A Rebel's Recollections

by George Cary Eggleston

I am wholly unable to give the reader any connected account of the adventures and life struggles through which these men had passed, for the reason that I was never able to win their full and unreserved confidence; but I caught glimpses of their past, here and there, from which I think it safe to assume that their personal histories had been of a dramatic, not to say of a sensational sort. My battery was sent one day to Bee's Creek, on the South Carolina coast, to meet an anticipated advance of the enemy. No enemy came, however, and we lay there on the sand, under a scorching sub-tropical sun, in a swarm of sand-flies so dense that many of our horses died of their stings, while neither sleep nor rest was possible to the men. A gun-boat lay just out of reach beyond a point in the inlet, annoying us by throwing at us an occasional shell of about the size and shape of a street lamp. Having a book with me I sought a place under a caisson for the sake of the shade, and spent an hour or two in reading. While I was there, Jack Delaney and Tommy Martin, knowing nothing of my presence, took seats on the ammunition chests, and fell to talking.

"An' faith, Tommy," said Jack, "an' it isn't this sort of foightin' I'm afther loikin' at all, bad luck to it."

"An' will ye tell me, Jack," said his companion, "what sort of foightin' it is, ye loikes?"

"Ah, Tommy, it's mesilf that loikes the raal foightin'. Give me an open sea, an' close quarthers, an' a black flag, Tommy, an' that's the sort of foightin' I'm afther 'oikin', sure."

"A-an' I believe it's a poirate ye are, Jack."

"You're roight, Tommy; it's a poirate I am, ivery inch o' me!"

Here was a glimpse of the man's character which proved also a hint of his life story, as I afterwards learned. He had been a pirate, and an English court, discovering the fact, had "ordered his funeral," as he phrased it, but by some means or other he had secured a pardon on condition of his enlistment in the British navy, from which he had deserted at the first opportunity. Jack was very much devoted to his friends, and especially to those above him in social or military rank; and a more loyal fellow I never knew. The captain of the battery and I were tent mates and mess mates, and although we kept a competent negro servant, Jack insisted upon blacking our boots, stretching our tent, brushing our clothes, looking after our fire, and doing a hundred other services of the sort, for which he could never be persuaded to accept compensation of any kind.

When we arrived in Charleston for the first time, on our way to the post assigned us at Coosawhatchie, we were obliged to remain a whole day in the city, awaiting transportation. Knowing the temper of our "criminal class," we were obliged to confine all the men strictly within camp boundaries, lest our Baltimore Irishmen and their fellows should get drunk and give us trouble. We peremptorily refused to let any of the men pass the line of sentinels, but Jack Delaney, being in sad need of a pair of boots, was permitted to go into the city in company with the captain. That officer guarded him carefully, and as they were returning to camp the captain, thinking that there could be no danger in allowing the man one dram, invited him to drink at a hotel counter.