Recollections of a Rebel Reefer. I

JANUARY, 1917

BY JAMES MORRIS MORGAN

FROM the southern twilight of my early childhood memories there blazes out the recollection of a tragedy which, time and again, returns to trouble the dreams of my old age. I was an eyewitness of the blowing up and destruction by fire of the Princess, the finest steamboat on the Mississippi in those days. The night before the disaster my father and mother had kissed me goodbye and gone on board of an old dismantled steamboat, which answered the purposes of a wharf, to await the arrival of the Princess, as they intended to take passage on her for New Orleans. Early the next morning I went down to the river to find out if they had yet left. The Princess had just drawn out into the stream, and as I stood watching her as she glided down the river, a great column of white smoke suddenly went up from her and she burst into flames. She was loaded with cotton. As though by magic the inhabitants of the town gathered at the riverside, and in the crowd I spied my brother-in-law, Charles La Noue, in a buggy. He called to me. I jumped in alongside him and we dashed down the river road in the direction of the burning boat. The road was rough and the horse was fast. The high levee on our right shut out the view of the river so that we could see only the great column of smoke. On our left were the endless fields of sugar-cane, with an occasional glimpse of a planter’s house set in a grove of pecan trees.

At last, in a great state of excitement, we arrived at the plantation of Mr. Conrad. ‘Brother Charlie’ jumped out of the vehicle and ran toward the house, while I made the horse fast to a tree. I then mounted the levee, from where I could see floating bales with people on them; men in skiffs, from both sides of the river, were rescuing the poor terror-stricken creatures, bringing them ashore. From the levee I rushed into the park in front of Mr. Conrad’s residence, and there saw a sight which can never be effaced from my memory. Mr. Conrad had had sheets laid on the ground amid the trees, and barrels of flour were broken open and the contents poured over the sheets. As fast as the burned and scalded people were pulled out of the river they were seized by the slaves, and, while screaming and shrieking with pain and fright, they were forcibly thrown down on the sheets and rolled in the flour. The clothes had been burned off of many of them. Some, in their agony, could not lie still, and, with the white sheets wrapped round them, looking like ghosts, they danced a wild hornpipe while filling the air with their screams. Terrified by the awful and uncanny scene, I hid behind a huge tree, so that I should not see it, but no tree could prevent me from hearing those awful cries and curses, which echo in my ears even now.

Suddenly, to my horror, one of the white spectres, wrapped in a sheet, his disfigured face plastered with flour, staggered toward my hiding-place, and before I could run away from the hideous object, it extended its arms toward me and quietly said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Jimmie. It is me, Mr. Cheatham. I am dying, — hold my hand! ’ And he sank on the turf beside me. Although dreadfully frightened, I managed between sobs to ask the question uppermost in my mind: ‘Can you tell me where I can find my father and mother?’ The ghostlike man replied with a cry which seemed to wrench his soul from his body, shivered for an instant, and then lay still. A slave passing by pointed to the body and casually remarked, ‘He done dead.’

A Creole negro woman then came running toward me; she was stout and almost out of breath, but was still able to shout out to me in her native patois: ‘ Mo cherche pour toi partout; M’sieur La Noue dit que to vinit toute suite!’

When I found Brother Charlie, he was ministering to the maimed, but found time to tell me that my parents had taken another boat, and thereby had saved their lives. I returned at once to my home, where I was comforted in the strong arms of Katish, my old black nurse.

[These vivid leaves, taken at random from the first chapters of Colonel Morgan’s memoirs, set the pace, so to speak, fora life-record of adventure that stands out even in these days, when our ability to react to the prodigies of modern warfare is almost exhausted.

