Morehead City is not a large place. In fact, it consisted in 1862
of a railroad depot at the end of a long wharf. It was intended to
be the great seaport of North Carolina, but, at this time, trade
had refused to move out of its accustomed channel, and the only
thing that gave the least shadow of animation to the place was the
arrival and departure of the daily train with its few passengers
for Beaufort, which lies across the Bay, a few miles distant. The
railroad, which has its terminus at Morehead City, runs up to
Goldsboro’, where it connects with the main line of the Wilmington
and Weldon Railroad. The _Nashville_ was hauled alongside the
wharf, and, as there was a faint expectation that the boats of the
blockaders outside might come up at night and attempt to cut us
out, preparations were made for a defence. The two Blakeley guns
were placed on the wharf, and the muskets of which mention has
been made before were brought up from the hold and prepared for
use. The invaders, however, did not come, and there was nothing
to disturb the solitude of the place but the occasional visit
of gaunt North Carolina soldiers, attired for the most part in
“butternut,” otherwise homespun. They were in the Confederate
service, and on duty in the neighborhood. Most of them were armed
with flint-lock muskets or shot guns, and some of them carried
huge bowie-knives made out of scythe blades. They were generally
tall, sinewy fellows, and evidently accustomed to exertion and
privation, but they were not the sort of troops that I had expected
to find the Confederate army composed of. A group of them honored
the _Nashville_, when she came in, with the true Confederate yell,
which I then heard for the first time, and without admiring it.
As soon as I could obtain permission, I went up to Morehead City
proper, if the Railroad station at the water’s edge is not to
pass by that name, and found there five or six wooden houses, a
bar-room and the inevitable hotel. The clearing was small, and the
pine woods came up to within a few yards of the hotel door. It
was a barren country, and a joke among the sailors was that the
hogs were so miserably poor that knots were tied in their tails by
their prudent owners to keep them from slipping through the fences.
Another story was that when a dog, in that part of North Carolina,
found it necessary to bark, he leaned against a fence to keep from
falling.
Captain Pegram went to Richmond to make his report, and took with
him a number of mysterious boxes which had been brought aboard at
Southampton. There was much speculation as to their contents, but I
believe that they held nothing more dangerous than bank-note paper,
postage stamps and lithographing apparatus. I remained aboard, of
course, and there was little if any change in the routine of duty.
There was paint to clean, and there were decks to sweep; the sails
were to be unbent and sent below. I cannot say that my value as
a sailor had increased materially during the voyage, and I had
not even learned to tie, with any certainty, a fast knot. On the
hurricane deck, as is usual on steamers, there was a score or two
of wooden buckets for fire purposes. They were used occasionally
for dipping up water. I tried my hand at it several times, while
the vessel was in motion, and, when the bottom of the bucket was
not driven out or the handle did not give way, I found, to my
dismay, that I had made a slippery hitch, and saw the bucket
slip smoothly into the water as soon as the strain came upon the
line. Some of the men made handsome buckets of canvas, which they
carefully embroidered, and I was not much more lucky with these
than I was with the wooden ones. I have mentioned how beautifully
clear the water was in the harbor at St. George’s, Bermuda, and
the time with me never seemed to pass more slowly than when one of
these fancy buckets had escaped from my line and was settling down
in the water, and I had an agonizing expectation that Sawyer would
reach the spot where I was standing before it had gone completely
out of sight. I think that, at a moderate calculation, I must be
responsible to the Confederacy for a dozen wooden buckets besides
several canvas buckets.
It was now time that I should determine what to do. The small
newspaper published at Newbern, N. C., reached us occasionally,
and from this we received the first news of the glorious victory
of the _Virginia_ in the fight at Hampton Roads, when she sank
the _Cumberland_ and the _Congress_. There was great jubilation
aboard that day. In the newspaper I found appeals for volunteers
for different companies then raising for the war. I cannot give a
better idea of my frame of mind than by saying that, at this time,
I had determined to take my discharge from the _Nashville_, and
decide, by tossing-up, which one of the various companies named in
the newspaper I should join. I expected nothing better.
There was a surprise in store for me. One furiously cold morning,
immediately after the return of Captain Pegram from Richmond, I
was scraping the fore-yard, wet through with the falling sleet and
intensely uncomfortable, when one of the boys from the ward-room
came forward and called to me to say that I was wanted in the
saloon. I went below at once, and into the saloon, where I found
Captain Pegram, who spoke very kindly, and told me that, when I
first came aboard, he had thought that I was not serious in my
avowed purposes, and that, for this reason, he had done nothing
to encourage me; but that he and his officers had watched me very
closely, and were so well pleased with my conduct that he had
laid my case before the Secretary of the Navy, who had authorized
him to appoint me a Master’s Mate in the Confederate Navy. This
announcement, so entirely unexpected, and which bridged for me,
in a moment, the gulf which, aboard ship, separates the sailor
from the officer, completely overwhelmed me. Captain Pegram saw my
agitation, and told me that he should expect me to mess with him
while we remained aboard, and that he would have my trunk placed
in a state-room which he had ordered to be prepared for me. I went
forward, thrust off my sailor’s garb as rapidly as I could, put
on the solitary civilian’s suit which remained to me, and then
was ready to receive the kind congratulations of the officers and
the effusive demonstrations of regard of the truculent boatswain.
Sawyer told me that he was delighted to hear of my promotion, which
was just what he had expected, as he had always seen that I was
not in the position that I ought to hold! Much to my regret I did
not have the satisfaction of meeting Mr. Sawyer again after I left
the _Nashville_, when I might have had the pleasure of telling him
precisely what I thought of him and his ways. My only reply to his
congratulations was to ask to be permitted to pay for the buckets I
had disposed of in the ways I have described. He said it was of “no
consequence.”