DOWN THE CHESAPEAKE.
Disappointed in the unlucky termination of my adventures afield, I now
looked ambitiously toward New York. As London stands to the provinces,
so stands the empire city to America. Its journals circulate by hundreds
of thousands; its means are only rivalled by its enterprise; it is the
end of every young American's aspiration, and the New Bohemia for the
restless, the brilliant, and the industrious. It seemed a great way off
when I first beheld it, but I did not therefore despair. Small matters
of news that I gathered in my modest city, obtained space in the columns
of the great metropolitan journal, the----. After a time I was delegated
to travel in search of special incidents, and finally, when the noted
Tennessee Unionist, "Parson" Brownlow, journeyed eastward, I joined his
_suite_, and accompanied him to New York. The dream of many months now
came to be realized. A correspondent on the ----'s staff had been
derelict, and I was appointed to his division. His horse, saddle,
field-glasses, blankets, and pistols were to be transferred, and I was
to proceed without delay to Fortress Monroe, to keep with the advancing
columns of McClellan.
At six in the morning I embarked; at eleven I was whirled through my own
city, without a glimpse of my friends; at three o'clock I dismounted at
Baltimore, and at five was gliding down the Patapsco, under the shadows
of Fort Federal Hill, and the white walls of Fort McHenry. The latter
defence is renowned for its gallant resistance to a British fleet in
1813, and the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was
written to commemorate that bombardment. Fort Carroll, a massive
structure of hewn stone, with arched bomb-proof and three tiers of
mounted ordnance, its smooth walls washed by the waves, and its
unfinished floors still ringing with the trowel and the adze,--lies some
miles below, at a narrow passage in the stream. Below, the shores
diverge, and at dusk we were fairly in the Chesapeake, under steam and
sail, speeding due southward.
The _Adelaide_ was one of a series of boats making daily trips between
Baltimore and Old Point. Fourteen hours were required to accomplish the
passage, and we were not to arrive till seven o'clock next morning. I
was so fortunate as to obtain a state-room, but many passengers were
obliged to sleep upon sofas or the cabin floor. These boats monopolized
the civil traffic between the North and the army, although they were
reputed to be owned and managed by Secessionists. None were allowed to
embark unless provided with Federal passes; but there were,
nevertheless, three or four hundred people on board. About one fourth of
these were officers and soldiers; one half sutlers, traders,
contractors, newsmen, and idle civilians, anxious to witness a battle,
or stroll over the fields of Big Bethel, Lee's Mills, Yorktown,
Gloucester, Williamsburg, or West Point; the rest were females on
missions of mercy, on visits to sons, brothers, and husbands, and on the
way to their homes at Norfolk, Suffolk, or Hampton. Some of these were
citizens of Richmond, who believed that the Federals would occupy the
city in a few days, and enable them to resume their professions and
homes. The lower decks were occupied by negroes. The boat was heavily
freighted, and among the parcels that littered the hold and steerage, I
noticed scores of box coffins for the removal of corpses from the field
to the North. There were quantities of spirits, consigned mainly to
Quartermasters, but evidently the property of certain Shylocks, who
watched the barrels greedily. An embalmer was also on board, with his
ghostly implements. He was a sallow man, shabbily attired, and appeared
to look at all the passengers as so many subjects for the development of
his art. He was called "Doctor" by his admirers, and conversed in the
blandest manner of the triumphs of his system.