James Morris Morgan, as he tells us in the earlier pages of his recollections, was born in New Orleans in 1845 — the spoiled youngest child of a large family which, when the great decision of 1860 came, was divided against itself. Willful and high-spirited, his first education was drawn largely from the racing stables of his relatives, on whose great plantations he ran wild until, at fourteen, he was offered an appointment as midshipman at Annapolis. The possibilities of a roving sea-life made an instant appeal to him, and, after much trial and tribulation, he squeezed past the examining board into the Naval Academy, where he found himself aboard the school-ship Constitution, with a number of boys as green as himself. Among these were Charles S. Clark, who brought the Oregon round South America during the Spanish War; Robley D. Evans, better known later as ‘Fighting Bob’; Sigsbee, of the Maine tragedy in Havana harbor; Gridley, commander of Dewey’s flagship at Manila Bay, and others of equal note. Young Morgan was in the midst of his training when the war broke out — but here he takes up his own story.]

I

By the end of 1860 a dark cloud had settled over our spirits and we no longer spent our few moments of leisure in skylarking, but, instead, discussed the burning question of secession. We did not know anything about its merits, but conceived the idea that each state was to compose a separate nation. Harry Taylor, afterwards rear-admiral, who was from the District of Columbia, said that he was going with New York because that state had more commerce than any other one, and necessarily would have the biggest navy. He was promptly called down by being informed that no one would be allowed to join any state except the one he was born in, and he was further humiliated by a much-traveled boy who asserted that he had been in Washington, and that the District of Columbia had only one little steamboat out of which to make a navy, and that one ran between Washington and Acquia Creek, and she was rotten. Personally, I was insulted by being informed that Louisiana had been purchased by the money of the other states just as a man buys a farm, and that, therefore, she had no right to secede. This was said in retort after I had made the boast that by rights many of the states belonged to Louisiana. So the wrangle went on day after day, until the news came that South Carolina had in reality seceded, and the boys from that state promptly resigned and went home. Then followed the news of the firing on Fort Sumter. The rest of the lads from the South resigned as rapidly as they could get permission from home to do so — I among the rest.

I passed over the side of the old Constitution and out of the United States Navy, with a big lump in my throat, which I vainly endeavored to swallow, for I had many very dear friends among the northern boys — in fact, affectionate friendships, some interrupted by death but a few others which have lasted for more than half a century. To my surprise, my captain, George Rodgers, accompanied me ashore and to the railway station, telling me, as I walked beside him, that the trouble would end in a few weeks, and that I had made a great mistake, but that even then it was not too late if I would ask to withdraw my resignation.

As we passed through the old gate opening into the town, — the gate which I was not to pass through again until my head was white, fifty years afterwards, — and walked along the street, Captain Rodgers kindly took my hand in his, and then for the first time I realized that I was no longer in the navy, but only a very unhappy little boy. But the Confederacy was calling me, and I marched firmly on. The call seemed much louder at Annapolis than it did after I reached my native land.

At that time I was very small for my age (fifteen), so small, in fact, that I was dubbed ‘Little’ Morgan, which nickname has stuck to me to this day despite my five feet nine and a quarter inches in height and over two hundred pounds weight. With as much dignity as my size at the time would permit of my assuming, I took my seat in the car and started for Washington. Then I commenced to size up the situation. I had only twelve dollars, all the pay that was due me when I resigned, and there was a thousand miles for me to travel to reach my home; but what worried me most was the fear that the authorities would arrest me if they found out that I proposed to offer my services to the Southern Confederacy. I had no civilian togs, but I had taken the gold anchors off my collar, on which they had left dark imprints, and put blue velvet covers, fastened by elastics, over the brass buttons of my jacket. This, with the glazed cover of my cap to hide the silver anchor which adorned its front, constituted my disguise, which I felt sure would be sufficient to enable me to slip through the enemy’s capital without recognition. I was just beginning to feel comfortable when a motherly-looking old lady on the opposite seat disturbed my equanimity by asking me in a loud voice if I was ‘one of those little Naval Academy boys who were going South.’ That woman surely had the making of a Sherlock Holmes in her.

