think, been determined by the officer who was to have commanded the
_Macedonian_, the vessel chosen for that purpose. She was not the one
of that name captured in 1812 by the _United States_,--the only one of
our frigate captures brought into port,--but a successor to the title.
Before she went into commission, the first commander was detached to
service at the front; but no change was made in her destination, even
if any misgivings were felt. One of my fellow-officers at the Academy,
who was not going, remarked to me pleasantly that, if we fell in with
the _Alabama_, she would work round us like a cooper round a cask; an
encouraging simile to one who has looked upon that cheerful and much
one-sided performance. We were all too young--I, the senior
lieutenant, was but twenty-two--and too light-hearted to be troubled
with forebodings; and, indeed, there was in reason no adequate
inducement for the Confederate cruiser to alter her existing plans in
order to take the _Macedonian_. Had we come fairly in her way, to
gobble a large percentage of the Naval Academy might have been a
fairly humorous practical joke; but it could have been no more. I
remember Mr. Schuyler Colfax, afterwards Vice-President, then I think
a member of the House, being on board, and mentioning the subject to
me. "After all," he said, "I suppose it would scarcely do for one of
our vessels to be deterred from a cruise by regard for a Confederate
cruiser." Considering the disparity of advantage, due to steam, I
should say this would scarcely be a working theory, in naval life or
in private. Our military insignificance was our sufficient protection.
During my cruise in the _Congress_, a ship much heavier every way than
the _Macedonian_, the commander of one of our corvettes, substantially
of the _Alabama_ class, said to our captain, "I suppose, if I fell in
with you as an enemy, I ought to attack you." "Well," replied the
other, "if you didn't, you should pray not to have me on your
court-martial."
The officer originally designated to command the _Macedonian_ had been
very greatly concerned about the midshipmen's provisions: the quality
of which they should be, and the room to be kept for their stowage. I
wonder would his soul have been greatly vexed had he accompanied me
the first evening out, as I inspected the steerage while they were at
supper? "What!" shouted one of them to a servant, as I passed. "What!
No milk?" The mingled consternation, bereavement, and indignation
which struggled for full expression in the words beggar description. I
can see his face and hear his tones to this day. Laughable to comedy;
yet to a philosophizing turn of mind what an epitome of life! Do we
not at every corner of experience meet the princess who felt the
three hard peas under the fifty feather-beds? Sydney Smith's friend,
who had everything else life could give, but realized only the
disappointing view out of one of his windows? We might dispense with
Hague Conferences. War is going to cease because people adequately
civilized will not endure hardness. Whether in the end we shall have
cause to rejoice in the double event remains to be seen. The Asiatic
can endure.
Among the _Macedonian's_ lieutenants was the late Admiral Sampson. We
had also for deck officers two who had but just graduated; one of them
a young Frenchman belonging to the royal house of Orleans, who had
been permitted to take the course at our naval school, I presume with
a view on his part to possible contingencies recalling the monarchy to
France. Under Louis Philippe, a member of the family had been
prominent in the French navy, as the Prince de Joinville; and had
commanded the squadron which brought back the body of Napoleon from
St. Helena. The representative with us was a very good-tempered,
amiable, unpresuming man, too young as yet to be formed in character.
As messmates we were, of course, all on terms of cordial equality, and
one of our number used frequently to greet him with effusion as "You
old King." He spoke English easily, though scarcely fluently, and with
occasional eccentricity of idiom. At the Academy, before graduation,
he took his turn with others of his class as officer of the day, one
of whose duties was to keep a journal of happenings. I chanced once to
inspect this book, and found over his signature an entry which began,
"The weather was a dirty one."
