Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy

by John M. Batten

I also met in Lancaster, Pa., about the same time, ex-President James Buchanan. But in the month of June, 1862, I had the curiosity to call on that gentleman at his home near Lancaster, called Wheatland. I found an affable, friendly, heavy-set and gray-haired old gentleman, seated in a chair in his library. After entering into conversation with him upon general topics, he touched upon his early life, his struggles as a young man in the profession of law, his nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States, and also upon his occupancy of that office. There was anticipation at that time of Richmond being captured on or before the coming Fourth of July. I asked Mr. Buchanan if he thought Richmond would be captured by that time. He replied that he did not, but he hoped that the war for the preservation of the Union would be successfully terminated by the following July a year. I then asked him if he thought Napoleon would give his aid to the Confederacy, as it was rumored at that time that he would do so. He answered that Napoleon was a man who kept his own counsel. During my stay there, there was a gentleman called upon him for the purpose of soliciting aid in defraying the expenses of celebrating the coming Fourth of July at Lancaster, Pa. He contributed liberally, and told the solicitor if the amount he had already given him was not sufficient, to call again, and he would contribute more.

I have since visited his grave at Lancaster, Pa., which has the following inscription upon the tombstone:

Here rest the remains of
James Buchanan,
Fifteenth President of the United States,
Born in Franklin county, Pa., April 23d, 1781.
Died at Wheatland, January 1, 1868.

(Second side.)
1781-1868.

(Third side.)
BUCHANAN.

I also called on Dr. Samuel Jackson, who, during a long and extended practice in his profession, had been at one time Henry Clay's physician. I attended a course of his lectures at the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He had lost the use of his lower extremities, and was seated in a chair, at his home in Philadelphia, Pa. He stated he had from early life to the present been a hard student; and as he was about to pass through the portal of this life into another, he expected still to be a student there. He stated that it had at different times of his life been a matter of serious consideration as to how much inflammable matter in a given time the sun used in warming the space included in the solar system. He said he expected to be able to make this calculation in another life.

I also met with General James L. Kiernan, in New York city. I was called to attend him whilst visiting in that city, in an attack of congestive chills, which he had contracted whilst on duty in the State of Louisiana. He had stumped several of the northern States for President Lincoln's second election, and had been appointed United States Consul to China after that election. He filled this office till the close of President Johnson's administration. He was a man about forty-five years of age, an excellent conversationalist, a good companion, and a fine orator.

On September 23, 1865, I was ordered to Cairo, Ill., for duty aboard the U.S. monitors Oneota and Catawba, as a relief to Acting Assistant Surgeon Geo. C. Osgood. I reported to Commodore J. W. Livingston for duty October 6, 1865, having arrived in Cairo on the previous evening. I stopped at the St. Charles Hotel all night. The weather was very hot and dry, the river was low, and for a distance along shore an unhealthy green foam had gathered along the edge of the river. Congestive chills were quite prevalent there that fall.

Cairo is a large and thriving town, situated at the extreme southern point of the state of Illinois. Many of the houses then were built on stilts or posts. The sidewalks were also resting on stilts or posts, so that in crossing a street a person would have to walk down a pair of stairs, then across the street, and mount another pair of stairs. During the time of a rise in the Mississippi or Ohio river, the place was flooded, and then the citizens would use boats for the purpose of navigating from place to place. The town was somewhat protected from overflows by levees.

The monitors were very nicely finished and furnished inside. The deck was about six inches above water. There were four monitors anchored in line in the middle of the Ohio river off Cairo. The names of them were as follows: Oneota, Catawba, Manyyunk and Tippecanoe. The officers of all these vessels messed aboard the U.S. monitor Oneota. Acting Lieutenant Commander Wells was the captain of the Oneota. He was afterwards relieved by Acting Master H. E. Bartlett. Thomas Cook was her chief engineer, and Don Carlos Hasseltino was chief engineer of the monitor Catawba. One of the officers of the Oneota was a persistent story-teller, and the only way to get him to stop telling his story was to suggest to him to make a chalk mark and finish the remainder of it the following day. One day, early in the morning, he and I went ashore in Kentucky, hunting; and hunted all day without any dinner. I got very tired and left him, and returned to the boat, which was made fast ashore opposite to the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, where I lay down on a brush-heap and fell asleep; but when my companion started to row to the Oneota, the rattling of the oars awakened me, otherwise I would have been left. One time, during a freshet in the Ohio river, I think in January, I had occasion to go to one of the monitors anchored in the rear of the Oneota. After arriving on that monitor, in our attempt to return, I found that the boat could make no headway against the current. We struck over along the Kentucky bank of the river, and did what the sailor calls "cheating the current;" that is, we rowed up along the bank of the river. After rowing above the Oneota, we crossed the bows of the Oneota and threw out the end of a painter, which was instantly tied around the stanchion of the Oneota. The painter broke, and down the river the boat was carried by the current; but somebody aboard the Oneota threw the end of a rope overboard, which we caught, and we were pulled back aboard. Another time during the freshet, Mr. Thomas Cook and I went ashore, and were nearly carried by the swift current between two packet boats, but we fortunately saved ourselves.