I had not an idea as to what I would have to do to reach home after I arrived in Washington; so, to throw the minions of Abraham Lincoln further off my trail, I went straight to the house of Captain Henry Maynadier, U.S.A., an ardent Union man who had married one of my first cousins. I told him that I wanted to get home and had no money, and then, washing my hands of all responsibility, left the rest for him to do. He did it. He obtained a permit for himself and me to pass through the lines, and, hiring a hack, we started on our adventure.

The Union pickets held the Long Bridge; half a mile below, on the Alexandria road, were posted the Confederate sentries. Of course, with the permit, we had no difficulty in crossing the bridge; but before we had proceeded very far on the road a man with a gun jumped out of the bushes and ordered us to halt. The fellow was an Irishman who had formerly done chores at Captain Maynadier’s house in Washington, and, of course, he instantly recognized him, at the same time crying out gleefully, ‘Begorra! we’ll whip those dirty nigger-loving Yanks now that you are coming with us!’

The captain said a few pleasant words to him, told him that I was going South, and asked him to see that I did not miss my way to Alexandria where I was to catch the train. He also told me to jump out quickly and ordered the driver to turn around. I had hardly reached the ground when the driver put whip to his horses and the astounded picket, recovering from his astonishment, raised his gun. I begged him not to shoot, assuring him that Captain Maynadier was coming South later. He did — with Sherman! This occurred in the latter part of April. In November of that year, Captain Maynadier and I were shooting at each other at Island No. 10 on the Mississippi.

Arriving at the railway station in Alexandria, I found a great crowd wildly cheering ex-Senator Wigfall, who was a volunteer aide on General Beauregard’s staff and who had received the sword of Major Anderson when Fort Sumter surrendered. Wigfall stood on the rear platform of a car, bowing his appreciation of the enthusiasm. I found an unoccupied seat on the train and was making myself comfortable, when a big, broad-shouldered, stumpy man waddled up to where I sat, and said, ‘Sonny, as you are so small and I am so large, I think we will make a good fit for this narrow seat’; and, without further ado, he seated himself beside me, first asking me to move so he could have the place by the window.

The train started amid wild cheers for Wigfall, the hero of the hour, and at every station where we stopped crowds were gathered, demanding a speech from the great man. The stout fellow with the short legs who was seated beside me apparently took no interest in the proceedings and seemed engrossed by his own thoughts. It was some time after dark when we arrived at Lynchburg, Virginia, where the largest crowd we had yet seen was waiting for the train. Many of the men bore torches, but they were not cheering for Wigfall; they seemed to be in an ugly humor about something. Suddenly there were cries of ‘Hang the traitor! Here is a rope! Bring him out!’ as the maddened mob fairly swirled about the car. A man burst through the door, rushed up the aisle to where I sat, and said to my neighbor, ‘Are you Andy Johnson?’

‘ I am Mr. Johnson,’ replied the stout gentleman.

‘Well,’ said the stranger, ‘I want to pull your nose!’ and he made a grab for Mr. Johnson’s face.

The latter brushed the man’s hand aside, at the same time jumping to his feet. There followed a scuffle for a few seconds, and poor little me, being between the combatants, got much the worst of it.

The crime for which they wanted to lynch Mr. Johnson was the fact that he was reported to be on his way to Tennessee for the purpose of preventing that state from seceding. Mr. Wigfall came up to Mr. Johnson and asked him to go out on the platform with him. Wigfall at once addressed the mob and urged them to give Mr. Johnson a hearing, which they did. The latter commenced his speech by saying, ‘I am a Union man!’ and he talked to them until the train moved off, holding their attention as though they were spellbound. His last words were, ‘I am a Union man!’ — and the last cry we heard from the crowd was, ‘ Hang him! ’

On relating the foregoing incident to Mr. George A. Trenholm, then Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, I expressed the opinion that it was one of the greatest exhibitions of courage I had ever witnessed; but Mr. Trenholm cast a damper on my enthusiasm by saying, ‘My son, I have known Mr. Johnson since we were young men. He rode into prominence on the shoulders of just such a mob as you saw at Lynchburg, and no man knows how to handle such a crowd better than Mr. Johnson. Had he weakened, they probably would have hung him.’