"There are certain pretenders," he said, "who are at this moment
imposing upon the Government. I regret that it is necessary to repeat
it, but the fact exists that the Government is the prey of harpies. And
in the art of which I am an humble disciple,--that of injecting,
commonly called embalming,--the frauds are most deplorable. There was
Major Montague,--a splendid subject, I assure you,--a subject that any
_Professor_ would have beautifully preserved,--a subject that one
esteems it a favor to obtain,--a subject that I in particular would have
been proud to receive! But what were the circumstances? I do assure you
that a person named Wigwart,--who I have since ascertained to be a
veterinary butcher; in plain language, a doctor of horses and
asses,--imposed upon the relatives of the deceased, obtained the body,
and absolutely ruined it!--absolutely _mangled_ it! I may say,
shamefully disfigured it! He was a man, sir, six feet two,--about your
height, I think! (to a bystander.) About your weight, also! Indeed quite
like you! And allow me to say that, if you should fall into my hands, I
would leave your friends no cause for offence! (Here the bystander
trembled perceptibly, and I thought that the doctor was about to take
his life.) Well! _I_ should have operated thus:--"
Then followed a description of the process, narrated with horrible
circumstantiality. A fluid holding in solution pounded glass and certain
chemicals, was, by the doctor's "system," injected into the
bloodvessels, and the subject at the same time bled at the neck. The
body thus became hard and stony, and would retain its form for years. He
had, by his account, experimented for a lifetime, and said that little
"Willie," the son of President Lincoln, had been so preserved that his
fond parents must have enjoyed his decease.
It seemed to me that the late lamented practitioners, Messrs. Burke and
Hare, were likely to fade into insignificance, beside this new light of
science.
I went upon deck for some moments, and marked the beating of the waves;
the glitter of sea-lights pulsing on the ripples; the sweep of belated
gulls through the creaking rigging; the dark hull of a passing vessel
with a grinning topmast lantern; the vigilant pilot, whose eyes glared
like a fiend's upon the waste of blackness; the foam that the panting
screw threw against the cabin windows; the flap of fishes caught in the
threads of moonlight; the depths over which one bent, peering half
wistfully, half abstractedly, almost crazily, till he longed to drop
into their coolness, and let the volumes of billow roll musically above
him.
A woman approached me, as I stood against the great anchor, thus
absorbed. She had a pale, thin face, and was scantily clothed, and spoke
with a distrustful, timorous voice:--
"You don't know the name of the surgeon-general, do you sir!"
"At Washington, ma'am?"
"No, sir; at Old Point."
I offered to inquire of the Captain: but she stopped me, agitatedly.
"It's of no consequence," she said,--"that is, it is of great
consequence to me; but perhaps it would be best to wait." I answered, as
obligingly as I could, that any service on my part would be cheerfully
rendered.
"The fact is, sir," she said, after a pause, "I am going to
Williamsburg, to--find--the--the body--of my--boy."
Here her speech was broken, and she put a thin, white hand tremulously
to her eyes. I thought that any person in the Federal service would
willingly assist her, and said so.
"He was not a Federal soldier, sir. He was a Confederate!"
This considerably altered the chances of success, and I was obliged to
undeceive her somewhat. "I am sure it was not my fault," she continued,
"that he joined the Rebellion. You don't think they'll refuse to let me
take his bones to Baltimore, do you, sir? He was my oldest boy, and his
brother, my second son, was killed at Ball's Bluff: _He_ was in the
Federal service. I hardly think they will refuse me the poor favor of
laying them in the same grave."
I spoke of the difficulty of recognition, of the remoteness of the
field, and of the expense attending the recovery of any remains,
particularly those of the enemy, that, left hastily behind in retreat,
were commonly buried in trenches without headboard or record. She said,
sadly, that she had very little money, and that she could barely afford
the journey to the Fortress and return. But she esteemed her means well
invested if her object could be attained.
"They were both brave boys, sir; but I could never get them to agree
politically. William was a Northerner by education, and took up with the
New England views, and James was in business at Richmond when the war
commenced. So he joined the Southern army. It's a sad thing to know that
one's children died enemies, isn't it? And what troubles me more than
all, sir, is that James was at Ball's Bluff where his brother fell. It
makes me shudder to think, sometimes, that his might have been the ball
that killed him."
The tremor of the poor creature here was painful to behold. I spoke
soothingly and encouragingly, but with a presentiment that she must be
disappointed. While I was speaking the supper-bell rang, and I proposed
to get her a seat at the table.
