The following extract from _Southern Historical Papers_, written about
the year 1890, by Colonel Lamb, the commander of Fort Fisher, gives a
glimpse of the social side of life at the fort during the War between
the States and of some of the distinguished gentlemen who were drawn
into this dangerous traffic by a love of adventure, by sentiment, or
by sympathy with the Confederate cause, and by the promise of large
profits for successful enterprises.
"In the fall of 1857 a lovely Puritan maiden, still in her teens, was
married in Grace Church, Providence, R.I., to a Virginia youth, just
passed his majority, who brought her to his home in Norfolk, a typical
ancestral homestead, where, beside the 'white folks,' there was quite
a colony of family servants, from the pickaninny just able to crawl to
the old gray-headed mammy who had nursed 'ole massa.' She soon became
enamoured of her surroundings and charmed with the devotion of her
colored maid, whose sole duty it was to wait upon her young missis.
When the John Brown raid burst upon the South and her husband was
ordered to Harpers Ferry, there was not a more indignant matron in all
Virginia, and when at last secession came, the South did not contain a
more enthusiastic little rebel.
"On the 15th of May, 1862, a few days after the surrender of Norfolk
to the Federals by her father-in-law, then mayor, amid the excitement
attending a captured city, her son Willie was born. Cut off from her
husband and subjected to the privations and annoyances incident to a
subjugated community, her father insisted upon her coming with her
children to his home in Providence; but, notwithstanding she was in
a luxurious home with all that paternal love could do for her, she
preferred to leave all these comforts to share with her husband the
dangers and privations of the South. She vainly tried to persuade
Stanton, Secretary of War, to let her and her three children with a
nurse return to the South; finally he consented to let her go by flag
of truce from Washington to City Point, but without a nurse, and as
she was unable to manage three little ones, she left the youngest
with his grandparents, and with two others bravely set out for Dixie.
The generous outfit of every description which was prepared for
the journey, and which was carried to the place of embarkation, was
ruthlessly cast aside by the inspectors on the wharf, and no tears or
entreaties or offers of reward by the parents availed to pass anything
save a scanty supply of clothing and other necessaries. Arriving in the
South, the brave young mother refused the proffer of a beautiful home
in Wilmington, the occupancy of the grand old colonial mansion Orton,
on the Cape Fear River, and insisted upon taking up her abode with her
children and their colored nurse in the upper room of a pilot's house,
where they lived until the soldiers of the garrison built her a cottage
one mile north of Fort Fisher, on the Atlantic Beach. In both of these
homes she was occasionally exposed to the shot and shell fired from
blockaders at belated blockade runners.
"It was a quaint abode, constructed in most primitive style, with
three rooms around one big chimney, in which North Carolina pine knots
supplied heat and light on winter nights. This cottage became historic,
and was famed for the frugal but tempting meals which its charming
hostess would prepare for her distinguished guests. Besides the many
illustrious Confederate Army and Navy officers who were delighted
to find this bit of sunshiny civilization on the wild sandy beach,
ensconced among the sand dunes and straggling pines and black-jack,
many celebrated English naval officers enjoyed its hospitality under
assumed names: Roberts, afterwards the renowned Hobart Pasha, who
commanded the Turkish Navy; Murray, now Admiral Murray-Aynsley, long
since retired after having been rapidly promoted for gallantry and
meritorious services in the British Navy; the brave but unfortunate
Hugh Burgoyne, V.C., who went down in the British ironclad _Captain_,
in the Bay of Biscay; and the chivalrous Hewett, who won the Victoria
Cross in the Crimea and was knighted for his services as ambassador to
King John of Abyssinia, and who, after commanding the Queen's yacht,
died lamented as Admiral Hewett. Besides these there were many genial
and gallant merchant captains, among them Halpin, who afterwards
commanded the _Great Eastern_ while laying ocean cables; and famous
war correspondents--Hon. Francis C. Lawley, M.P., correspondent of the
_London Times_, and Frank Vizetelly, of the _London Illustrated News_,
afterwards murdered in the Soudan. Nor must the plucky Tom Taylor be
forgotten, supercargo of the _Banshee_ and the _Night Hawk_, who, by
his coolness and daring escaped with a boat's crew from the hands of
the Federals after capture off the fort, and who was endeared to the
children as the Santa Claus of the war.
"At first the little Confederate was satisfied with pork and potatoes,
cornbread and rye coffee, with sorghum sweetening; but after the
blockade runners made her acquaintance the impoverished storeroom was
soon filled to overflowing, notwithstanding her heavy requisitions on
it for the post hospital, the sick and wounded soldiers and sailors
always being a subject of her tenderest solicitude, and often the
hard-worked and poorly fed colored hands blessed the little lady of the
cottage for a tempting treat.
"Full of stirring events were the two years passed in the cottage on
Confederate Point. The drowning of Mrs. Rose Greenhow, the famous
Confederate spy, off Fort Fisher, and the finding of her body, which
was tenderly cared for, and the rescue from the waves, half dead, of
Professor Holcombe, and his restoration, were incidents never to be
forgotten. Her fox hunting with horse and hounds, the narrow escapes
of friendly vessels, the fights over blockade runners driven ashore,
the execution of deserters, and the loss of an infant son, whose little
spirit went out with the tide one sad summer night, all contributed to
the reality of this romantic life.
