and skippers are delighted at an anchorage so far from land, which at
the same time detains the crews in the ships and prevents absenteeism
and “running.” At present there are but seven ships at the anchorage,
nearly all British, and one of the latter appears in the distance hard
and fast ashore, though whether she got there in consequence of the
light not being burning or from neglect, it is impossible to say. Fort
Gaines, on the right bank of the channel, near the entrance, is an
unfinished shell of a fort, which was commenced by the United States
engineers some time ago, and which it would not be easy to finish
without a large outlay of money and labor. It is not well placed to
resist either a land attack or an assault by boats. A high sand-bank in
front of one of the faces screens the fire, and a wood on another side,
if occupied by riflemen, would render it difficult to work the barbette
guns. It is not likely, however, that the fort will be attacked. The
channel it commands is only fit for light vessels. From this fort to
the other side of the channel, where Fort Morgan stands, the distance
is over three miles, and the deep water channel is close to the latter
fort. The position at Gaines is held by a strong body of Alabama
troops--stout, sturdy men, who have volunteered from farm, field, or
desk. They are armed with ordinary muskets of the old pattern, and their
uniform is by no means uniform; but the men look fit for service. The
fort would take a garrison of five hundred men if fully mounted, but the
parapets are mere partition walls of brickwork crenelled; the
bomb-proofs are unfinished, and but for a few guns mounted on the
sand-hills, the place is a defenceless shell-trap. There are no guns in
the casemates, and there is no position ready to bear the weight of a
gun in barbette. The guns which are on the beach are protected by
sand-bags traversed, and are more formidable than the whole fortress.
The steamer proceeded across the channel to Fort Morgan, which is a work
of considerable importance, and is assuming a formidable character under
the superintendence of Colonel Hardee, formerly of the United States
army. It has a regular trace, bastion, and curtain, with a dry ditch and
drawbridge, well-made casemates and bomb-proofs, and a tolerable
armament of columbiads, 42 and 32-pounders, a few 10-inch mortars, and
light guns in the external works at the salients. The store of
ammunition seems ample. Some of the fuses are antiquated, and the
gun-carriages are old-fashioned. The open parade and the unprotected
gorges of the casemates would render the work extremely unpleasant under
a shell fire, and the buildings and barracks inside are at present open
to the influence of heat. The magazines are badly traversed and
inadequately protected. A very simple and apparently effective
contrivance for dispensing with the use of the sabot in shells was shown
to me by Colonel Maury, the inventor. It consists of two circular
grummets of rope, one at the base and the other at the upper
circumference of the shell, made by a simple machinery to fit tightly to
the sphere, and bound together by thin copper wire. The grummets fit the
bore of the gun exactly, and act as wads, allowing the base of the shell
to rest in close contact with the charge, and breaking into oakum on
leaving the muzzle. Those who know what mischief can be done by the
fragments of the sabot when fired over the heads of troops will
appreciate this simple invention, which is said to give increased range
to the horizontal shell. There must be about sixty guns in this work;
it is over-garrisoned, and, indeed, it seems to be the difficulty here
to know what to do with the home volunteers. Rope mantlets are used on
the breeches of some of the barbette guns. At night the harbor is in
perfect darkness. Notwithstanding the defences I have indicated, it
would be quite possible to take Fort Morgan with a moderate force well
supplied with the means of vertical fire.
“Are there any mosquitoes here?” inquired I of the waiter, on the day of
my arrival. “Well, there’s a few, I guess; but I wish there were ten
times as many.” “In the name of goodness why do you say so?” asked I,
with some surprise and indignation. “Because we’d get rid of the ----
Black Republicans out of Fort Pickens all the sooner,” replied he. There
is a strange unilateral tendency in the minds of men in judging of the
operation of causes and results in such a contest as that which now
prevails between the North and the South. The waiter reasoned and spoke
like many of his betters. The mosquitoes, for whose aid he was so
anxious, were regarded by him as true Southerners, who would only
torture his enemies. The idea of these persecuting little fiends being
so unpatriotic as to vex the Confederates in their sandy camp never
entered into his mind for a moment. In the same way a gentleman of
intelligence, who was speaking to me of the terrible sufferings which
would be inflicted on the troops at Tortugas and at Pickens by fever,
dysentery, and summer heats, looked quite surprised when I asked him
“whether these agencies would not prove equally terrible to the troops
of the Confederates?”