It was the same Andrew Johnson, afterwards President of the United States, who granted Mr. Trenholm amnesty and a pardon in 1866.

II

Continuing my journey, I at last arrived at Montgomery, Alabama, capital of the Confederate States. My fears that the war would be over before I got there were somewhat allayed, for I had been told positively that it would not last six weeks before the South finished it victoriously. I found the new capital in a ferment of excitement. Nobody seemed to know exactly what it was about, but it was the fashion to be excited. From every house containing a piano the soul-stirring strains of the Marseillaise floated out of open windows. At the hotel where I stopped, champagne flowed like water. The big parlor was crowded with men dressed in uniforms designed to the taste of the wearer, so that it looked like a gathering for a fancy-dress ball. On the chairs and window-sills were bottles of wine and glasses, while at the piano sat a burly German who, of course, crashed out the everlasting Marseillaise while his enthusiastic audience sang it. A more ridiculous sight than a lot of native-born Americans, not understanding a word of French, beating their breasts as they howled what they flattered themselves were the words of the song, it was never before my bad fortune to witness.

There was a moment’s halt in the music while some one made a war speech. The tired and sweating German musician took advantage of the respite to get a little air also, and, as he stood beside me, I heard him mutter, ‘Dom the Marseillaise!’

The morning after my arrival, I went to the Capitol to offer my services, and the sword I intended to buy, to the government. There were numbers of employees rushing about the building in a great state of excitement, but with nothing to do. None of them could tell me where I could find the Secretary of the Navy. At last I ran across an intelligent official who informed me that ‘There warn’t no such person.’ It appeared to be the custom of the attachés, when in doubt, to refer the stranger to Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, the ‘Pooh Bah’ of the Confederate government, then Secretary of State. He informed me that there was not as yet any Confederate Navy, and further humiliated me by calling me ‘sonny.’ However, he was very kind and took me into the private office of President Jefferson Davis, who was kindness personified and told me to go home and tell my parents that, as soon as the government established a Naval School, I should have one of the first appointments. I left the presence of the great man crestfallen and convinced that the Confederacy was doomed. I had come to fight, not to go to school. I had just left the greatest naval school in the world — and here the best they could offer me was a place in some makeshift academy to be erected in the dim future! I felt that I had been deceived and badly treated, and I mentally comforted myself with the assurance that I knew more about drill and tactics than the whole mob of civilian generals and colonels who thronged the Capitol’s corridors. But Mr. Davis did not know this.

I was a full-blown pessimist by the time I reached my hotel, where I was greeted by the sounds of the everlasting ‘Enfants de la patrie,’ being hiccoughed as usual in the parlor; and for the rest of the day I iterated and reiterated the German’s prayer, ‘ Dom the Marseillaise!’

The only way to get from Montgomery to Mobile was by steamboat; and all the boats had been seized by the government for the transportation of troops. After much urging, the captain of one of the transports, as a favor, allowed me to pay for my passage to Mobile on condition that I would sleep on the deck, if I could find a place, and supply my own provisions. The boat would start when he received orders, but he did not know when that would be. A two days’ wait followed, during which I stayed on the boat so as to be sure that I would not be left and consequently lose the price of my passage. That was important, as my finances were running low. Confederate money had not yet made its appearance, and gold was even then being hoarded. I had already lost quite a sum exchanging one state’s money for another, as even the paper money issued in one county did not pass at par in the next (if accepted at all); but everybody was jubilant over the fact that the Confederate Congress had appropriated fifteen millions of dollars to carry the war on to a successful termination.

