After this misery had lasted about two days we got past Cape Hatteras, and out of reach of its malign influence, and recovered as rapidly as we had been prostrated.
We regained spirits and appetites with amazing swiftness; the sun came out warm and cheerful, we cleaned up our quarters and ourselves as best we could, and during the remainder of the voyage were as blithe and cheerful as so many crickets.
The fun in the cabin was rollicking. The officers had been as sick as the men, but were wonderfully vivacious when the 'mal du mer' passed off. In the party was a fine glee club, which had been organized at "Camp Sorgum," the officers' prison at Columbia. Its leader was a Major of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, who possessed a marvelously sweet tenor voice, and well developed musical powers. While we were at Wilmington he sang "When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea," to an audience of soldiers that packed the Opera House densely.
The enthusiasm he aroused was simply indescribable; men shouted, and the tears ran down their faces. He was recalled time and again, each time with an increase in the furore. The audience would have staid there all night to listen to him sing that one song. Poor fellow, he only went home to die. An attack of pneumonia carried him off within a fortnight after we separated at Annapolis.
The Glee Club had several songs which they rendered in regular negro minstrel style, and in a way that was irresistibly ludicrous. One of their favorites was "Billy Patterson." All standing up in a ring, the tenors would lead off:
"I saw an old man go riding by,"
and the baritones, flinging themselves around with the looseness of Christy's Minstrels, in a "break down," would reply:
"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!"
Then the tenors would resume:
"Says I, Ole man, your horse'll die."