In December we began to hear rumors that our brigade was to take part
in an expedition to the further South, and soon active preparations for
a movement were going on around us. The sick were sent North,
ammunition and other supplies were plentifully provided, transports
began to swing at anchor in the bay, and the 26th of the month we of
the Eleventh found ourselves sailing away on the old steamer Cahawba in
company with the 98th New York, General Naglee and staff, and the
brigade band, bound for Morehead City, where we arrived the first day
of January, 1863.
We had a stormy passage, especially off Cape Hatteras. Here we saw the
original Monitor in tow of the transport steamer Rhode-Island, passing
closely enough to them towards night to see the heavy seas washing over
the Monitor's low decks, to the evident discomfort of the bare-legged
seamen. Before morning the Monitor had gone down, but her crew was
saved by the Rhode-Island.
We landed at Morehead City and marched to Carolina City, a few miles
away, where we went into camp. The term city as applied to these and
other Southern places is usually mighty misleading. For example,
Carolina City consists even now of little more than a railroad depot,
and Morehead City is but a little larger.
Our brigade remained comfortably encamped at Carolina City for a few
weeks, our idea being that we were intended to form part of a force to
descend upon Wilmington.
And, when the Eleventh went on board the Cahawba again, this time in
company with the 104th Pennsylvania instead of the 98th New York, and
put to sea in company with a fleet of transports carrying our new
division, we thought that Wilmington was our objective point. General
Naglee, now the commander of the division our expedition consisted of,
was on board the Cahawba with his staff, as was Colonel Davis, now
again in command of our brigade, and his staff. We soon learned that we
were bound for Port Royal, S.C., and that to capture Charleston was the
object of our expedition.
But though we went on board the Cahawba the 20th day of January, it was
not till the afternoon of the 29th that we put to sea. We arrived at
Port Royal January 31st, and entering the harbor, found ourselves one
of a large and growing fleet of transports and gunboats. The 3d of
February we sailed up Port Royal Sound to Beaufort, where we landed
that the Cahawba might be cleaned, then reembarked on it the next day
and returned to Port Royal. We were not landed again for some days, and
the warm Southern sun operating on men as crowded together as we were,
without opportunity for exercise and proper cleanliness, was not
conducive to good health. Sickness cropped out, ship fever prevailed to
an alarming extent, and a number of the Eleventh died before the troops
were landed at St. Helena Island, which they were on the 10th of
February. Landing, our regiments went into camp, and winter as it was,
we found it necessary to cover our tents with an awning of palmetto
branches spread on a frame work of crotched uprights and cross sticks.
The health of the men improved rapidly. Their life was rather
monotonous--drill, dress parades, reviews by Major-General Hunter and
guard mountings taking up the time. The enemy was not near us, the
labyrinth of rivers and waterways surrounding the nest of Islands known
as Port Royal, enabling the light draught gunboats of the fleet to keep
them on the inland, well out of our way.
Captain Stanwood of D had resigned before now, its First Sergeant,
Brady, had been promoted to Second Lieutenant of Company G, and Second
Lieutenant Butler, of Company H, was made First Lieutenant of D, and
commanded the company.
The 4th day of April, the regiment, the 104th Pennsylvania, with
General Naglee, Colonel Davis, and their staffs again reembarked on the
old Cahawba, and the 5th sailed in a fleet for the North Edisto Inlet.
Anchoring in that now crowded roadstead, we waited the success of the
fleet's attack on Charleston, when the division was to land and march
on that city. But the fleet found the forts guarding Charleston Harbor
beyond their weight, so clearly so that as Admiral Ammen puts it, "even
the common sailors knew that Charleston could not be taken without a
protracted siege." The only thing left for us all to do, was to return
to Port Royal, which we did the 10th of April, the old Cahawba leaving
the swiftest of the fleet out of sight on the run, even sacrilegiously
running by the "Flag Ship" of our transport squadron, and entering Port
Royal while that seat of authority was still hull down.
