food! We consequently are breakfastless, contrary to fond anticipation. So much for the decomposing effects of a few hours of this weather, which has been most close and rainy. At the next village "Sooloon" I went with a companion, to inspect a handsome little Pagoda, with an alabaster joss in the doorway, and, as usual, gilt tinkling bells surmounting the summit of the minaret. This was evidently a modern one, of a white composite material, smaller and plainer than any I saw before. The masons' marks of workmanship were still fresh seen upon it— the votive offering, I suppose, of some entroubled family of modern times to one of their protecting deities — standing in a large, rich paddy plain, park-like, dotted here and there with noble oaks and chesnuts, and leaning palms, and graceful cocoas, studding the river's banks in the distance. Here it began to rain tremendously, and, on looking to our boats, we found it impossible to stem the current, when, finding an open pasture, clear of bush along the river's edge, we jumped ashore, and tackled on the tracking line — canal-boat fashion. Thus tramped along, in cadence, our hardy blue jackets, keeping time, the while, to the burthen of their merry song, when, rounding a point, we came suddenly upon another village, and a number of native boats moored off the bank. In slacking off the towing-line, to pass outside them, it got foul of one of their outriggers projecting from a Chinese "Sanpan," and an active seaman jumped down from off the bank upon the Bamboo cabin's roof to cast it free; when, lo! a most unearthly howl uprose, rending the outward air, and "Jack" was to be seen sinking, leg foremost, right through the flimsy wicker root, plump on a little round tea-table in the boat's cabin, where a Chinaman and Mrs. Chinaman, with all the junior branches of this Celestial family, were very harmoniously seated at their "Bohea," most unsuspectingly, as if in Central China, whence they had travelled during the last few weeks on their journey to Bengal; a frequent route, and with these nomade people (that is, such of them as are at all nomade) much in vogue, travelling westward up the Chinese rivers, and building fresh "Sanpans" on the sources of the Irrawaddi, which thus transport most swiftly themselves and "household gods" straight from Inmost China to the free waters of the Bengal Bay via Rangoon. However, the tiny China pot and thimble cups (not, mark you, quart measures like our tea-cups), and saucer of rice with fowl and fishy curry (as one meets it in China) were forthwith ground most accidentally to powder by ponderous Jack's descent, "Jack boots," and all. At this mishap— enough, forsooth, to savage any people— the China party (a lesson to our Western constitutional irritability) after the due explosion of a few impetuous "Hi yawes!" "How can?" "What for you do dat ting?" "Dat no plopau pigeon," laughed at the contretemps themselves most heartily of the lot, showing the true philosophy of these followers of "Confucius," When they came to find it was no design nor wicked frowardness, thus abruptlj and most unceremoniously, as a "dropper-in," to intrude unasked upon their tete-a-tete, with rocket-like, most damaging celerity. This Mr. Chinaman forthwith attached himself, as acting or occasional interpreter, in tolerable Hong-Kong English, hence-forward to our varying fortunes, as long as we stopped at this station. Bowel complaints increasing! River water for drinking, very thick and bad, despite of filtering, or alum. Here clouds of very large locusts, in fitful clusters, fill the air, the mouth, the nostrils, even the bowl of tea or cocoa as it goes up to your lips, converting the contents into a thick soup of locusts, or call them prawns for nicety. At first, in one of these conjunctures, you shut your mouth, your eyes, your ears, your nostrils; you take a spoon and fish the drowning, scalding hoppers out, each not at all unlike a large shrimp. You fish one out at one side of the bowl, and six come hopping in at t'other, repeated trebly, nay, a dozen times with like result, a tyro, you throw away the mess in deep disgust, and go without it. Next time, taught wisdom by a hungry stomach, you shut your eyes and gulp away most heartily and unscrupulously, unless, as I have seen, a centipede, attracted by the steaming savour, drops in, to sip your cup, then be advised and leave it to him, it's not with every stomach he'll agree! We are now, pro tem., at Hausedah. It is a large, straggling village, having one long principal street on the river's bank and two or three in rear, with several large pagodas, with their attendant prominent poonge-houses, also a large palace in a compound, belonging to the Rajah, an ally of ours, who came forthwith on board to tender the homage of his friendship and esteem. I may here observe, en passant, as a specimen oi the intricate navigation of this passage, that for half last Thursday we passed through a devious and an unknown creek, so narrow that our oar-blades touched the tall dense hedge of bamboos on either side, straight and even like a wall, impenetrably fringing in the water's edge; save it, nought but the muddy sky and muddier water met the view; yet, strange to say, so deep was it, that even under the very bamboos we found not bottom, poling our oars! At length we all breathed more freely when we gained and recognised the open river, all being total strangers to this navigation. Just as one feels with a load relieved from chest and brain, when first, after days of pent-up travel, he emerges from the dubious, half blazed Indian track tnrough an American primeval forest to the lightof sun-lit day and the familiar objects of the settler's clearing— most welcome sight to him I The water seems to be the highway; in fact, no other thoroughfare, as in many parts of China, is known here. No roads, no paths, except along the river's banks, or edges of the "paddy fields," as also holds in the Celestial Empire. No beasts of burthen, if we except the elephants, which are to be seen along the river, pushing and hauling logs and other suchlike things, almost immovable otherwise, at least so far as any other mode of draught is concerned. Mighty masses fixed are to them trifles light as air. Many of these docile monsters, obedient to the "Mahout's'' stake and order, you see at work upon the beach near Rangoon, and at other places that, if they knew their strength, bungalows, natives, bamboo huts. et cetera, nay, most things in this fragile country, would crumble underneath their crush.

