My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field

by Charles Carleton Coffin

Early in the war it was seen that a fleet of gunboats would be needed on the Western rivers, and Captain Andrew H. Foote of the navy was placed in charge of their construction. They were built at Cincinnati and St. Louis, and taken to Cairo, where they received their armament, crews, and outfit.

You have heard of Cairo. I do not mean the ancient city on the banks of the Nile, but the modern town on the tongue of land at the mouth of the Ohio. Charles Dickens has given a description of the place in one of his delightful books,—Martin Chuzzlewit. It was a forest, with a few log-huts, when Mark Tapley resided there, and all the people were smitten with fever and ague. It is a town now, with several thousand inhabitants. In the spring the town is sometimes overflowed, and the people navigate the streets with boats and rafts. Pigs look out of the chamber windows, and dogs, cats, and chickens live on the roofs of houses at such times.

Let us take a look at the place as it appeared the first day of February, 1862. Stand with me on the levee, and look up the broad Ohio,—the “la belle rivière,” as the French called it. There are from fifty to a hundred steamboats lying along the bank, with volumes of black smoke rolling up from their tall chimneys, and puffs of steam vanishing in the air. Among them are the gunboats,—a cross between a floating fort, a dredging-machine, and a mud-scow. The sailors, who have been tossed upon the ocean in stately ships, call them mud-turkles. There are thousands of soldiers on the steamboats and on the shore, waiting for the sailing of the expedition which is to make an opening in the line of Rebel defences. There are thousands of people busy as bees, loading and unloading the steamboats, rolling barrels and boxes.

When Mark Tapley and Martin Chuzzlewit were here it was muddy, and it is muddy now. There is fine, thin, sticky, slimy, splashy, thick, heavy, dirty mud. Thousands of men and thousands of mules and horses are treading it to mortar. It is mixed with slops from the houses and straw from the stables. You are reminded of the Slough of Despond described by Bunyan in the Pilgrim’s Progress,—a place for all the filth, sin, and slime of this world. Christian was mired there, and Pliable nearly lost his life. If Bunyan had seen Cairo, he might have made the picture still more graphic. There are old houses, shanties, sheds, stables, pig-sties, wood-piles, carts, wagons, barrels, boxes, and all the old things you can imagine. Pigs live in the streets, and there are irrepressible conflicts between them and the hundreds of dogs. Water-carts, drays, army-wagons, and artillery go hub deep in the mud. Horses tug and strive, rear, kick, and flounder. Teamsters lose their footing. Soldiers wade leg deep in the street. There are sidewalks, but they are slippery, dangerous, and deceptive.

It is Sunday. A sweet day of rest in peaceful times, but in war there is not much observance of the Sabbath. It is midwinter, but a south-wind sweeps up the Mississippi, so mild and balmy that the blue-birds and robins are out. The steamboats are crowded with troops, who are waiting for orders to sail, they know not where. Groups stand upon the topmost deck. Some lie at full length in the warm sunshine. The bands are playing, the drums beating. Tug-boats are dancing, wheezing, and puffing in the stream, flitting from gunboat to gunboat.

The shops are open, and the soldiers are purchasing knickknacks,—tobacco, pipes, paper, and pens, to send letters to loved ones far away. At a gingerbread stall, a half-dozen are taking a lunch. The oyster-saloons are crowded. Boys are crying their newspapers. There are laughable and solemn scenes. Yonder is the hospital. A file of soldiers stand waiting in the street. A coffin is brought out. The fife begins its mournful air, the drum its muffled beat. The procession moves away, bearing the dead soldier to his silent home.

A few months ago he was a citizen, cultivating his farm upon the prairies, ploughing, sowing, reaping. But now the great reaper, Death, has gathered him in. He had no thought of being a soldier; but he was a patriot, and when his country called him he sprang to her aid. He yielded to disease, but not to the enemy. He was far from home and friends, with none but strangers to minister to his wants, to comfort him, to tell him of a better world than this. He gave his life to his country.

Although there is the busy note of preparation for the sailing of the fleet, there are some who remember that it is Sunday, and who find time to worship. The church-bells toll the hour. You tuck your pants into your boots, and pick your way along the slippery, slimy streets. There are a few ladies who brave the mud, wearing boots suited to the walking. Boots which have not been blacked for a fortnight are just as shiny as those cleaned but an hour ago. At the door of the church you do as everybody else does,—take a chip and scrape off the mud.

Half of the congregation are from the army and navy. Commodore Foote is there, a devout worshipper. Before coming to church he visited each gunboat of his fleet, called the crews together, read to them his general orders, that no unnecessary work should be done on the Sabbath, and enjoining upon the commanders the duty of having worship, and of maintaining a high moral character before the men.

Let us on Monday accept the kind invitation of Commodore Foote, and go on board the Benton, his flag-ship, and make an inspection of the strange-looking craft. It is unlike anything you ever saw at Boston or New York. It is like a great box on a raft. The sides are inclined, made of stout oak timbers and plated with iron. You enter through a porthole, where you may lay your hand upon the iron lips of a great gun, which throws a ball nine inches in diameter. There are fourteen guns, with stout oaken carriages. The men are moving about, exercising the guns,—going through the motions of loading and firing. How clean the floor! It is as white as soap and sand can make it. You must not spit tobacco-juice here, if you do, the courteous officer will say you are violating the rules. In the centre of the boat, down beneath the gun-deck in the hull, are the engines and the boilers, partly protected from any shot which may happen to come in at a porthole, or which may tear through the sides,—through the iron and the oak. Near the centre is the wheel. The top of the box, or the casemate, as it is called, is of oak timbers, and forms the upper deck. The pilot-house is on this upper deck, forward of the centre. In shape it is like a tunnel turned down. It is plated with thick iron. There, in the hour of battle, the pilot will be, peeping out through narrow holes, his hands grasping the wheel and steering the vessel.