While off the mouth of the Detroit river, Commodore Perry, Dr. Parsons, Alec, myself, and fully forty others, were attacked by what was called “bilious fever,” and so many were on sick leave that it became necessary to make some port.
On the 27th of August the squadron came to anchor in Put-in-Bay harbor, and instead of being war vessels, it was much as if ours was a fleet of floating hospitals.
Alec and I were quartered aft, greatly to old Silas’s displeasure, for he held that we should have remained with our messmates; and a most dismal time we had of it.
The doctor was so ill that it was necessary he should be carried from one bedside to another, else had we received no medical attendance, and we were forced to get along without nursing, waiting upon ourselves as best we might.
Four days after coming to anchor, General Harrison sent thirty-six men to act as marines, and take the places of those sailors who were too feeble to even stand watch.
With a view to giving the invalids a needed tonic, Commodore Perry ordered the squadron under way, and we cruised to and fro, where I know not, for at the time I was so ill as to give no heed whatsoever to anything around me.
It was the 5th day of September when I had recovered sufficiently to go on deck,—Alec left his bunk four-and-twenty hours before it was possible for me to move about,—and then many of the crew were convinced that within a few days at the most we would have an opportunity to engage the enemy.
I believe of a verity that such intelligence did more toward reviving the invalids than any of the nauseous potions Dr. Parsons forced them to swallow, for within twenty hours every man had shown himself on deck, eager to learn what might be the prospects for a fight.
Old Silas was the one to whom we lads applied for information, as may readily be guessed, and that which he told us was in the highest degree cheering.
Our scouts had ventured into Malden, and there learned beyond question that the enemy were on the point of making a move in some direction.