* Lt: ferocious nature

Up the Irawaddy Part IV

AN OFFICER'S DIARY OF A TWO MONTHS BOAT

EXPEDITION IN BURMAH.

Part I

Part II

Part III

September 11 — Anchored for an hour in slack water, for breakfast; under way again till 12. Had dinner cooked; ship's fare, with plantains, and a glass of brandy or rum and water, with a pipe, or cheroot to follow, became the order of the day. Rest from the greatest ardour of the sun for a couple of hours, and then under way again, to anchor awhile at five for tea and pipes, and then away again; "hands up anchor" for the rest of the night till early morning, in these sleep-forsaken regions, where even the "fat-boy" of"Picwick" would find his aptitude for slumber of no avail. Night falls quickly here, with as little twilight as at some seasons one finds in North America, when night immediately succeeds the disappearance of the sun; however, every bough and spray along the river banks, on either side, are tufts of glittering coruscations with the fireflies.

September 12th, — The fleet of native canoes are still hanging on close in our wake, anchoring when we anchor, and getting under way, by day or night, with us, never a stone's throw from us, most anxious looking, and watching every turn of the stream, as if each moment they expected some denouement. The banks abound in plantains, to which we help ourselves from out of the boats as we pass on, as well as large white grub, which, in abundance, the natives brought off to us, the delicacy evidently of the season, but un-native-like would take no pay, lest for dealing with us they should be ransacked and maltreated by the King of Ava's people. This day passed much like yesterday for the remainder. On Sunday morning we had a most delightful sail, as beautiful as could be through the most luxuriantly clad country; the river banks variegated with curious trees, and flowering parasitic shrubs of every shape and size, and hue, and now and then an open paddy plain of surpassing verdure, with a comfortable looking Bamboo bungalow or two, dotted here and there in the recesses of the chameleon-hued foliage, the very beau ideal as snug contentment; but, alas! we soon found out that the hand of the despoiler had been most ruthlessly at work, in just such another place, a little higher up the river, the "Red right hand" of devastating war. We are now put of the "Panalan" Creek, which is as yet intact. Fish of the largest size seem to be here abundant, somewhat in shape like the cat-fish of the Mississippi, jumping on all sides of the stream. This being Sunday, we had the Flotilla anchored in the forenoon, in a line abreast the principal village, and dressed ourselves in frock coats, the men in white shirts and duck trousers, Divine Service was extemporized for the first time at the head of the mousquito-filmed Panalan Creek, a name remembered, I warrant, with an uneasy buzzing sense of tingling in the ear to this day by many a brave fellow, whom more powerful enemies could not succeed in daunting; though now all out prostrated by their ceaseless tiny torments; verily in them the Burmese had efficient allies against their European invader whilst the fire-flies pointed out to us the devious way along the river at night. Here to-day, at the head of this Panalan Creek, we dipped our oars for the first time since we started in the waters of the Irrawaddi proper, which is decidedly a noble, wide, expansive river fit, as is destined at some future day, to carry on its swelling bosom the teas and silks of far "Cathay" — the trade of Imperial China (despite the exclusiveness of imperious Chinese Emperors) from China confines, through a British province to a British port, for easy shipment to Great Britain's self. In this way we shall want no costly little wars with China ; no treaty signed with Chinamen, signed only to be broken, the moment our men of war are hull down on the horizon from out of the sight of subtle, lying