While at the school, the young duke had been provided with a guide,
philosopher, and friend, in the person of an accomplished ex-officer
of the French navy, who had been obliged to quit that service, under
the Empire, because of his attachment to the exiled monarchy. I knew
this gentleman very well at Newport, exchanging with him occasional
visits, though he was much my senior in years. His name was Fauvel,
which the midshipmen, or other, had promptly Anglicized into Four
Bells--a nautical hour-stroke. I suppose this propensity to travesty
foreign or difficult names is not merely maritime; but naturally
enough my reading has brought me more in contact with it in connection
with naval matters. Thus the _Ville de Milan_, captured into the
British service, became to their seamen the "Wheel 'em along;" and the
_Bellerophon_, originally their own, is historically reported to have
passed current as the "Bully Ruffian." Captain Fauvel accompanied us
in the _Macedonian_; but after arriving in England, as we were to go
to Cherbourg, his charge and he left us, neither being _persona grata_
at that date in a French harbor. When we reached Cherbourg, Fauvel's
wife was there, either resident or for the moment, and at our
captain's invitation visited the ship to see where her husband had
been living, and would again be when we reached a more friendly port.
As contrary luck would have it, while she was on board, the French
admiral and the general commanding the troops came alongside to return
the official call paid them. The awkwardness, of course, was merely
that her presence obtruded the fact, otherwise easily and discreetly
ignored, that when out of French waters we were hospitably
entertaining persons politically distasteful to the French government,
the courtesies of which we were now accepting; and there was a
momentary impulse to keep her out of sight. A better judgment
prevailed, however, and a very courteous exchange of French politeness
ensued between the officials and the lady, to whom doubtless political
significance attached. A more notable circumstance, in the light of
the then future, was that during our few days in Cherbourg arrived the
news of the capture of the city of Mexico by the French troops; and
before our departure took place the official celebration, with flags
and salutes, of that crowning event in an enterprise which in the end
proved disastrous to its originator, and fatal to his protege,
Maximilian.
The _Macedonian_, for a sailing-vessel, had a quite rapid run across
from Newport to Plymouth, eighteen days from anchor to anchor, though
I believe one of our frigates, after the war, made it in twelve. This
was the only occasion, during my fairly numerous crossings, that. I
have ever seen icebergs under a brilliant sky. Usually the scoundrels
come skulking along masked by a fog, as though ashamed of themselves,
as they ought to be. They are among the most obnoxious of people who
do not know their place. This time we passed several, quite large,
having a light breeze and perfectly clear horizon. After that it again
set in thick, with the usual anxiety which ice, unseen but surely
near, cannot but cause. Finally we took a very heavy gale of wind,
which settled to southwest, hauling gradually to northwest and sending
us rejoicing on our way a thousand miles in four days, much of this
time under close-reefed topsails.
I am not heedless of the great danger of merely prosing along in the
telling of the days of youth, so I will shut off my experience of the
_Macedonian_ with an incident which amused me greatly at the time, and
still seems to have a moral that one needs not to point. While lying
at Spithead, a number of the midshipmen were sent ashore to visit the
dock yard,--professional improvement. When they returned, the
lieutenants in charge were full of the block-making processes. The
ingenuity of the machinery, the variety and beauty of the blocks, the
many excellences, had the changes rung upon them, meal after meal,
till I could hear the whir of the wheels in my head and see the chips
fly. Meantime, our captain went to London, having completed his
official visiting, and an English captain came on board to return a
call. Declining my invitation to enter the cabin, he walked up and
down the quarter-deck with me, discussing many things; under his arm
his sword. Suddenly he stopped short, and pointing with it to a big
iron-strapped leading-block, he said, "Now that is what I call a
sensible block; I wonder why it is we cannot get blocks like that in
our ships." I was not prepared with a reason for their defects, then
or since; but my unreadiness has not marred my enjoyment of these
divergent points of view. Perhaps the captain was a professional
malcontent; for, looking at a Parrott rifled hundred-pounder gun which
we carried on the quarter-deck, he said, interrogatively, "Not
breech-loading?" "No," I answered, "breech-loading is not in favor
with us at present." "And very right you are," he rejoined. I think
they then (1863) still had the Armstrong breech-loading system. This
incident may deserve a place in the palaeontology of gun-making. There
are now, I presume, no muzzle-loaders left; unless in museums, as
specimens.
