Marcy, the Refugee

by Harry Castlemon

"This signal has just been made from the flag-ship," said Mr. Watkins, holding the paper aloft. "Listen to the reading of it: 'This day our country expects every man to do his duty!' What have you men to say to that? Will you show the commodore that you know what your duty is by beating those fellows up there?"

The answer was a lusty cheer, in which the officers joined as wildly as their men. Then cheers began coming from all directions, showing that the reading of the signal had had the same effect upon other crews. When the Stars and Stripes, the vessel that was to lead in the attack, went by to take her station at the head of the line, her men were yelling at the top of their voices; and when their cheers died away everything became quiet, and the fleet settled down to business.

The first shot was fired at eleven o'clock. It was from a hundred-pounder on the leading vessel, and was directed against Fort Bartow. It was the signal for the opening of the contest, and was quickly followed by such an uproar that Marcy Gray could hardly hear himself think. He had always thought that a twenty-four pound howitzer made a pretty loud noise, but it was nothing to the deafening and continuous roar of the heavy guns that in a moment filled the air all about him. He thought he ought to be badly frightened, and he expected to be; but somehow he was not, and neither was he killed by the shell from Fort Bartow that struck the water close alongside and exploded, it seemed to him, almost under his feet. He was in full possession of his senses, and the hand with which he levelled his glass at the Confederate fleet was as steady as he had ever known it to be. He was particularly interested in the movements of that fleet, for he was acquainted with some of the sailors who manned it. As soon as the action was fairly begun it left its sheltered position under the guns of the fort and steamed down the channel. Its leading boats came on at such a rate of speed that Marcy thought they must know of some opening in the lines of obstructions, and that they intended to come through and demolish the Union fleet without aid from the guns on shore; but if that was their object they failed to accomplish it. Their heaviest ship, the Curlew, was whipped so quickly that her rebel commander must have been astonished; and so badly crippled was she by the solid shot that crashed through her sides, that it was all she could do to haul out of the fight and seek refuge under the guns of the nearest fort. In the end both the ship and the fort were blown up together.

About this time something happened that the young pilot might have expected, but which he had never once thought of. The smoke of battle settled so thickly about his vessel that his eyes were of little use to him; and, to make matters worse, Captain Benton shouted in his ear:

"Keep a bright lookout, and if you see us getting into less than fourteen feet of water, don't fail to let me know it."

"I declare, I don't know whether there are fourteen or fourteen hundred feet of water under our keel at this moment!" was the thought that flashed through Marcy's mind and awoke him to a sense of his responsibility. "I don't know where we are." Then aloud he said: "I can't see a thing from the bridge, Captain. I shall have to go aloft."

The boy did not know whether or not pilots were in the habit of going aloft in the heat of action, but he thought it was the proper thing to do under the circumstances. He went, and he did not go any too soon, either; for when he had climbed up where he could see over the thickest of the smoke, he found to his consternation that the vessel was heading diagonally across the channel far to the eastward of the position in which she ought to be, that she would be hard and fast aground if she held that course five minutes longer, and that her shells were exploding in the edge of a piece of timber where he could not see any signs of a fort or breastwork. It was the work of but a few seconds for Marcy to make Captain Benton understand the situation, and when the latter had brought his ship to her proper course by following the instructions the young pilot shouted down to him, he came up and took his stand in the top by Marcy's side. There they both remained as long as the fight continued, and their dinner consisted of a sandwich and a cup of coffee, which the cabin steward brought up to them at noon.

The first object of the bombardment was accomplished about five o'clock that afternoon, when a heavy smoke was rolling over Fort Bartow, caused by the burning of the barracks, which had been set on fire by a shell from the fleet, the defiant roar of its guns being almost silenced, and its flaunting banner sent to the dust by the shooting away of the staff that sustained it, and the enemy, all along the line, had been driven so far back that the transports could come up with the troops. It was at this juncture that the services of Mr. Daniel's black boy, Tom, came into play. He piloted General Burnside's launches and lighters into Ashby's Harbor, and, by midnight, ten thousand soldiers were landed in readiness for the real battle, which was to begin on the following morning. By this time the Confederates must have been satisfied that they were going to be whipped. Commodore Lynch knew that he had had all the fighting he wanted; for he retreated round Wier's Point, and was never seen afterward until Captain Rowan, with a portion of the Union fleet, hunted him up, and finished him at Elizabeth City. The battle was over shortly after dark (although the firing was kept up at intervals during the night), and the leading boats dropped back to allow others to take their places.

"We are not whipped, are we?" exclaimed Marcy, when he witnessed this retrograde movement.

"Oh, no," replied the captain, as he backed down from the top. "We have done just what we set out to do when we began the fight this morning, and, having won all the honors that rightfully belong to us, we must fall astern, and let somebody else have a show to-morrow."