Finally, after endless delay, a swarm of volunteers took possession of the boat and we were off. The transport carried no guns, but she was armed with an instrument of torture called a ‘calliope,’ or steam piano, and as she backed out into the river it broke loose, shrieking an imitation of the Marseillaise, which, with few intermissions, was kept up during the two days and nights it took us to reach Mobile. When the calliope did stop, it was very soothing to hear the negro deck-hands break into song with their tuneful melodies.

The volunteers were composed of fresh youthful-looking men, and almost every one of them was accompanied by a ‘ body servant,’ as negro valets were called in the South. They were also accompanied by a great number of baskets of champagne and boxes of brandy. Few aristocrats in those days ever drank whiskey, which was supposed to be a vulgar tipple. They also had huge hampers containing roasted turkeys, chickens, hams, and all sorts of good things, with which they were very generous. Every private also had from one to three trunks containing his necessary wardrobe. I saw some of these same young men in the muddy trenches in front of Richmond in 1865, when they were clothed partially in rags, and were gnawing ears of hard corn, and would gladly have exchanged half a dozen negroes or a couple of hundred acres of land for a square meal or a decent bed to sleep on.

III

My record of those crowded days is so voluminous that I pass over the events of the next few months, which led to my definite appointment as midshipman in the Confederate Navy. After having a hand in the desperate fighting at Island No. 10 in the Mississippi,¹ I was transferred for a short time to the James River, near Richmond, for gunboat duty, and then sent, by doctor’s orders, to Charleston.

With all my state pride, I must acknowledge that the article of chills and fever handed to me on the James River was superior to the brand on the lower Mississippi, and complicated by chronic dysentery, it so sapped my strength that the doctor ordered me to show myself at the Navy Department and ask for orders to some other station. Commodore French Forrest was chief of the Bureau of Orders and Detail, and I really thought he had some sympathy for my condition when he looked me over. He asked me where I would like to be ordered to, and I quickly said that I should be delighted if I was sent to the naval battery at Port Hudson. The Commodore then asked if I had relatives near there, and on my assuring him that my mother and sisters were refugees and were staying at the plantation of General Carter, only a few miles distant, he turned to a clerk and said, ‘Make out an order for Midshipman Morgan to report to Commodore Ingraham at Charleston, South Carolina. I don’t believe in having young

officers tied to their mothers’ apronstrings.’ And so to Charleston I went.

Commodore Ingraham, to whom I reported, was the man who, some years previously, when in command of the little sloop-of-war St. Louis, in the port of Smyrna, had bluffed an Austrian frigate and compelled her to surrender Martin Kotza, a naturalized American citizen, whom they held as a prisoner. This act made Ingraham the idol of the people at that time; if repeated in this day (1916), it would cost an officer his commission. Commodore Ingraham also commanded the Confederate gunboats when they drove the Federal blockading fleet away from Charleston.

I was assigned to the Chicora, a little ironclad that was being built between two wharves which served as a navy yard. She was not nearly completed, so I was forced to hunt for quarters on shore. Being directed to a miserable boarding-house, which was fourth-rate, and consequently supposed to be cheap, I found that the cheapest board to be had was at the rate of forty-five dollars a month, so I did not see exactly how I could manage it, as my shore pay was only forty. However, the generous hotel proprietor, when the situation was explained, consented to let me stay for that sum, on condition that I would make up the other five dollars if my friends at home sent me any money. The man was certainly taking a long chance. Where were my friends, and where was my home? My mother and sisters were refugees. As for my home, it was a wreck.

Lieutenant Warley, with whom I had served on the McRae, was the only human being I knew in Charleston, and the great difference in our ranks, as well as our ages, precluded the possibility of my making a companion of him; so, a lonely boy, I roamed the streets of the quaint old city. Evidently the war as yet had had no effect on the style kept up by the old blue-bloods, for I was amazed to see handsome equipages, with coachmen in livery on the box, driving through the town. Little did their owners dream that before very long those same fine horses would be hauling artillery and commissary wagons, and those proud liveried servants would be at work with pick and spade throwing up breastworks!