LETTER X.
FORT PICKENS AND PENSACOLA--A VISIT TO BOTH CAMPS.
MOBILE, May 16, 1861.
OUR little schooner lay quietly at the wharf all night, but no one was
allowed to come on board without a pass, for these wild-looking sentries
are excellent men of business, and look after the practical part of
soldiering with all the keenness which their direct personal interest
imparts to their notions of duty. The enemy is to them the incarnation
of all evil, and they hunt his spies and servants very much as a terrier
chases a rat--with intense traditional and race animosity. The silence
of the night is not broken by many challenges, or the “All’s well” of
patrols; but there is warlike significance enough in the sound of the
shot which the working parties are rolling over the wooden jetty, with a
dull, ponderous thumping on board the flats that are to carry them off
for the food and _nourriture_ of the batteries. With the early morning,
however, came the moral signs of martial existence. I started up from
among my cockroaches, knocked my head against the fine pine beams over
my hammock, and then, considerably obfuscated by the result, proceeded
to investigate all the grounds that presented themselves to me as worthy
of consideration in reference to the theory which had suddenly forced
itself upon my mind that I was in the Crimea. For close at hand, through
the sleepy organs of the only sense which was fully awake, came the
well-known _réveillée_ of the Zouaves, and then French clangors, rolls,
ruffles, and calls ran along the line, and the Volunteers got up, or did
not, as seemed best to them. An ebony and aged Ganymede, however,
appeared with coffee, and told me, “the Cap’n wants ask weder you take
some bitters, Sir;" and, indeed, “the Captain” did compound some amazing
preparation for the Judges and Colonels present on deck and below, that
met the approval of them all, and was recommending it for its fortifying
qualities in making a Redan and Malakhoff of the stomach. Breakfast came
in due time; not much Persic apparatus to excite the hate of the
simple-minded, but a great deal of substantial matter, in the shape of
fried onions, ham, eggs, biscuit, with accompaniments of iced water,
Bordeaux, and coffee. Our guests were two--a broad, farmer-like
gentleman, weighing some sixteen stone, dressed in a green frieze tunic,
with gold lace and red and scarlet worsted facings, and a felt wide
awake, who, as he wiped his manly brow, informed me he was a “rifleman.”
We have some Volunteers quite as corpulent, and not more patriotic, for
our farmer was a man of many bales, and, in becoming an officer in his
company of braves, had given an unmistakable proof of devotion to his
distant home and property. The other, a quiet, modest,
intelligent-looking young man, was an officer in a different battalion,
and talked with sense about a matter with which sense has seldom
anything to do--I mean uniform. He remarked that in a serious action
and close fighting, or in night work, it would be very difficult to
prevent serious mistakes, and even disasters, owing to the officers of
the Confederate States’ troops wearing the same distinguishing marks of
rank and similar uniforms, whenever they can get them, to those used in
the regular service of the United States, and that much inconvenience
will inevitably result from the great variety and wonderful diversity of
the dresses of the immense number of companies forming the different
regiments of Volunteers.
The only troops near us which were attired with a regard to military
exactness, were the regiment of Zouaves from New Orleans. Most of these
are Frenchmen or Creoles, some have belonged to the battalions which the
Crimea first made famous, and were present before Sevastopol and in
Italy, and the rest are Germans and Irish. Our friends went off to see
them drill, but, as a believer in the enchanting power of distance, I
preferred to look on at such of the manœuvres as could be seen from the
deck. These Zouaves look exceedingly like the real article. They are,
perhaps, a trifle leaner and taller, and are not so well developed at
the back of the head, the heels, and the ankles, as their prototypes.
