"When Porter's fleet appeared off Fort Fisher, December, 1864, it was storm bound for several days, and the little family with their household goods were sent across the river to Orton before Butler's powder ship blew up. After the Christmas victory over Porter and Butler, the little heroine insisted upon coming back to her cottage, although her husband had procured a home of refuge in Cumberland County. General Whiting protested against her running the risk, for on dark nights her husband could not leave the fort, but she said if the firing became too hot she would run behind the sand hills as she had done before, and come she would.
"The fleet reappeared unexpectedly on the night of the 12th of January, 1865. It was a dark night, and when the lights of the fleet were reported her husband sent a courier to the cottage to instruct her to pack up quickly and be prepared to leave with children and nurse as soon as he could come to bid them good-bye. The garrison barge, with a trusted crew, was stationed at Craig's Landing, near the cottage. After midnight, when all necessary orders were given for the coming attack, the colonel mounted his horse and rode to the cottage, but all was dark and silent. He found the message had been delivered, but his brave wife had been so undisturbed by the news that she had fallen asleep and no preparations for a retreat had been made. Precious hours had been lost, and as the fleet would soon be shelling the beach and her husband have to return to the fort, he hurried them into the boat as soon as dressed, with only what could be gathered up hastily, leaving dresses, toys, and household articles to fall into the hands of the foe."
Mr. Thomas E. Taylor's description of the famous Englishmen referred to is worth repeating:
"As my memory takes me back to those jovial but hard-working days of camaraderie, it is melancholy to think how many of those friends have gone before; Mrs. Murray-Aynsley, Mrs. Hobart and her husband, Hobart Pasha; Hugh Burgoyne, one of the Navy's brightest ornaments, who was drowned while commanding the ill-fated Captain; Hewett, who lately gave up command of the Channel Fleet only to die; old Steele, the king of blockade-running captains; Maurice Portman, an ex-diplomatist; Frank Vizetelly, whose bones lie alongside those of Hicks Pasha in the Soudan; Lewis Grant Watson, my brother agent; Arthur Doering, one of my loyal lieutenants, and a host of old Confederate friends, are all gone, and I could count on my fingers those remaining of a circle of chums who did not know what care or fear was, and who would have stood by each other through thick and thin in any emergency. In fact, my old friends Admiral Murray-Aynsley and Frank Hurst are almost the only two living of that companionship.
"Of Hobart Pasha and of the important part he played in the Turko-Russian war and Cretan rebellion (in which he acknowledged that his blockade-running experiences stood him in such good stead) most, if not all my readers will have read or heard. He commanded a smart little twin-screw steamer called the Don, in fact one of the first twin-propeller steamers ever built. And very proud he was of his craft, in which he made several successful runs under the assumed name of Captain Roberts. On her first trip after Captain Roberts gave up command in order to go home, the Don was captured after a long chase, and his late chief officer, who was then in charge, was assumed by his captors to be Roberts. He maintained silence concerning the point, and the Northern newspapers upon the arrival of the prize at Philadelphia were full of the subject of the 'Capture of the Don and the notorious English naval officer, "Captain Roberts."' Much chagrined were they to find they had got the wrong man, and that the English naval officer was still at large.
"Poor Burgoyne, whose tragic and early end, owing to the capsizing of the Captain, everybody deplored, as a blockade runner was not very successful. If I remember correctly he made only two or three trips. Had he lived he would have had a brilliant career before him in the Navy; bravest of the brave, as is evidenced by the V.C. he wore, gentle as a woman, unselfish to a fault, he might have saved his life if he had thought more of himself and less of his men on that terrible occasion off Finisterre, when his last words were, 'Look out for yourselves, men; never mind me.'
"Then there was Hewett, another wearer of the 'cross for valor,' who has only recently joined the majority, after a brilliant career as admiral commanding in the East Indies, Red Sea, and Channel Fleet; who successfully interviewed King John in Abyssinia, and was not content to pace the deck of his flagship at Suakim, but insisted upon fighting in the square at El Teb, and whose hospitality and geniality later on as commander in chief of the Channel Fleet was proverbial.
"Murray-Aynsley, I rejoice to say, is still alive.[6] Who that knows 'old Murray' does not love him? Gentle as a child, brave as a lion, a man without guile, he was perhaps the most successful of all the naval blockade runners. In the Venus he had many hairbreadth escapes, notably on one occasion when he ran the gauntlet of the Northern fleet in daylight into Wilmington. The Venus, hotly pursued by several blockaders and pounded at by others, while she steamed straight through them, old Murray on the bridge, with his coat sleeves hitched up almost to his arm-pits—a trick he had when greatly excited—otherwise as cool as possible, was, as Lamb afterwards told me, 'a sight never to be forgotten.'"
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