"No, thank you," she replied, "I shall take no meals on the vessel; I
must travel economically, and have prepared some lunch that will serve
me. Good by, sir!"
Poor mothers looking for dead sons! God help them! I have met them often
since; but the figure of that pale, frail creature flitting about the
open deck,--alone, hungry, very poor,--troubles me still, as I write. I
found, afterward, that she had denied herself a state-room, and intended
to sleep in a saloon chair. I persuaded her to accept my berth, but a
German, who occupied the same apartment, was unwilling to relinquish his
bed, and I had the power only to give her my pillow.
Supper was spread in the forecabin, and at the signal to assemble the
men rushed to the tables like as many beasts of prey. A captain opposite
me bolted a whole mackerel in a twinkling, and spread the half-pound of
butter that was to serve the entire vicinity upon a single slice of
bread. A sutler beside me reached his fork across my neck, and plucked a
young chicken bodily, which he ate, to the great disgust of some others
who were eyeing it. The waiter advanced with some steak, but before he
reached the table, a couple of Zouaves dragged it from the tray, and
laughed brutally at their success. The motion of the vessel caused a
general unsteadiness, and it was absolutely dangerous to move one's
coffee to his lips. The inveterate hate with which corporations are
regarded in America was here evidenced by a general desire to empty the
ship's larder.
"Eat all you can," said a soldier, ferociously,--"fare's amazin' high.
Must make it out in grub."
"I always gorges," said another, "on a railroad or a steamboat. Cause
why? You must eat out your passage, you know!"
Among the passengers were a young officer and his bride. They had been
married only a few days, and she had obtained permission to accompany
him to Old Point. Very pretty, she seemed, in her travelling hat and
flowing robes; and he wore a handsome new uniform with prodigious
shoulder-bars. There was a piano in the saloon, where another young lady
of the party performed during the evening, and the bride and groom
accompanied her with a song. It was the popular Federal parody of "Gay
and Happy:"
"Then let the South fling aloft what it will,--
We are for the Union still!
For the Union! For the Union!
We are for the Union still!"
The bride and groom sang alternate stanzas, and the concourse of
soldiers, civilians, and females swelled the chorus. The reserve being
thus broken, the young officer sang the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the
refrain must have called up the mermaids. Dancing ensued, and a soldier
volunteered a hornpipe. A young man with an astonishing compass of lungs
repeated something from Shakespeare, and the night passed by gleefully
and reputably. One could hardly realize, in the cheerful eyes and active
figures of the dance, the sad uncertainties of the time. Youth trips
lightest, somehow, on the brink of the grave.
The hilarities of the evening so influenced the German quartered with
me, that he sang snatches of foreign ballads during most of the night,
and obliged me, at last, to call the steward and insist upon his good
behavior.
In the gray of the morning I ventured on deck, and, following the
silvery line of beach, made out the shipping at anchor in Hampton Roads.
The _Minnesota_ flag-ship lay across the horizon, and after a time I
remarked the low walls and black derricks of the Rip Raps. The white
tents at Hampton were then revealed, and finally I distinguished
Fortress Monroe, the key of the Chesapeake, bristling with guns, and
floating the Federal flag. As we rounded to off the quay, I studied with
intense interest the scene of so many historic events. Sewall's Point
lay to the south, a stretch of woody beach, around whose western tip
the dreaded _Merrimac_ had so often moved slowly to the encounter. The
spars of the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_ still floated along the
strand, but, like them, the invulnerable monster had become the prey of
the waves. The guns of the Rip Raps and the terrible broadsides of the
Federal gunboats, had swept the Confederates from Sewall's Point,--their
flag and battery were gone,--and farther seaward, at Willoughby Spit,
some figures upon the beach marked the route of the victorious Federals
to the city of Norfolk.