They are dressed in the same way, except that I saw no turban on the fez
cap. The jacket, the cummerbund, the baggy red breeches, and the
gaiters, are all copies of the original. They are all armed with
rifle-musket and sword-bayonet, and their pay is at the usual rate of
$11, or something like £2 6s. a month, with rations and allowances. The
officers do their best to be the true “chacal.” I was more interested, I
confess, in watching the motions of vast shoals of mullet and other
fish, which flew here and there, like flocks of plover, before the red
fish and other enemies, and darted under our boat, than in examining
Zouave drill. Once, as a large fish came gamboling along the surface
close at hand, a great gleam of white shot up in the waves beneath, and
a boiling whirl marked with a crimson pool, which gradually melted off
in the tide, showed where a monster shark had taken down a part of his
breakfast. “That’s a ground-sheark,” quoth the skipper. “There’s quite a
many of them about here.” Porpoises passed by in a great hurry for
Pensacola, and now and then a turtle showed his dear little head above
the enviable fluid which he honored with his presence. Far away in the
long stretch of water toward Pensacola are six British merchantmen in a
state of blockade; that is, they have only fifteen days to clear out,
according to the reading of the law adopted by the United States
officers.
The Navy Yard looks clean and neat in the early morning, and away on the
other side of the channel Fort Pickens--_teterrima causa_--raises its
dark front from the white sand and green sward of the glacis, on which a
number of black objects invite inspection through a telescope, and
obligingly resolve themselves into horses turned out to graze on the
slope. Fort M’Rae, at the other side of the channel, as if to irritate
its neighbor, flings out a flag to the breeze, which is the counterpart
of the “Stars and Stripes” that wave from the rival flagstaff, and is at
this distance identical to the eye until the glass detects the solitary
star in its folds instead of the whole galaxy. On the dazzling snowy
margin of sand that separates the trees and brushwood from the sea,
close at hand, the outline of the batteries which stud the shore for
miles is visible. Let us go and make a close inspection. Mr. Ellis, a
lieutenant in the Louisiana regiment, who is aide-de-camp to
Brigadier-General Bragg, has just arrived with a message from his chief
to escort me round all the works, and wherever else I like to go,
without any reservation whatever. He is a handsome, well-built, slight
young fellow, very composed and staid in manner, but full of sentiment
for the South. Returned from a tour in Europe, he is all admiration for
English scenery, life, and habits. “After all, nature has been more
bountiful to you than to us.” He is dressed in a tight undress cavalry
jacket and trowsers of blue flannel, with plain gold lace pipings and
buttons, but on his heels are heavy brass spurs, worthy of the heaviest
of field officers. Our horses are standing in the shade of a large tree
near the wharf, and mine is equipped with a saddle of ponderous
brass-work, on raised pummel and cantle, and housings, and emblazoned
cloth, and mighty stirrups of brass fit for the stoutest marshal that
ever led an army of France to victory; General Braxton Bragg is longer
in the leg than Marshal Pelissier or Canrobert, or the writer, and as we
jogged along over the deep, hot sand, my kind companion, in spite of my
assurances that the leathers were quite comfortable, made himself and me
somewhat uneasy on the score of their adjustment, and, as there was no
implement at hand to make a hole, we turned into the General’s court
yard to effect the necessary alterations. The cry of “Orderly” brought
a smart, soldierly young man to the front, who speedily took me three
holes up, and as I was going away he touched his cap and said, “I beg
your pardon, Sir, but I often saw you in the Crimea.” His story as he
told it was brief. He had been in the 11th Hussars, and on the day of
the 25th of October he was following, as he said, close after Lord
Cardigan and Captain Nolan, when his horse was killed under him. As he
tried to make his escape, the Cossacks took him prisoner, and for eleven
months he was in captivity, but was exchanged at Odessa. “Why did you
leave the service?” “Well, Sir, I was one of the two sergeants that was
permitted to leave in each regiment on the close of the war, and I came
away.” “But here you are soldiering again?” “Yes, Sir; I came over here
to better myself, as I thought, and I had to enter one of their cavalry
regiments, but now I am an orderly.” He told me further, that his name
was Montague, and that he “thought his father lived near Windsor,
twenty-one miles from London;” and I was pleased to find his superior
officers spoke of him in very high terms, although I could have wished
those who spoke so were in our own service.
I do not think that any number of words can give a good idea of a long
line of detached batteries. I went through them all, and I certainly
found stronger reasons than ever for distrusting the extraordinary
statements which appear in the American journals in reference to
military matters, particularly on their own side of the question.