"When Porter's fleet appeared off Fort Fisher, December, 1864, it
was storm bound for several days, and the little family with their
household goods were sent across the river to Orton before Butler's
powder ship blew up. After the Christmas victory over Porter and
Butler, the little heroine insisted upon coming back to her cottage,
although her husband had procured a home of refuge in Cumberland
County. General Whiting protested against her running the risk, for on
dark nights her husband could not leave the fort, but she said if the
firing became too hot she would run behind the sand hills as she had
done before, and come she would.
"The fleet reappeared unexpectedly on the night of the 12th of January,
1865. It was a dark night, and when the lights of the fleet were
reported her husband sent a courier to the cottage to instruct her to
pack up quickly and be prepared to leave with children and nurse as
soon as he could come to bid them good-bye. The garrison barge, with a
trusted crew, was stationed at Craig's Landing, near the cottage. After
midnight, when all necessary orders were given for the coming attack,
the colonel mounted his horse and rode to the cottage, but all was dark
and silent. He found the message had been delivered, but his brave
wife had been so undisturbed by the news that she had fallen asleep and
no preparations for a retreat had been made. Precious hours had been
lost, and as the fleet would soon be shelling the beach and her husband
have to return to the fort, he hurried them into the boat as soon as
dressed, with only what could be gathered up hastily, leaving dresses,
toys, and household articles to fall into the hands of the foe."
Mr. Thomas E. Taylor's description of the famous Englishmen referred to
is worth repeating:
"As my memory takes me back to those jovial but hard-working days of
camaraderie, it is melancholy to think how many of those friends have
gone before; Mrs. Murray-Aynsley, Mrs. Hobart and her husband, Hobart
Pasha; Hugh Burgoyne, one of the Navy's brightest ornaments, who was
drowned while commanding the ill-fated _Captain_; Hewett, who lately
gave up command of the Channel Fleet only to die; old Steele, the king
of blockade-running captains; Maurice Portman, an ex-diplomatist;
Frank Vizetelly, whose bones lie alongside those of Hicks Pasha in the
Soudan; Lewis Grant Watson, my brother agent; Arthur Doering, one of
my loyal lieutenants, and a host of old Confederate friends, are all
gone, and I could count on my fingers those remaining of a circle of
chums who did not know what care or fear was, and who would have stood
by each other through thick and thin in any emergency. In fact, my old
friends Admiral Murray-Aynsley and Frank Hurst are almost the only two
living of that companionship.
"Of Hobart Pasha and of the important part he played in the
Turko-Russian war and Cretan rebellion (in which he acknowledged that
his blockade-running experiences stood him in such good stead) most,
if not all my readers will have read or heard. He commanded a smart
little twin-screw steamer called the _Don_, in fact one of the first
twin-propeller steamers ever built. And very proud he was of his
craft, in which he made several successful runs under the assumed name
of Captain Roberts. On her first trip after Captain Roberts gave up
command in order to go home, the _Don_ was captured after a long chase,
and his late chief officer, who was then in charge, was assumed by his
captors to be Roberts. He maintained silence concerning the point, and
the Northern newspapers upon the arrival of the prize at Philadelphia
were full of the subject of the 'Capture of the _Don_ and the notorious
English naval officer, "Captain Roberts."' Much chagrined were they to
find they had got the wrong man, and that the English naval officer was
still at large.
"Poor Burgoyne, whose tragic and early end, owing to the capsizing of
the _Captain_, everybody deplored, as a blockade runner was not very
successful. If I remember correctly he made only two or three trips.
Had he lived he would have had a brilliant career before him in the
Navy; bravest of the brave, as is evidenced by the V.C. he wore, gentle
as a woman, unselfish to a fault, he might have saved his life if
he had thought more of himself and less of his men on that terrible
occasion off Finisterre, when his last words were, 'Look out for
yourselves, men; never mind me.'
"Then there was Hewett, another wearer of the 'cross for valor,' who
has only recently joined the majority, after a brilliant career as
admiral commanding in the East Indies, Red Sea, and Channel Fleet; who
successfully interviewed King John in Abyssinia, and was not content to
pace the deck of his flagship at Suakim, but insisted upon fighting in
the square at El Teb, and whose hospitality and geniality later on as
commander in chief of the Channel Fleet was proverbial.
"Murray-Aynsley, I rejoice to say, is still alive.[6] Who that knows
'old Murray' does not love him? Gentle as a child, brave as a lion,
a man without guile, he was perhaps the most successful of all the
naval blockade runners. In the _Venus_ he had many hairbreadth escapes,
notably on one occasion when he ran the gauntlet of the Northern fleet
in daylight into Wilmington. The _Venus_, hotly pursued by several
blockaders and pounded at by others, while she steamed straight through
them, old Murray on the bridge, with his coat sleeves hitched up almost
to his arm-pits--a trick he had when greatly excited--otherwise as cool
as possible, was, as Lamb afterwards told me, 'a sight never to be
forgotten.'"