The mouth of the James and the York were visible from the deck, and long
lines of shipping stretched from each to the Fortress. The quay itself
was like the pool in the Thames, a mass of spars, smoke-stacks, ensigns
and swelling hills. The low deck and quaint cupola of the famous
_Monitor_ appeared close into shore, and near at hand rose the thick
body of the _Galena_. Long boats and flat boats went hither and thither
across the blue waves: the grim ports of the men of war were open and
the guns frowned darkly from their coverts; the seamen were gathering
for muster on the flagship, and drums beat from the barracks on shore;
the Lincoln gun, a fearful piece of ordnance, rose like the Sphynx from
the Fortress sands, and the sodded parapet, the winding stone walls, the
tops of the brick quarters within the Fort, were some of the features of
a strangely animated scene, that has yet to be perpetuated upon canvas,
and made historic.
At eight o'clock the passengers were allowed to land, and a provost
guard marched them to the Hygeia House,--of old a watering-place
hotel,--where, by groups, they were ushered into a small room, and the
oath of allegiance administered to them. The young officer who
officiated, repeated the words of the oath, with a broad grin upon his
face, and the passengers were required to assent by word and by gesture.
Among those who took the oath in this way, was a very old sailor, who
had been in the Federal service for the better part of his life, and
whose five sons were now in the army. He called "Amen" very loudly and
fervently, and there was some perceptible disposition on the part of
other ardent patriots, to celebrate the occasion with three cheers. The
quartermaster, stationed at the Fortress gave me a pass to go by steamer
up the York to White House, and as there were three hours to elapse
before departure, I strolled about the place with our agent. In times of
peace, Old Point was simply a stone fortification, and one of the
strongest of its kind in the world. Many years and many millions of
dollars were required to build it, but it was, in general, feebly
garrisoned, and was, altogether, a stupid, tedious locality, except in
the bathing months, when the beauty and fashion of Virginia resorted to
its hotel. A few cottages had grown up around it, tenanted only in "the
season;" and a little way off, on the mainland, stood the pretty village
of Hampton.
By a strange oversight, the South failed to seize Fortress Monroe at the
beginning of the Rebellion; the Federals soon made it the basis for
their armies and a leading naval station. The battle of Big Bethel was
one of the first occurrences in the vicinity. Then the dwellings of
Hampton were burned and its people exiled. In rapid succession followed
the naval battles in the Roads, the siege and surrender of Yorktown, the
flight of the Confederates up the Peninsula to Richmond, and finally the
battles of Williamsburg, and West Point, and the capture of Norfolk.
These things had already transpired; it was now the month of May; and
the victorious army, following up its vantages, had pursued the
fugitives by land and water to "White House," at the head of navigation
on the Pamunkey river. Thither it was my lot to go, and witness the
turning-point of their fortunes, and their subsequent calamity and
repulse.
I found Old Point a weary place of resort, even in the busy era of civil
war. The bar at the Hygeia House was beset with thirsty and idle
people, who swore instinctively, and drank raw spirits passionately. The
quantity of shell, ball, ordnance, camp equipage, and war munitions of
every description piled around the fort, was marvellously great. It
seemed to me that Xerxes, the first Napoleon, or the greediest of
conquerors, ancient or modern, would have beheld with amazement the
gigantic preparations at command of the Federal Government. Energy and
enterprise displayed their implements of death on every hand. One was
startled at the prodigal outlay of means, and the reckless summoning of
men. I looked at the starred and striped ensign that flaunted above the
Fort, and thought of Madame Roland's appeal to the statue by the
guillotine.
The settlers were numbered by regiments here. Their places of business
were mainly structures or "shanties" of rough plank, and most of them
were the owners of sloops, or schooners, for the transportation of
freight from New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, to their depots at
Old Point. Some possessed a dozen wagons, that plied regularly between
these stores and camps. The traffic was not confined to men; for women
and children kept pace with the army, trading in every possible article
of necessity or luxury. For these--disciples of the dime and the
dollar--war had no terrors. They took their muck-rakes, like the man in
Bunyan, and gathered the almighty coppers, from the pestilential camp
and the reeking battle-field.