Instead of hundreds of guns, there are only ten. They are mostly of
small calibre, and the gun-carriages are old and unsound, or new and
rudely made. There are only five “heavy” guns in all the works, but the
mortar batteries, three in number, of which one is unfinished, will
prove very damaging, although they will only contain nine or ten
mortars. The batteries are all sand-bag and earthworks, with the
exception of Fort Barrancas. They are made after all sorts of ways, and
are of very different degrees of efficiency. In some the magazines will
come to speedy destruction; in others they are well made. Some are of
the finest white sand, and will blind the gunners, or be blown away with
shells; others are cramped, and hardly traversed; others, again, are
very spacious, and well constructed. The embrasures are usually made of
sand-bags, covered with raw hide, to save the cotton bags from the
effect of the fire of their own guns. I was amused to observe that most
of these works had galleries in the rear, generally in connection with
the magazine passages, which the constructors called “rat-holes,” and
which are intended as shelter to the men at the guns, in case of shells
falling inside the battery. They may prove to have a very different
result, and are certainly not so desirable in a military point of view
as good traverses. A rush for the “rat-holes” will not be very dignified
or improving to the _morale_ every time a bomb hurtles over them; and
assuredly the damage to the magazines will be enormous if the fire from
Pickens is accurate and well sustained. Several of the batteries were
not finished, and the men who ought to have been working were lying
under the shade of trees, sleeping or smoking--long-limbed, long-bearded
fellows in flannel shirts and slouched hats, uniformless in all save
bright, well-kept arms, and resolute purpose. We went along slowly from
one battery to the other. I visited nine altogether, not including Fort
Barrancas, and there are three others, among which is Fort M’Rae.
Perhaps there may be fifty guns of all sorts in position for about three
miles, along a line exceeding 136 deg. around Fort Pickens, the average
distance being about 1-1/3 mile. The mortar batteries are well placed
among brushwood, quite out of view to the fort, at distances varying
from 2,500 to 2,800 yards, and the mortars are generally of callibres
nearly corresponding with our 10-inch pieces. Several of the gun
batteries are put on the level of the beach; others have more command,
and one is particularly well placed, close to the White Lighthouse, on a
raised plateau, which dominates the sandy strip that runs out to Fort
M’Rae. Of the latter I have already spoken. Fort Barrancas is an old
fort--I believe of Spanish construction, with a very meagre trace--a
plain curtain-face toward the sea, protected by a dry ditch and an
outwork, in which, however, there are no guns. There is a drawbridge in
the rear of the work, which is a simple parallelogram, showing twelve
guns mounted _en barbette_ on the sea-face. The walls are of brick, and
the guns are protected by thick merlons of sand-bags. The sole advantage
of the fort is in its position; it almost looks down into the casemates
of Pickens opposite, at its weakest point, and it has a fair command of
the sea entrance, but the guns are weak, and there are only three pieces
mounted which can do much mischief. While I was looking round there was
an entertaining dispute going on between two men, whom I believe to
have been officers, as to the work to be done, and I heard the inferior
intimate pretty broadly his conviction that his chief did not know his
own business in reference to some orders he was conveying.
The amount of ammunition which I saw did not appear to me to be at all
sufficient for one day’s moderate firing, and many of the shot were
roughly cast and had deep flanges from the moulds in their sides, very
destructive to the guns as well as to accuracy. In the rear of these
batteries, among the pine woods and in deep brush, are three irregular
camps, which, to the best of my belief, could not contain more than
2,700 men. There are probably 3,000 in and about the batteries, the Navy
Yard, and the suburbs, and there are also, I am informed, 1,500 at
Pensacola, but I doubt exceedingly that there are as many as 8,000 men,
all told, of effective strength under the command of Gen. Bragg. It
would be a mistake to despise these Irregulars. One of the Mississippi
regiments out in camp was evidently composed of men who liked
campaigning, and who looked as though they would like fighting. They had
no particular uniforms--the remark will often be made--but they had
pugnacious physiognomies, and the physical means of carrying their
inclinations into effect, and every man of them was, I am informed,
familiar with the use of arms. Their tents are mostly small and bad, on
the ridge-pole pattern, with side flys to keep off the sun. In some
battalions they observe regularity of line, in others they follow
individual or company caprice. The men use green boughs and bowers, as
our poor fellows did in the old hot days in Bulgaria, and many of them
had benches and seats before their doors, and the luxury of boarded
floors to sleep upon.
