Having provided myself with the gray uniform of the Confederate Navy, I was taken to see Commodore Franklin Buchanan, who commanded the Virginia in her first fight, when he was severely wounded. The Virginia was in dock, and was being put in order for another cruise; and Commodore Buchanan was deeply chagrined at the prospect that she might be ready before he had recovered. On March 25 Commodore Josiah Tatnall was placed in command of the squadron at Norfolk.
Much has been written about the Virginia, but those who saw her will agree, I think, that it was marvellous that she should have accomplished what she did. The plating consisted of railroad iron rolled flat, and the bends were protected by iron knuckles. There was no plating below the water-line, and the prow with which she did so much execution did not look much more dangerous than a champagne bottle, which, in shape, it resembled. The great defect of the Virginia, however, was the weakness of her engines, which prevented her from manoeuvering rapidly, and which placed her at so terrible a disadvantage in the fight with the Monitor. The engines broke down frequently while she was in the United States service. Their peculiar construction, taken in connection with the great draft of the vessel, twenty-two feet, and her length, three hundred and twelve feet, rendered her management in narrow channels and in presence of the enemy a very difficult matter.
The Confederate fleet at Norfolk consisted of the Virginia, eight guns; the Patrick Henry, eight guns; the Jamestown, two guns; and the Beaufort, the Raleigh and the Teaser, one gun each. The Patrick Henry and Jamestown were ordinary river steamboats, hastily and rudely adapted to the reception of heavy guns; while the Raleigh, the Beaufort and the Teaser were small and weak tug-boats. An ordinary rifle ball would have perforated the boiler of the war-tugs, and a shell from a field-piece, if it hit at all, would be tolerably sure to send any one of them to the bottom. With this fleet, however, it was determined to attack the Monitor and the other United States vessels of war near Fortress Monroe. I volunteered for service in the fleet, and was assigned to duty on the Beaufort, which was commanded by Lieutenant W. H. Parker, one of the finest officers in the Navy. Picked men from the infantry regiments stationed at Norfolk were placed on each of the vessels; and, the Virginia now being in tolerable order again, the whole fleet, on the morning of April 11, 1862, steamed past Norfolk, and gaily down the river, the Virginia leading the line. The wharves along the river were crowded with ladies and soldiers. Hats were tossed in the air, handkerchiefs were waved, and cheer after cheer rent the air. The enthusiasm of the hour made every one feel like a hero. Captain Parker told me that the main object of the expedition was the capture and destruction of the Monitor. Commodore Tatnall was desperately in earnest, and one of the midshipmen of the Virginia told me that he heard the old Commodore say, as he stumped up and down the quarter-deck, gritting his teeth: “I will take her! I will take her! if h—ll’s on the other side of her.” The “her” was understood to be the Monitor. The plan of operations was bold and simple. When the Monitor came out to meet us, the Patrick Henry, the Jamestown, the Beaufort and the Raleigh, at a signal from the Virginia, were to run down upon the enemy, endeavoring to strike her on the bows and quarter. The Monitor was to be mobbed by the gun-boats while the Virginia engaged her attention. On each of the Confederate vessels boarding parties were detailed with prescribed duties. Those numbered one in each vessel were provided with hammers and wedges, and were to endeavor to chock the turret of the Monitor so as to prevent it from revolving, in which case her line of fire could only be changed by moving the vessel. Those numbered two were supplied with balls of tow, steeped in turpentine, which were to be ignited and thrown down the ventilators, which were then to be covered. Those numbered three were to throw a wet sail over the pilot-house so as to blind the helmsman. Meanwhile other boarders, armed with pistols and cutlasses, were to guard against any attempt on the part of the enemy’s crew to escape from the confinement which was prepared for them. I had command of the boarders on the Beaufort. The general idea was that the Monitor would be overwhelmed by the combined attack; and that by the means indicated we could prevent her from doing much harm. The Virginia would play an important part by endeavoring to ram her, and we hoped to be able, with our four boarding steamers, to take the Monitor in tow and haul her back to Norfolk, when we might break her open, and take the crew prisoners at our leisure. Commodore Tatnall expected that probably half his gun-boats would be sunk or crippled in the attempt, but he was quite sure of throwing on the deck of the Monitor men enough to ensure her capture. It is just as likely that the Monitor would have towed us to Fortress Monroe, if she had not sunk the whole concern before we reached her. The weather was dirty, and we lay at anchor during the night off Craney Island. Betimes the next morning we dropped down to Hampton Roads. The enemy’s batteries fired several shots at us without effect. We could see that the Monitor had steam up, and was lying close under the protection of the batteries. She looked like a huge black plate with a cheese box of the same color upon it. The flag ship Minnesota, with a large number of men-of-war and merchantmen, was below the forts. Signal guns were fired, and we hoped that the enemy would engage us. The day wore on and still the Monitor and her consorts skulked under the guns of the forts. The Virginia ran within range of the formidable fortress, and then fired a gun of defiance, but the Monitor would not come to the scratch. Within the bar at Hampton three merchant vessels were lying, and the Jamestown and Raleigh ran in, captured them and brought them out. This exploit, almost within gunshot of the Monitor, did not affect her movements. We did not get the fight we sought. It was a terrible disappointment. But in the critical condition in which the United States Navy was at the time, it was the wiser part for the Monitor to decline the engagement. Had we succeeded in disabling her, the whole coast would have been at the mercy of the Virginia. Obstructions had already been placed in the Potomac in expectation of a naval raid on Washington, and there was considerable perturbation at New York and Boston.
