We made a pleasant run down Chesapeake Bay, and the morning of the second of June found us, after a close escape from grounding on York Spit,—a long narrow point of sand off the mouth of York River,—preparing to anchor off Yorktown to wait for a pilot to conduct us up the intricate navigation of the York and Pamunkey Rivers. The original intention had been for us to follow up the Harder, the only vessel in the squadron that carried a government pilot, but owing to her neglecting to display a proper signal, during the night, we had lost sight of her and were consequently left to our own resources.
Our preparations for anchoring were yet in course of completion when the pilot was seen, coming out of Yorktown, and the squadron was again headed up the York River. About noon we passed West Point, an insignificant collection of small dwellings, situated on a long point of land between the York and Pamunkey rivers, and just at their junction. From this point to White House Landing the Pamunkey is, perhaps, as crooked a river as can be found in the United States. The channel, however, is straight and deep, running between low, flat marshes occasionally relieved with high, steep banks and well wooded bluffs, capital points for guerrilla operations.
Rumors were rife as to the exploits of these gentry, in this neighborhood, and the several divisions of the detachment received orders to load, many of them then performing that operation for the first time. The size of our squadron, however, and the presence of several "tin-clads" and "double enders," those "restless wanderers of the deeps" and shallows, tended no doubt to awe the bushwhackers and keep them on their best behavior.
At any rate the Thirty-Seventh passed along, unmolested and unmolesting, except when an insubordinate recruit would insist on trying the range of Springfield or (contraband) Colt on sundry and divers vagabond members of the porcine tribe, that seemed to lead an aimless and unsatisfactory life, on the banks of the Pamunkey. And so the long summer's day passed away, with the hot perpendicular rays of the sun shining down on our bare decks, unchecked by awning or shelter of any kind, frying the pitch out of the deck seams and reducing the tar in the rigging to the consistency of molasses and leaving about as pleasant an impression on the incautious hands of those who ventured to touch strand or stay. But "all things come to an end," says the wise man, and so even will a long hot summer day, if it is passed on board a crowded transport, with a scarcity of standing, sitting or lying room, a still greater scarcity of drinkable water, and an utter absence of anything at all approaching to comfort.
About 5 P. M., a sudden turn in the river brings us in sight of the chimneys of what once was the White House, from which the landing, which is for the present to be our destination, takes its name. A few more throbbing, restless pulsations of our propeller's wheel, and its action grows fainter and slower as, amidst a crowd of steamers, propellers, tug-boats, schooners, barges, scows, skiffs, and all the crowd of craft incident to a base of supplies, we work our way up to the landing. Again a few more revolutions of the wheel, a jar and a crash accompanied by a few nautical expletives, and we grind alongside of a sutler's barge, blundering down stream, without any apparent directing power or any definite object in view; till at length one of the never-resting, spiteful looking, ever-watchful tug-boats darts out from some labyrinth of hulls, pounces on it and drags it away, awkward and clumsy and apparently remonstrating and resisting to the last, into its proper and designated mooring place. Then a sudden cessation of the, to all appearance, endless jar and throb of the screw, a tangled web of heaving-lines flying through the air, a deafening roar as the pent up steam raises the valve and comes tumbling out at the escape pipe and eddies and whirls about as if for pure joy at its liberation from restraint; a few more double-shotted nautical expletives, a vast amount of veering and hauling on heavy hawsers and the transports are made fast and our voyage ended.
But, if the confusion on the river was great, that on the shore was certainly, to all appearances, much greater. Mule drivers, addressing their jaded teams by every soothing and endearing epithet in the well stocked vocabulary of their class, and the mules replying in their scarcely less intelligible, and much less profane, dialect; long wagon trains, coming and going in every direction; colored laborers, rolling barrels on to every bodies' toes, their own included, and becoming the patient recipients of remarks objurgatory of their eyes and limbs, therefor. Long lines of stretchers loaded with wounded being carried on board two large hospital steamers, loading for Washington; ambulances arriving from the front, with fresh cases; orderlies, hot and dusty, riding, walking, or running in every direction; clouds of dust and smoke, from camp fires and steamboats; shouting, braying, swearing, yelling, (from the mules) whistling from the steamboats, combined altogether to form a scene of noise and confusion, to which the grand finale at the tower of Babel was, by comparison, nothing but a quiet assemblage of sober and well behaved mechanics. Threading our way, with no little difficulty, through this motley assemblage, we at length gained a quiet and comparatively secluded spot where we were, much to our relief, ordered to camp; and this we, nothing loth, proceeded at once to do.
Here we remained, guarding prisoners and picketing along the line of the Richmond railroad, till the 10th of June; here we, for the first time, heard the sound of shotted guns, as the terrible battle of the 3d of June surged and roared, nearly twenty miles away, in our front. And all that night, and part of the 4th, the long trains of ambulances, each bearing its ghastly load of bleeding and suffering men, rolled through our camp, giving us our first insight into the horrors of war, in which we were soon to take an active part. Here, too, we had a first insight into the heroism and patience under suffering of those who form our armies; numbers of slightly wounded, or, who at least were not absolutely prevented from traveling by the loss of limbs, came straggling through our camps, many only just able to limp along; some with hands or arms bandaged; others with ugly cuts on the head or face, their hair all matted and tangled, soaked with blood and clogged with the dust of the road, hungry, thirsty, weary and suffering, but uttering no complaints, and patient and cheerful under it all.
And in the Depot Hospital at the landing we had an opportunity of witnessing the heroic and charitable part the women of America were taking in the war. No matter how ragged or dirty the sufferer, how hideous or revolting the wound, alive in many instances with maggots, and in every form of putrefaction and mortification; no matter what nation or country the patient belonged to; woman's kind, ministering hand was there, to wash the festering wound, to bathe the toil-worn feet, to comb the matted locks, hold the cooling draught to the parched lips, or to receive the last words that fell from them e'er they were closed forever. And this without reward or hire, or expectation of it, their only recompense the consciousness of obeying the mandate that makes charity our duty, their only reward the knowledge that they are aiding to maintain the government and preserve the integrity of the stars and stripes.
But we linger too long around White House Landing and scenes, which, though then novel and strange to us, have since become a part of our every day life. On the 10th of June, we were dispatched from the base as guard to a supply train, under charge of Capt. Alex. Samuels, of the 5th Wisconsin, which was on its way to the front at Cool Arbor, or Cold Harbor, as it is sometimes written. Much dispute has been held, as to the orthography and derivation of the name of this place, it being called indiscriminately Cool Arbor, Cold Harbor, Cool Harbor, and Coal Harbor. The first would, however, seem to be the most appropriate designation, as there is no Harbor, nor any navigable stream to convert into one, within ten miles of the place. I have been informed by a Virginian who is acquainted with the locality, that the name originated as follows:
Cool Arbor, which is nothing more than a large farm house or tavern on one of the main highways leading to Richmond, was originally built by an Englishman, as a place of summer resort for the citizens of that place, and named by him Cool Arbor, from its pleasant and shady location. The proverbial (H)english disregard of the use of the aspirate probably converted the second word of the name into Harbor, and a broad provincial dialect would easily effect the transition from Cool to Coal or Cold. Its claim to either title is now a poor one, for trees and farm have both alike disappeared, and in the words of the poet, "perierunt etiam ruinæ"—the very ruins are gone.