To my great delight, George Hollins, a son of my dearly loved old Commodore, a boy of about my own age with whom I had been shipmate on the Mississippi River, arrived in town, and the boarding-house man consented to allow him to share my little room at the same rate charged me. George had been in Charleston only a few days when yellow fever became epidemic. It was the latter part of August and the heat was something fearful. I had no fear of the fever, as I had been accustomed to its frequent visits to my old home; but with Hollins, a native of Baltimore, it was different.

One afternoon he came into our room and complained of a headache and a pain in his back. The symptoms were familiar to me, so I persuaded him to go to bed and covered him with the dirty rag of a blanket. I then went quickly downstairs and asked the wife of the proprietor to let me have some hot water for a foot-bath, and also to give me a little mustard. The woman was shocked at my presumption, but consented to give me the hot water; at parting with the mustard she demurred. As I was about to leave her kitchen, she demanded to know what I wanted with hot water, and when I told her that my friend had the yellow fever, there was a scene in which she accused me of trying to ruin the reputation of the house, and threatened me with dire punishment from her husband.

I made Hollins put his feet in the hot water and then I went to a nearby druggist, telling him the situation, and asking him if he would credit me for the mustard, explaining that neither Hollins nor myself had any money. The kindly apothecary gave me the mustard and told me I could have any medicines needed, and also advised me to go at once and see Doctor Lebby, who, he was sure, would attend to the case without charge. The doctor came and did all that was possible. Poor George grew rapidly worse; he seemed to cling to me as his only friend, and could not bear to have me leave him for an instant. We slept that night huddled up together in the narrow bed.

The next morning a strange negro man, very well dressed, and carrying a bunch of flowers in one hand and a bundle in the other, entered the room and proceeded to make himself very much at home. When asked what his business was, he said he was a yellow-fever nurse. I told him that we had no money and could not pay a nurse, at which he burst into a broad grin and said that he did not want any money; that he belonged to Mr. Trenholm, who had sent him there. Through the day all sorts of delicacies continued to arrive, and to every inquiry as to whom they came from, the reply was, ‘Mr. Trenholm.’

The second night of his illness, George was taken with the black vomit, which, as I held him in my arms, saturated my clothes. A shiver passed through his frame and without a word he died. Leaving my friend’s body in charge of the nurse, I went in search of Lieutenant Warley, who told me not to worry about the funeral as Mr. Trenholm would make all arrangements. George Hollins was buried in the beautiful Magnolia Cemetery, and immediately after the funeral, Mr. Warley told me that I was not to go back to the boarding-house, but was for the present to share his room at the Mills House, a fashionable hotel.

IV

A few days after the funeral, as I was walking down Broad Street with Mr. Warley, we saw coming toward us a tall and very handsome man with silvery hair. Mr. Warley told me that he was Mr. Trenholm, and that I must thank him for all his kindness to my friend. Mr. Trenholm said that he was only sorry that he could not have done more for the poor boy, and, turning to the lieutenant, said, ‘Warley, can’t you let this young gentleman come and stay at my house? There are some young people there, and we will try to make it pleasant for him.’

I thanked Mr. Trenholm, and told him that I had recently been sleeping in the same bed with my friend, who had died of the most virulent form of yellow fever, and of course I could not go into anybody’s house for some time to come; but the generous gentleman assured me that his family had no fears of the fever and insisted on my accepting his kind invitation. However, I did not think it right to go, and did not accept at that time; but a day or two afterwards, I again met him, with Mr. Warley, and he said, ‘Warley, I am sorry this young gentleman won’t accept my invitation: we would try to make it pleasant for him.’

Mr. Warley turned to me, saying, ‘Youngster, you pack your bag and go up to Mr. Trenholm’s house.’