Very shortly after the _Macedonian's_ return home I was sent to New
Orleans, for a ship on the Texas blockade; transportation being given
me on one of the "beef-boats," as the supply-vessels were familiarly
known. Among fellow-passengers was one of my class; for a while,
indeed, my room-mate at the Academy. When we reached New Orleans the
chief of staff said to me, "There is a vacancy on board the
_Monongahela_," a ship larger and in every way better than the
_Seminole_ to which I was ordered; moreover, she was lying off Mobile,
a sociable blockade, instead of at a jumping-off place, the end of
nowhere, Sabine Pass, where the _Seminole_ was. He advised me to apply
for her, which I did; but Commodore Bell, acting in Farragut's absence
in the North, declined. I must go to the ship to which the Department
had assigned me, and for which it doubtless had its reasons. So my
classmate was ordered to her instead, and on board her was killed in
the passage of the Mobile forts the following August. I can scarcely
claim a miraculous escape, as it does not appear that I should have
got in the way of the ball which finished him; but for him, poor
fellow, who had not been long married, the commodore's refusal to me
was a sentence of death.
I shall not attempt to furbish up any intellectual entertainment for
readers from the excessively dry bones of my subsequent blockading,
especially off the mouth of the Sabine. Only a French cook could
produce a passable dish out of such woful material; and even he would
require concomitant ingredients, in remembered incidents, wherein, if
there were any, my memory fails me. Day after day, day after day, we
lay inactive--roll, roll; not wholly ineffective, I suppose, for our
presence stopped blockade-running; but even in this respect the Texas
coast had largely lost importance since the capture of Vicksburg and
Port Hudson, the previous summer, had cut off the trans-Mississippi
region from the body of the Confederacy. We used to see the big,
light-draught steamers coming up the river, or crossing the
lagoon-like bay, sometimes crowded with people; and the possibility
was discussed of their carrying troops, and of their coming out to
attack us, as not long before had been successfully done against our
vessels _inside_ Galveston Bay. In a norther, possibly, such a thing
might have been tried, for the sea was then smooth; but in the
ordinary ground-swell I imagine the soldiers would have been
incapacitated by sea-sickness. The chances were all against success,
and no attempt was ever made; but it was something to talk about.
The ensuing twelve or fifteen months to the close of the war were
equally uneventful. Long before they ended I had got back to the South
Atlantic coast. To this I was indebted for the opportunity of being
present when the United States flag was ceremoniously hoisted again
over what then remained of Fort Sumter, by General Robert Anderson,
who, as Major Anderson, had been forced to lower it just four years
before. Henry Ward Beecher delivered the address, of which I remember
little, except that, citing the repeated question of foreigners, why
we should wish to re-establish our authority over a land where the one
desire of the people was to reject it, he replied, "We so wish,
because it is ours." The sentiment was obvious enough, one would
think, to any man who had a country to love and objected to seeing it
dismembered, but to many of our European critics it then seemed
monstrous in an American; at least they said so. The orator on such an
occasion has only to swim with the current. The enthusiasm is already
there; he needs not to elicit it. Here and again a blast of eloquence
from him may start the fire roaring, but the flame is already kindled.
The joy of harvest, the rejoicing of men who divide the spoil, the
boasting of them who can now put off their harness, need not the
stimulation of words.
The exact coincidence of raising the flag over Sumter on the
anniversary of its lowering was artificial, but the date of the
surrender of Charleston, February 18th, was just opportune to complete
the necessary arrangements and preparations without holding back the
ceremony, on the night of which--Good Friday--within twelve hours,
President Lincoln was murdered. Joy and grief were thus brought into
immediate and startling contrast. A perfectly natural and quite
impressive coincidence came under my notice in close connection with
these occurrences. I was at this time on the staff of Admiral
Dahlgren, commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron
during the last two years of the war, and accompanied him when he
entered Charleston Harbor, which he had so long assailed in vain. The
following Sunday I attended service at one of the Episcopal churches.