[IX.]
On April the 17th I received orders to proceed to Petersburg, and join Captain Pegram there. The iron-clad which was building at Norfolk was not likely to be ready for several months; and, as Captain Pegram was anxious to be in active service, he was assigned to the command of the iron-clad Louisiana, which was building at New Orleans, and said to be nearly finished. With his usual kindness he caused me to be ordered to the same vessel, and asked me to go down with him. My first visit to the “Cockade City” was a very agreeable one, as I made acquaintance there with a number of Captain Pegram’s relatives, including his niece, Mrs. Annie T. White, and his sister, Mrs. David May.
From Petersburg the journey by railroad to Louisiana was dreary and monotonous in the extreme. I have a bare recollection of being invited at Kingville, S. C, to go to the end of the station and inspect an astonishingly fat hog, which was the wonder of that part of the country. There really was no other incident of note that I recall, except the frequent delays, and the arrival at different points too late for the connecting trains. As we neared our destination, the air was full of ugly rumors. We learned that the United States fleet had attacked the forts below New Orleans, and it was reported that the city had been evacuated. But we pressed on, and finally reached Jackson, Miss., where we were told that it was no use to go any further. No passenger trains were now running, but we succeeded in getting on a train that was going down, and got within twenty miles of New Orleans. There the cars were stopped; and in a short time train after train came up from the city, bringing out the Confederate troops, under command of General Mansfield Lovell, and such stores as could be carried off. A number of the soldiers who belonged to the “Garde d’Orleans,” flatly refused to go any further, and, to my surprise, were allowed to return to the city, which was now in the possession of Butler’s forces. There was no choice for us but to go back to Virginia; and Captain Pegram took charge of dispatches from General Lovell, giving an account of the disaster. So it turned out that, by stopping a day or two at Petersburg, we had missed an opportunity of participating in one of the fiercest naval fights of the war. The vessel which Captain Pegram was to have commanded was taken down the river in an unfinished condition, and was either sunk or was blown up. The journey back was worse than the journey down, as the delays were multiplied. It was on the train, soon after leaving Lovell’s troops at Tangipahoa, that I first met Colonel James M. Morgan (then a midshipman), whose sister I afterwards married. The vessel on which he was serving, the McRae, was lost in the engagement, and he made his escape from the city with great difficulty.
When we reached North Carolina there was no comfort there. Norfolk had been evacuated by the Confederate forces, and the Virginia had been destroyed to prevent her from falling into the hands of the enemy. I received permission to rest in Sussex for a few days, and then went to Richmond, where I was assigned to duty on a floating battery lying in the James River, and commanded by Captain Parker, with whom I had served on the Beaufort. This so-called battery was a large flat, with a shield heavily plated with iron in front. The name of the battery was the Drewry, and she lay at Rockett’s, below Richmond. I had fancied that she was a vessel of the same class as the Virginia, and when I went down to the place where she lay I looked about vainly for the vessel. Hailing a man who was at work on what I supposed to be a dredge, I asked which was the Drewry. “This is she,” said he. I was both disappointed and disgusted. The Drewry was really a lighter, about eighty feet long and fifteen feet broad, and was intended to be loaded down within eight or ten inches of the water. She had a wooden shield, V shaped, covered with heavy iron bars, and in the angle of the shield was cut a port-hole for her one heavy gun. She had no engines or sails, and was to be towed or allowed to drift into position when an engagement was expected.
I engaged quarters at a very pleasant house in Franklin Street, and found amongst the boarders there the mother and sister of Clarence Cary, whom I had known on the Nashville. The sister, Miss Constance Cary, married, after the war, Mr. Burton N. Harrison, who was the private secretary of President Davis. Miss Constance Cary, or Miss “Connie,” as she was usually called, wrote a good deal in war times under the nom de plume of “Refugitta;” and during the last few years has written at least one very charming society novel, besides an admirable work on household decoration. There were also there, in the pleasant company, Miss Hettie Cary, the famous Baltimore beauty, and her sister, Miss Jennie Cary, a handsome woman, and unfailingly amiable. Of course she was overshadowed by her sister; and she used to say that the only inscription necessary for her tomb-stone would be: “Here lies the sister of Hetty Cary, the lady who presented the Confederate colors to Beauregard’s troops at Manassas.” Miss Hetty Cary, late in the war, married General John W. Pegram, a nephew of Captain R. B. Pegram. A fight took place two or three weeks after her marriage, and Mrs. Pegram went immediately to the front to assist in caring for the wounded. Almost the first man who was brought up, as she reached the field hospital, was her dead husband. The Carys and Captain Pegram’s sister-in-law, Mrs. General Pegram, and her daughters, Miss Mary and Miss Virginia Pegram, were as kind and considerate to me as if I had been a member of their family. To one of Captain Pegram’s nephews, Willie Pegram, the youngest son of Mrs. General Pegram, I became very warmly attached. He was at this time particularly boyish looking, and wore spectacles, which added to the simplicity of his appearance. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, he had gone into service as a private in Company F of the First Virginia Regiment, and upon the promotion of Captain Lindsey Walker, had been elected Captain of the Purcell Battery.