That settled it and I went, arriving at the great mansion shortly before the dinner-hour. I did not, however, take a bag with me. If I had owned one, I should have had nothing to put in it.

I will not attempt to describe Mr. Trenholm’s beautiful home. For more than half a century now it has been pointed out to tourists as one of the show places of Charleston, and has long since passed into the hands of strangers. I must confess that, as I opened the iron gate and walked through the well-kept grounds to the front door, I was a little awed by the imposing building, with its great columns supporting the portico. I could not but feel some misgivings as to the reception I would get, stranger as I was, from the family, whom I never had met. Still, I did not dare run away, and so I timidly rang the bell. A slave, much better dressed than I, and with the manners of a Chesterfield, appeared and showed me into the parlor; it was all very grand, but very lonely, as there was no one there to receive me. I took a seat and made myself comfortable; it had been a long time since I had sat on a luxurious sofa. In a few minutes, two young ladies entered. Of course I had never seen either of them before, but the idea instantly flashed into my mind that I was going to marry the taller of the two, who came toward me and introduced herself as Miss Trenholm.

While we were chatting, there arrived a Frenchman, a Colonel Le Mat, the inventor of the ‘grapeshot revolver,’ a horrible contraption, the cylinder of which revolved around a section of a gun-barrel. The cylinder contained ten bullets, and the grapeshot barrel was loaded with buckshot which, when fired, would almost tear the arm off a man with its recoil. Le Mat’s English vocabulary was limited, and his only subject of conversation was his invention, so he used me to explain to the young ladies how the infernal machine worked. Now that sounds all very easy, but one must remember that Le Mat was a highly imaginative Gaul and insisted on posing me to illustrate his lecture. This was embarrassing, especially as he considered it polite to commence over again as each new guest entered the room. At last relief came when Mr. Trenholm arrived with a beautiful lady, well past middle-age, leaning on his arm; and I was introduced to my hostess, whose kind face and gentle manner put me at my ease at once.

Oh, but it was a good dinner I sat down to that day! After all these years the taste of the good things lingers in my memory, and I can almost smell the ‘aurora,’ as Boatswain Miller used to call the aroma, of the wonderful old madeira. It was in the month of September, and the weather was intensely hot; I had my heavy cloth uniform coat buttoned closely, and only the rim of my paper collar showed above. Dinner over, we assembled in the drawingroom, where we were enjoying music, when suddenly I found myself in a most embarrassing position. Dear, kind Mrs. Trenholm was the cause of it. Despite my protestations that naval officers were never allowed to open their uniform coats, she insisted, as it was so warm, that I should unbutton mine and be comfortable. Unbutton that coat! Never! I would have died first. I had no shirt under that coat: I did not own one.

When bedtime arrived Mr. Trenholm escorted me to a handsomely furnished room. What a sleep I had that night between those snow-white sheets, and what a surprise there was in the morning when I opened my eyes and saw a man-servant putting studs and cuff-buttons in a clean white shirt. On a chair there lay a newly pressed suit of civilian togs. I assured the man that he had made a mistake, but he told me that he had orders from his mistress, and that all those things and the contents of a trunk he had brought into the room were for me, adding that they had belonged to his young ‘Mars’ Alfred,’ a boy of about my own age, whose health had broken down in the army and who had been sent abroad. I wanted the servant to leave the room so that I could rise. I was too modest to get out of bed in his presence and too diffident to ask him to leave; but at last I reflected that everybody must know that I had no shirt, so I jumped up and tumbled into a bath, and when the ‘body’ servant had arrayed me in those fine clothes I hardly knew myself.

