History of Morgan's Cavalry

by Basil Wilson Duke

We left our comrades with a regret, felt for their bad fortune, for we felt assured that our apparent ill-luck would terminate in an exchange. Colonel Coleman, who had been confined in the Fort with the party of which so many were sent on this "expedition," was bitterly disappointed at being left behind, and we regretted it equally as much. Three of our companions through so many vicissitudes, we never saw again—three of the worthiest—Captains Griffin, Mullins, and Wardour died shortly afterward.

On the 26th of June, we were put on board of a steamer, and puffed away down the Delaware river. It was confidently affirmed that we were going to be placed on Morris Island, where the Charleston batteries would have fair play at us, so that our friends (blissfully unconscious of how disagreeable they were making themselves) might speedily finish us. The prospect was not absolutely inviting, but after the matter was talked over, and General Gardner, especially, consulted (as he had most experience in heavy artillery), we felt more easy. General Thompson, who had fought that way a good deal, said that "a man's chance to be struck by lightning was better than to be hit by a siege gun." This consoled me very little, for I had all my life been nervously afraid of lightning. However, we at last settled it unanimously that, while we would perhaps be badly frightened by the large bombs, there was little likelihood of many being hurt, and, at any rate, the risk was very slight compared with the brilliant hope of its resulting in exchange.

After we got fairly to sea, very little thought was wasted on other matters. The captain of the vessel, said that there was "no sea on," or some such gibberish, and talked as if we were becalmed, at the very time that his tipsy old boat was bobbing about like a green rider on a trotting horse. It is a matter of indifference, what sort of metal encased the hearts of those who first tempted the fury of the seas, but they must have had stomachs lined with mahogany. It is difficult to believe men, when they unblushingly declare that they go to sea for pleasure. There has been a great deal of pretentious declamation about the poetry and beauty of the ocean.

Some people go off into raptures about a "vast expanse" of dirty salt water, which must, in the nature of things, be associated in every one's mind with sick stomachs and lost dinners. The same people get so tired of their interminable view of poetry, that they will nearly crowd each other overboard, to get sight of a stray flying fish, or porpoise, or the back fin of a shark sticking out of the water. This trip to Hilton Head came near taking the poetry out of General Thompson.

Ten of us were lodged in a cabin on the upper deck, where we did very well, except that for one half of the time we were too sick to eat any thing, and for the other half we were rolling and tumbling about in such a manner that we could think of nothing but keeping off of the cabin's roof. The others were stowed away "amidships," or in some other place, down stairs, and as all the ports and air-holes were shut up, when the steamer began to wallow about, they were nearly smothered, and their nausea was greatly increased. They were compelled to bear it, for they could not force their way on deck and they had nothing with which to scuttle the ship. One western officer declared to me afterward, that he seriously thought, at one time, that he had thrown up his boot heels.

When we reached Hilton Head, we were transferred to the brig "Dragoon" (a small vessel lying in the harbor), and she was then anchored under the guns of the frigate Wabash. Here we remained five weeks. The weather was intensely hot. During the day we were allowed to go on deck, in reliefs of twenty-five each, and stay alternate hours, but at night we were forced to remain below decks. A large stove (in full blast until after nightfall), at one end of the hold in which we were confined, did not make the temperature any more agreeable. The ports were kept shut up, for fear that some of the party would jump out and swim eight miles to the South Carolina shore. As there were fifty soldiers guarding us and three ship's boats (full of men), moored to the vessel, there was little reason to apprehend any thing of the kind.

The sharks would have been sufficient to have deterred any of us from attempting to escape in that way. There was a difference of opinion regarding their appetite for human flesh, but no man was willing to personally experiment in the matter. A constant negotiation was going on during these five weeks, between the authorities at Hilton Head and Charleston, which seemed once or twice on the point of being broken off, but fortunately managed each time to survive.

We were never taken to Morris' Island, although our chances for that situation, seemed more than once, extremely good. Subsequently a party of six hundred Confederate officers were taken there, and quartered where they would have the full benefit of the batteries. None, however, were injured by the shells, but three fourths of them were reduced to a condition (almost as bad as death), by scurvy and other diseases, brought about by exposure and bad food. At last, on the 1st of August, it was authoritatively announced that we were to be taken on the next day to Charleston to be exchanged. Only those who have themselves been prisoners, can understand what our feelings then were—when the hope that had become as necessary to our lives as the breath we drew, was at length about to be realized. That night there was little sleep among the fifty—but they passed it in alternate raptures of congratulation at their good luck, or shivering apprehension lest, after all, something might occur to prevent it.

But when the next day came and we were all transferred to a steamer, and her head was turned for Charleston, we began to master all doubts and fears. We reached Charleston harbor very early on the morning of the 3rd, lay at anchor for two or three hours, and then steamed slowly in toward the city, until we passed the last monitor, and halted again. In a short time, a small boat came out from Charleston, with the fifty Federal prisoners on board and officers of General Jones' staff, authorized to conclude the exchange. When she came alongside, the final arrangements were effected, but not until a mooted point had threatened to break off the negotiation altogether. Happily for us, we knew nothing of this difficulty until it was all over, but we were made very nervous by the delay. When all the details were settled, we were transferred to the Confederate boat, and the Federal officers were brought on board of the steamer which we left; then touching hats to the crew we parted from, we bade our captivity farewell.

Twelve months of imprisonment, of absence from all we loved, was over at last. No man of that party could describe his feelings intelligibly—a faint recollection of circumstances is all that can be recalled in such a tumult of joy. As we passed down the bay, the gallant defenders of those works around Charleston, the names of which have become immortal, stood upon the parapets and cheered to us, and we answered like men who were hailing for life. The huge guns, which lay like so many grim watch dogs around the city, thundered a welcome, the people of the heroic city crowded to the wharves to receive us. If anything could repay us for the wretchedness of long imprisonment and our forced separation from families and friends, we found it in the unalloyed happiness of that day.