Chinamen; no deadly occupation of more filthy Chinese ports or capitals, but with the inland people, by the head waters of the Irrawaddi and Tang-tse-Kiang, to the heart of China; with the Chinese people we can then most fairly trade on terms of easy mutual reciprocity. However, to retrace our course, this river is nearly two miles here, I'd say, from side to side, embosomed in heavy, park-like timber, ash, evergreen oak, teak, and chesnut, &c., with intervening patches of laurels, sugar-cane, bamboo, and smaller shrubs. Here we got a welcome lift (the stream being very rapid, so much so that our boats even close in shore, hung sometimes for an hour in the same spot, uncertain as 'twere, whether to forge ahead or drop astern, so nicely balanced was the might of sail, and double-banked sturdy oar against the force of the contrary current), a very welcome lift indeed we had, by being towed for some miles by a passing Indian steamer going up the river with troops, and with her proceeded up the stream till the afternoon, passing on either side several very picturesque villages on our way, and a very rich and pretty, though flat country. Aboard this steamer we were enabled to stretch at full length for the first time for several days, our wearied, cramped-up limbs; and gladly exchanging the boat's stem sheets for the roomy deck, enjoyed a sound refreshing sleep between the guns, a luxury whose extent such voyageurs alone can truly value. Refreshed in brain and limb by a few hours rest, we re-embarked aboard our boats towards evening, and casting off, struck out across the rapid mid-stream for the port bank, where there came in view a fine tract as level grass grown pasture land, begemmed with Eastern flowers of many hues, and most expansive “paddy-fields," of whose smooth verdancy we cheerfully availed ourselves, to track our boats along the river banks (the crews being landed and tackled on to hawsers), where first we witnessed in our proper persons the desolated scenes of civil war. Alas! the ravages of all-destroying war were here too painfully evinced on every side. May England, maiden England, never know invasion's horrors. The beauteous villages erst-while were sacked and burnt by the marauding native bands, the crops ripe for the harvest in many instances lying wastefully neglected, — the cattle straying ownerless about through the enclosures and rich paddy-rice fields— not a living human being about. A skulking, hungry-looking cat, or dog, or a few half-starved, frightened looking cocks and hens, perched in the neighbouring trees, which latter fowls suggestive as they were of nightmare and dyspepsia to more highly organized digestions, yet, I'm bound to say, figured, ere many hours, in an impromptu appetite- appeasing curry, a culinary specimen not much belying our natal "Soyer's" skill. The neighbouring town, pagodas, Poonge houses, all were desolate, except about the latter a priest or two, more daring, or more lazy than their fellows, with shaven crown and cunning, stealthy glance askew, followed us about in sulky silence.

September 13th. — A little farther on we came on a like deserted, straggling town, a mass of ruins, too, just past a creek, in which some natives, howling with frantic gesticulations, paddling along in their canoes, endeavoured to entice us to follow off the main river up this creek, so as to join their goodly company, but in vain; and well it was so, for an ambush, as the "interpreter" afterwards told us, was probably their object. A few empty, half-burnt bamboo houses, ransacked of all contents, and a Pagoda, on a largish scale, intact from its solidity, marked out this place — the former famous, or, more properly, infamous "Donabew;" and sphinxes of colossal magnitude in stone, and with them a few josses of wood or marble, too useless or too enormous to destroy, along with a half-ruined Poonge-house, which I had nearly forgotten to mention to my readers.

