In the pitchy darkness of the moonless night he had fallen into the sea, and without a cry he was swept into eternity.
Poor Shang’s earthly troubles were forever ended!
CHAPTER VI
TO CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERY
In 1846, while the Mexican War was in progress, it was decided by President Polk, acting upon the advice of Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, to send a volunteer regiment around Cape Horn to California for the occupation of that country, then a province of Mexico. In pursuance of this scheme a commission as colonel was given to a Mr. Thomas Stevenson, a well-known New York politician and a stanch Democrat, and he was authorized to raise and equip a full regiment of one thousand men, to be known as the First Regiment of California Volunteers.
It was found that three ships would be required to transport the regiment with its commissary stores and ammunition; and the Thomas H. Perkins, of which I was at the time second mate, was one of the three vessels chartered for the purpose. Accordingly we hauled into a berth at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in September, 1846, and commenced taking in a cargo of military stores in the lower hold, while the between decks were fitted up with berths to accommodate three hundred and fifty men.
Having completed this work, we were towed into the East River, and there three full companies, H, I, and K, with a portion of Company F, were sent on board from their camps on Governor’s Island. We were also notified that Colonel Stevenson and his headquarters staff would take up their quarters on board our ship for the voyage out, which gave us the distinction of being the flagship.
The men of the regiment were a tough lot of fellows. “Stevenson’s Lambs,” as they had been nicknamed, were recruited in and about the Five Points and the worst purlieus of the notorious Fourth Ward, and from the very first they gave their officers no end of trouble.
The officers, moreover, were but a shade better; for with the exception of the colonel’s son, Captain Matthew Stevenson, who was a West Pointer, and the staff officers, who were of the better class, the great majority of the company officers were mere ward politicians, elected by their men to their positions, and having little idea of military discipline.
The colonel had to come on board secretly at night to avoid arrest for debt, and one energetic deputy sheriff actually chased us down the harbor in an ineffectual attempt to serve a writ upon this impecunious officer.