The appointed first lesson for the day, Quinquagesima, was from the
first chapter of Lamentations, beginning, "How doth the city sit
solitary, that was full of people!... She that was great among the
nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become
tributary!" Considering the conspicuous, and even leading, part played
by Charleston in the Southern movement, "the cradle of secession," her
initiation of hostilities, her long successful resistance, and her
recent subjugation, the words and their sequence were strikingly and
painfully applicable to her present condition; for the Confederate
troops in evacuating had started a large destruction of property, and
the Union forces on entering found public buildings, stores,
warehouses, private dwellings, and cotton, on fire--a scene of
distress to which some of them also further contributed.[11] I myself
remember streets littered with merchants' correspondence, a mute
witness to other devastation. My recollection is that the officiating
clergyman saw and dodged the too evident application, reading some
other chapter. Many still living may recall how apposite, though to a
different mood, was the first lesson of the Sunday--the third after
Easter--which in 1861 followed the surrender of Sumter and the excited
week that witnessed "the uprising of the North,"--Joel iii., v. 9:
"Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up the mighty
men, let all men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your
ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the
weak say, I am strong." I was not in the country myself at that time,
and my attention was first drawn to this in 1865 by a clergyman, who
told me of his startled astonishment upon opening the Book. In the
then public temper it must have thrilled every nerve among the
hearers, already strained to the uttermost by events without parallel
in the history of the nation.
Being on Dahlgren's staff gave me also the opportunity of seeing,
gathered together in social assembly, all the general officers who had
shared in the March to the Sea. This was at a reception given by
Sherman in Savannah, within a week after entering that city, which may
be considered the particular terminus of one stage in his progress
through the heart of the Confederacy. The admiral had gone thither in
a small steamer, which served as flag-ship, to greet the triumphant
chief. Few, if any, of the more conspicuous of Sherman's subordinates
were absent from the rooms, thronged with men whose names were then in
all mouths, and who in honor of the occasion had changed their
marching clothes for full uniform, rarely seen in campaign. From the
heads of the two armies, the union of which under him constituted his
force, down through the brigade commanders, all were there with their
staffs; and many besides. The tone of this gathering was more subdued
than at Fort Sumter, if equally exultant. Success, achievement, the
clear demonstration of victory, such as the occupation of Savannah
gave, uplifts men's hearts and swells their breasts; but these men had
worked off some of their heat in doing things. Besides, there yet
remained for them other and weighty things to do. It could be felt
sympathetically that with them the pervading sensation was
relaxation--repose. They had reached their present height by prolonged
labor and endurance, and were enjoying rather the momentary release
from strain than the intoxication of triumph.
In expectation of the victorious arrival of the army in Savannah, I
had been charged with two messages, in pathetic contrast with each
other. The first was from my father to Sherman himself, who twenty
years before had been under his teaching as a cadet at the Military
Academy. I cannot now recall whether I bore with me a letter of
congratulation which my father wrote him, and to which he pleasantly
replied that he had from it as much satisfaction as when in far-away
days he had been dismissed from the blackboard with the commendation,
"Very well done, Mr. Sherman." My reception by him, however, was in
the exact spirit of this remark, and characteristic of the man. When I
mentioned my name he broke into a smile--all over, as they say--shook
my hand forcibly, and exclaimed, "What, the son of old Dennis?"
reverting instinctively to the familiar epithet of school-days.
My other errand was to a former school-mate of my mother's, resident
in Savannah, with whom she had long maintained affectionate relations,
which the war necessarily suspended. The next day I sought her out.
When I found the house, she was at the door, in conversation with some
of the subordinate officials of the invading army, probably with
reference to the necessity of yielding rooms for quarters. The men
were perfectly respectful, but the situation was perturbing to a
middle-aged lady brought for the first time into contact with the
rough customs of war, and she was very pale, worried in look, and
harassed in speech; evidently quite doubtful as to what latent
possibilities of harm such a visit might portend--whether ultimately
she might not find herself houseless. I made myself known, but she was
not responsive; courteous, for with her breeding she could not be
otherwise, but too preoccupied with the harsh present to respond to
the gentler feelings of the past. It was touchingly apparent that she
was trying hard to keep a stiff upper lip, and her attempted frame of
mind finally betrayed itself in the words, uttered tremulously, with
excitement or mortification, "I don't admit yet that you have beaten
us." I could scarcely contest the point, but it was very sad. At the
moment I could almost have wished that we had not.