This said "Donabew" was notoriously the scene of European ambushed slaughter, even in the former war. It and the country round about the depot of the Burmese troops and bands of lawless freebooters, the cruel, rascally "Dacoits" of Pegu, whose handy work we saw far off, last night, in flaming village conflagrations here and farther up the river. This day the heat is registered, I find, at 103 degs. in the external air; in shade, 85 degs. of Fahrenheit. I took to-day under treatment, as a beginning, four patients — two with intermittent fever, and two with bowel affections; one of the latter, almost a giant in stature, was chaffed by his companions for "letting a plantain," as they said, knock over such a sturdy fellow with diarrhoea. Poor fellow, his ridiculers little thought, ere many weeks passed over, this plantain-sickened, hardy giant was to fail amongst the first, a victim to "the scourge of eastern scourges" — cholera; and that his bones, with others of his "chaffing comrades," were doomed ere long to whiten on a lone island in the Irrawaddi, apart from home and kindred, their last resting places soon to be marked only by a rude bamboo cross over their grave, surrounded by bamboos, and extemporized by the very hand that tells the tale to-day. "Peace to their names."

"Sir: In obedience to your order, I report the following experience . . .

Report of Commander Parker, U. S. Navy, commanding Potomac Flotilla, transmitting report of Lieutenant-Commander Eastman, U. S. Navy, on torpedoes taken from the Rappahannock River.

                                                                                    U.S. S. KING PHILIP,

                                                                   Blakistone Island, May 21, 1864.

 SIR: I have the honor to forward herewith a copy of a report of Lieutenant-Commander Eastman in relation to the construction of the torpedoes lately removed from the Rappahannock River and the manner of using them as demonstrated by the explosion of one of them in the St. Marys River on the 18th instant by my order.

                 Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

                                                                                FOXHALL A. PARKER,

                                                    Commander, Commanding Potomac Flotilla.

 Hon. GIDEON WELLES,

             Secretary of the Navy.

                                                          U. S. SCHOONER MATTHEW VASSAR, 

                                                                                                 May 18, 1864.

 Sir: In obedience to your order, I report the following experience in the use of a torpedo taken from the rebels in the Rappahannock River:

 The torpedo is a cylindrical tin vessel, with a second small cylinder at the top, and with three apertnres, one on the side and bottom, for the purpose of receiving the powder, which apertures are afterwards closed with a gutta-percha wad, and on the wad outside is a covering of beeswax and tallow.

 The other aperture is at the top, and is for the purpose of receiving a friction primer, which is pnt in first, and the aperture then made water-tight by filling in with beeswax and tallow mixed.

 The friction primer is attached to the end of a wire, which extends from the outside to the center of the vessel, so that the primer lies in the middle of the powder always.

 To prevent the primer from having any lateral motion, three wires are soldered on to the sides of the vessel and join in the middle nearly, so that the primer may pass through their bent ends without danger of catching or moving.

 The small cylinder at the top of the torpedo is covered with a tin cap so as to hold the pulling line and prevent it from being touched until the torpedo is sunk, at which time time cap is removed and the line led out to the shore.

 The torpedo holds about 50 pounds of fine priming powder, and I enclose here a diagram showing dimensions, etc.

 After informing myself thoroughly as to the manner of using this new weapon (by carefully opening one), I exploded ammother in the following manner:

 Having attached a sinking weight to the two handles which are on the sides, I pulled with a small boat into the channel and then ran my line ashore, and after this was done, I carefully removed the tin cap and lowered the torpedo in 3 fathoms water.

 The boat was then pulled ashore and the line pulled from about 50 yards back in the bushes, when, without any noise, a column of water 60 feet high and 5 feet in diameter was thrown up, and, covering the woods with spray, fell, sending a circular wave about 1 foot high to the surrounding shore.

 The appearance was grand, and if a ship was directly over one of these torpedoes she would, in all probability, be sunk; but if alongside (except receiving a quantity of water on deck), I do not believe she would be injured.

 With the information gained, I feel competent to use the remaining torpedoes against the rebels whenever it is required of me.

                     Respectfully,
                                                                                            T. H. EASTMAN,
                                                                    Lieutenant-Commander, U. S. Navy.



 Commander FOXHALL A. PARKER,
 Commanding Potomac Flotilla.


 

-Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.; Series I- Volume 5: Operations on the Potamac and Rappahannock Rivers (December 7, 1861-July 31, 1865); Atlantic Blockading Squadron (April 4, 1861-July 15, 1861)