After breakfast two horses were brought to the front of the house — one, with a lady’s saddle, Gypsy by name, was one of the most beautiful Arabs I ever saw (and I have seen many); the other, a grand chestnut, called Jonce Hooper, who was one of the most famous racehorses on the Southern turf when the war began. He had been bought by Colonel William Trenholm, my host’s eldest son, for a charger; but Colonel Trenholm soon found that the pampered racer was too delicate for rough field-work in time of war. Miss Trenholm and I mounted these superb animals, and that morning and many mornings afterwards, we went for long rides. In the afternoons I would accompany the young ladies in a landau drawn by a fine pair of bays, with two men on the box. Just at that time the life of a Confederate midshipman did not seem to me to be one of great hardship; but my life of ease and luxury was fast drawing to an end.

One day the distinguished Commodore Matthew F. Maury, then on his way to Europe to fit out Confederate cruisers, dined at the house, and, after dinner, joined the gay party on the piazza with Mr. Trenholm, who was the head of the firm of Fraser, Trenholm and Co. of Liverpool and Charleston, financial agents of the Confederate government. Suddenly, Mr. Trenholm came over to where I was laughing and talking with a group of young people, and asked me if I would like to go abroad and join a cruiser. I told him that nothing would delight me more, but that those details were for officers who had distinguished themselves, or who had influence, and that as I had not done the one thing, and did not possess the other requisite, I could stand no possible chance of being ordered to go. Mr. Trenholm said that was not the question: he wanted to know if I really wished to go. On being assured that I would give anything for the chance, he returned to Commodore Maury and resumed his conversation about the peculiarities of the Gulf Stream.

Imagine my surprise the next morning when, after returning from riding, I was handed a telegram which read: ‘ Report to Commodore M. F. Maury for duty abroad. Mr. Trenholm will arrange for your passage. Signed: S. R. Mallory. Secretary of the Navy.’ It fairly took my breath away!

Mr. Trenholm owned many blockade-runners— one of them, the little light-draught steamer Herald, was lying in Charleston harbor loaded with cotton and all ready to make an attempt to run through the blockading fleet. Commodore Maury, accompanied by his little son, a boy twelve years of age, and myself, whom he had designated as his aide-de-camp for the voyage, went on board after bidding goodbye to our kind friends. About ten o’clock at night, we got under way and steamed slowly down the harbor, headed for the sea. The moon was about half-full, but heavy clouds coming in from the ocean obscured it. We passed between the great lowering forts of Moultrie and Sumter, and were soon on the bar, when suddenly there was a rift in the clouds, through which the moon shone brightly, and there, right ahead of us we plainly saw a big sloopof-war!

There was no use trying to hide. She had also seen us, and the order ‘Harda-starboard!’ which rang out on our boat was nearly drowned by the roar of the warship’s great guns. The friendly clouds closed again and obscured the moon, and we rushed back to the protecting guns of the forts without having had our paint scratched. Two or three more days were passed delightfully in Charleston; then there came a drizzly rain and on the night of the 9th of October, 1862, we made another attempt to get through the blockade. All lights were out except the one in the covered binnacle, protecting the compass. Not a word was spoken save by the pilot, who gave his orders to the man at the wheel in whispers. Captain Coxetter, who commanded the Herald, had previously commanded the privateer Jeff Davis, and had no desire to be taken prisoner, as he had been proclaimed by the Federal government to be a pirate and was doubtful about the treatment he would receive if he fell into the enemy’s hands. He was convinced that the great danger in running the blockade was in his own engine-room, so he seated himself on the ladder leading down to it and politely informed the engineer that if the engine stopped before he was clear of the fleet, he, the engineer, would be a dead man. As Coxetter held in his hand a Colt’s revolver, this sounded like no idle threat.

Presently I heard the whispered word passed along the deck that we were on the bar. This information was immediately followed by a series of bumps as the little ship rose on the seas, which were quite high, and then plunging downward, hit the bottom, causing her to ring like an old tin pan. However, we safely bumped our way across the shallows, and plunging and tossing in the gale, this little cockle-shell, whose rail was scarcely five feet above the sea-level, bucked her way toward Bermuda. She was about as much under water as she was on top of it for most of the voyage.

(To be continued.)