There is an embarrassing custom in America, scarcely justifiable in any
code of good manners, which in the South at least is too common, and
which may be still more general in the North; at all events, to a
stranger it is productive of the annoyance which is experienced by one
who is obliged to inquire whether the behavior of those among whom he is
at the time is intentional rudeness or conventional want of breeding.
For instance, my friend and myself, as we are riding along, see a
gentleman standing near his battery or his tent--“Good-morrow, Colonel,”
or “General” (as the case may be), says my friend--“Good-morrow
(imagining military rank according to the notion possessed by speaker
of the importance of the position of a General’s A. D. C.), Ellis.”
“Colonel, &c., allow me to introduce to you Mr. Jones of London.” The
Colonel advances with effusion, holds out his hand, grasps Jones’s hand
rigidly, and says warmly, as if he had just gained a particular object
of his existence, “Mr. Jones, I am very glad to make your acquaintance,
Sir. Have you been pretty well since you have been in this country,
Sir?” &c. But it is most likely that the Colonel will just walk away
when he pleases, without saying a word to or taking the least notice of
the aforesaid Jones, as to whose acquaintance he had just before
expressed such friendly feelings, and in whose personal health he had
taken so deep an interest; and Jones, till he is accustomed to it, feels
affronted. The fact is, that the introduction means nothing; you are
merely told each other’s names, and if you like you may improve your
acquaintance. The hand shaking is a remnant of barbarous times, when men
with the same colored skin were glad to see each other.
The country through which we rode was most uninteresting, thick
brushwood and pine trees springing out of deep sand, here and there a
nullah and some dirty stream--all flat as ditchwater. On our return we
halted at the General’s quarters. I had left a note for him, in which I
inquired whether he would have any objection to my proceeding to Fort
Pickens from his command, in case I obtained permission to do so, and
when I entered General Bragg’s room he was engaged in writing not merely
a very courteous and complimentary expression of his acquiescence in my
visit, but letters of introduction to personal friends in Louisiana, in
the hope of rendering my sojourn more agreeable. He expressed a doubt
whether my comrades would be permitted to enter the fort, and talked
very freely with me in reference to what I had seen at the batteries,
but I thought I perceived an indication of some change of purpose with
respect to the immediate urgency of the attack on Fort Pickens, compared
with his expressions last night. At length I departed with many thanks
to General Bragg for his kindness and confidence, and returned to a room
full of Generals and Colonels, who made a levee of their visits.
On my return to the schooner I observed that the small houses on the
side of the long sandy beach were filled with men, many of whom were in
groups round the happy possessors of a newspaper, and listened with the
utmost interest to the excited delivery of the oracular sentences. How
much of the agony and bitterness of this conflict--nay, how much of its
existence--may be due to these same newspapers, no man can say, but I
have very decided opinions, or rather a very strong belief, on the
subject. There were still more people around the various bar-rooms than
were attracted even by the journalists. Two of our companions were on
board when I got back to the quay. The Mobile gentlemen had gone off to
Pensacola, and had not returned to time, and under any circumstances it
was not probable that they would be permitted to land, as undoubtedly
they were no friends to the garrison or to the cause of the United
States.
Our skipper opened his eyes and shook his rough head when he was ordered
to get under way for Fort Pickens, and to anchor off the jetty. Up went
the flag of truce to the fore once more, but the ever-watchful sentry,
diverted for the time from his superintendence of the men who were
fishing at our pier, forbade our departure till the corporal of the
guard had given leave, and the corporal of the guard would not let the
fair Diana cast off her warp till he had consulted the sergeant of the
guard, and so there was some delay occasioned by the necessity for
holding an interview with that functionary, who finally permitted the
captain to proceed on his way, and with a fair light breeze the schooner
fell round into the tideway and glided off towards the fort. We drew up
with it rapidly, and soon attracted the notice of the look-out men and
some officers who came down to the jetty.