At the mouths of the Georgia rivers Sherman's soldiers struck
tide-water, many of them for the first time in their lives; and a
story was current that two, foraging, lay down to sleep by the edge of
a stream, and were astounded by waking to find themselves in the
water. To consider the tide, however, is an acquired habit. Sherman's
approach to the Atlantic had given rise to a certain amount of naval
and military activity on the part of the forces already stationed
there. In connection with this I had been sent on some staff errand
that caused me to spend a couple of days on board the _Pawnee_, which
had just been carrying about army officers for reconnoissances. "By
George!" said her captain, laughing and bringing down his fist on the
table, "you can't make those fellows understand that a ship has to
look out for the tide. I would say to them, 'See here, the tide is
running out, and if we don't move very soon we shall be left aground,
fast till next high-water.' 'Oh yes, yes,' they would reply, 'all
right'; and then they would forget all about it, and go on as if they
had unlimited time." But of course the captain did not forget.
The fall of Richmond and Charleston, and the surrender of Lee's army,
assuring the early termination of hostilities on any grand scale, the
admiral had kindly transferred me from his staff back to the ship on
board which I had joined the squadron a year before, and which was
soon to return North. War service, nominal at least, was not, however,
quite over; for after some brief repairs we were sent down to Haiti to
take up the duty of convoying the Pacific Mail steamers from the
Windward Passage (between Cuba and Haiti) some distance towards
Panama. It is perhaps worth recording that such an employment incident
to the war was maintained for quite a while, consequent upon the
capture of the _Ariel_, before mentioned. Upon my personal fortunes it
had the effect of producing a severe tropical fever, engendered
probably during the years of Southern service, and brought to a head
by the conditions of Haiti. Whatever its cause, this led to my being
invalided for six months, at the expiration of which, to my grievous
disappointment, I was again assigned to duty in the Gulf of Mexico.
The War of Secession then--December, 1865--was entirely over; but the
Mexican expedition of Napoleon III., the culminating incident of
which, the capture of Mexico, we had seen celebrated at Cherbourg in
1863, was still lingering. Begun in our despite, when our hands were
tied by intestine troubles, it now engaged our unfriendly interest;
and part of the attention paid to it was the maintenance of a
particular squadron in those waters--observant, if quiescent. Here
again sickness pursued, not me, but my ship; from the mouth of the Rio
Grande we returned to Pensacola, with near a hundred men, half the
ship's company, down with fever. It was not malignant--we had but
three deaths--but one of those was our only doctor, and we were sent
to the far North, and so out of commission, in September, 1866. The
particular squadron was continued till the following spring, when,
under diplomatic pressure, the French expedition was withdrawn; but by
then I was again in Rio de Janeiro on my way to China.
The headquarters of this temporary squadron was at Pensacola; but
until her unlucky visit to the Rio Grande my ship, the _Muscoota_, one
of the iron double-ender paddle steamers which the war had evolved
among other experiments, lay for some months at Key West, then, as
always from its position, a naval station of importance. I suppose
most people know that this word "Key," meaningless in its application
to the low islands which it designates, is the anglicized form of the
Spanish "Cayo." Among the valued acquaintances of my life I here met a
clergyman, whose death at the age of eighty I see as these words pass
from my pen. As chaplain to the garrison, he had won the esteem and
praise of many, including General Sherman, for his devotion during an
epidemic of yellow-fever, and he was now rector of the only Episcopal
parish. He told me an anecdote of one of his flock. Key West, from its
situation, had many of the characteristics of an outpost, a frontier
town, a mingling of peoples, with consequent rough habits, hard
drinking, and general dissipation. The man in question, a good fellow
in his way, professed to be a very strong churchman, and constantly so
avowed himself; but the bottle was too much for him. The rector
remonstrated. "----, how can you go round boasting yourself a
churchman when your life is so scandalous? You are doing the Church
harm, not good, by such talk." "Yes, Mr. Herrick," he replied, "I know
it's too bad; it is a shame; but, you see, all the same, I _am_ a good
churchman. I fight for the Church. If I hear a man say anything
against her, I knock him down." It was at Mr. Herrick's table I heard
criticised the local inadequacy of the prayer-book petition for rain.
"What we want," said the speaker, "is not 'moderate rain and showers,
that we may receive the fruits of the earth,' but a hard down-pour to
fill our tanks." Key West and its neighbors then depended chiefly, if
not solely, upon this resource for drinking-water.
IX
A ROUNDABOUT ROAD TO CHINA
1867