During the third year of the War between the States, I was appointed
at the age of seventeen years purser of the blockade-running steamer
_North Heath_, under command of Captain Burroughs, who had successfully
run the blockade twelve times in charge of the Confederate steamer
_Cornubia_, later named _Lady Davis_, after the wife of the President.
I believe that under God, Captain Burroughs, by his fine qualities as
a cool and capable seaman, saved this ship from foundering at sea when
we ran into a hurricane shortly after our departure from St. George,
Bermuda, bound for Wilmington. For two days and nights we were in
imminent danger of our lives--tossed upon a raging sea, every man of
our crew of 48 except those at the wheel was lashed to the vessel,
while we bailed with buckets and the use of hand pumps the flooded
fireroom of our sinking vessel. For an entire night she wallowed
like a log in a trough of mountainous waves, which broke over us in
ever-increasing fury. I can never forget this frightful scene. It seems
photographed upon my memory in all its fearsome details.
The water had risen in our hold until every one of our fourteen
furnaces was extinguished. There was no steam to run our donkey
boilers and steam-power pumps. Lashed to one another, in the blackness
of darkness, relieved only by the intermittent flashes of lightning
which illuminated the giant waves towering around us and threatening
to overwhelm and sink the laboring, quivering fabric, we held on in
despair until morning, when we began to gain on the leaks until our
steam pumps could be used in relieving the boiler room, and our brave
captain got the ship under control. Then we succeeded in putting her
about and headed back to Bermuda.
The strain of this exposure resulted in an attack of fever, which
confined me to bed for a long time on shore, and Captain Burroughs
reluctantly left me behind when the ship was ready for sea. After
we repaired our badly damaged hull and machinery, the _North Heath_
proceeded again toward Wilmington, passing the blockading fleet safely.
When she was about to load cotton for the outward voyage, the Federal
expedition against Fort Fisher arrived off Cape Fear and presented
such a formidable appearance that the Confederate Government seized
the _North Heath_, loaded her with stone and sank her at a point below
Sunset Park where the river channel is narrow, as an obstruction to the
Federal fleet which subsequently captured Wilmington. For many years
after she was an obstruction to peaceful commerce, but the wreck was
finally removed by the River and Harbor Improvement Engineers.