It was our last cruise on the steamer Cahawba. Afflicted as it was with
the third plague of Egypt, it had been our home for so many days, had
borne us safely over such a stretch of water, in storm and calm, that
we had a rough affection for the stout old transport; and for Mr.
Davis, her second mate, too. We had heard the command from the
wheel-house so often of "Stand by your anchor, Mr. Davis," and the
hoarse return of that old mariner, "Ay, ay, Sir," that he seemed part
of the ship itself. As the regiment came alongside in a small steamer
to go on board the Cahawba, to take a part in this very expedition, and
our men saw the head of the rough old sailor peering over the side of
the Cahawba at them, what a yell of "Stand by your anchor, Mr. Davis,"
rang out of five hundred throats. I am sorry to have to state that
instead of the orthodox reply to this nautical command, Mr. Davis only
growled "There's that damned Eleventh Maine again." The Cahawba steamed
up the Sound to Beaufort with us the 11th of April, where the regiment
landed and went into camp.
Lieutenant Butler, who had been ill for a day or so, now grew worse
rapidly. His disease proved to be a malignant fever. He died April
14th. We buried him in the cemetery in Beaufort, with the military
honors due his rank. His grave was near that of another young officer,
one who had died in the Mexican war, and whose body had been brought
home to be buried. I remember that over the young South Carolinian's
grave stood a monument representing the trunk of a young palmetto tree,
its top broken off. Where Butler is buried I do not know, at his old
home, I hope; and if he sleeps under the marble representation of a
young, prematurely splintered pine tree, it is fitting. Young,
handsome, intelligent, respected and admired by his men, cut down at
his post in his years of high promise, wherever his grave is, it is
that of a true son of our old Pine Tree State.
Our sojourn at Beaufort was a pleasant one. The town, though now sadly
neglected, retained all its beauty of semi-tropical flowers and plants,
and, under a beautiful sky, in an enervating climate, we took lazy
comfort in our camp on the bank of the river. Besides a plentiful
supply of regular rations, the men of D were here regaled with luscious
blackberries. They grew abundantly in the neighborhood, and the negroes
were delighted to exchange quantities of them for our broken victuals.
We had a big Quartermaster's "fly" pitched for our company and a long
table built down the center of the space it covered, with benches
fitted on each side of it. And when the table was set for breakfast
with bright tin dishes--the men's plates and cups--with a ration of
good white bread by each plate that our own Prince Dunifer had baked
for us at the post bakery, with hot coffee in the cups, and mess-pans
filled with baked beans strewed along it, that table was a sight for a
hungry soldier. And at dinner, with boiled beef and rice in place of
the beans, it looked appetizing enough, too But at supper, with tea in
place of the coffee, and with each plate well filled with ripe
blackberries to eat with the white bread, and with dishes of brown army
sugar to pass around among the sweet-toothed, it bordered on the
luxurious. But where was the soldier that was ever satisfied with his
rations? Not in Company D, anyway. Under the leadership of one or two
past masters in the art, the men growled at even these rations until
the cooks threatened to reduce themselves to the ranks. This would not
do. The Articles of War didn't seem to cover the case, providing
neither shooting nor hanging for this particular offense. When, lo,
some one in authority had a bright thought. It was adopted, the cooks
returned to the ranks, and the leaders in the grumbling mutiny,
somewhat aghast, found themselves in charge of the cook house. They
were told that such excellent critics of cookery must needs be good
cooks, but the argument didn't hold good, though seemingly logical, for
they proved not to be good cooks; nay, they were the worst ones D ever
had. The men tried to swallow their discontent from very shame, but
they could not swallow the victuals. The discontent became an uproar,
with the result that the old cooks returned to the cook house, and if
the men of D grumbled thereafter beyond the wide latitude military
custom allows, they took good care to do so, as Corporal Annis used to
smoke, with their heads under their blankets.