Cushing was not picturesque in figure, though marked by strong individual peculiarities. His height was five feet ten inches, his form slender, his face grave and thoughtful. With steps springy and quick, prominent cheek bones, a piercing eye and restless habit, he seemed to his associates like some spirited Indian in the garb of a paleface.
In July, 1862, a lieutenant's straps were given him for acts of bravery performed in his routine duties with the blockading squadron off North Carolina. Four months later, at the age of twenty, he commanded his first expedition, a gunboat raid into New River Inlet, waters wholly in the possession of active enemies. His vessel, the Ellis, stranded within range of the Confederate batteries, but he brought his crew and equipments off in schooners captured before the disaster. A few weeks later he entered Little River at night with twenty-five men, in a cutter, dispersed the gunners of a shore battery by land assault, and got out with the loss of one man. Cushing sometimes volunteered, and at others was chosen, for these fugitive exploits.
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LIEUTENANT WILLIAM B. CUSHING. |
In the summer of 1863 it was known on the blockading fleet that the Confederates possessed a couple of rams and some torpedo boats in Cape Fear River around Wilmington; and on the night of June 25 Cushing set out from his ship Monticello in a cutter, with two officers and fifteen men, and crossed the bar, passing some forts and the town of Smithville without discovery. On the way his boat nearly collided with a blockade runner putting to sea, and also with a Confederate guard-boat. The night was dark until the cutter was abreast of a fortified bluff known as the Brunswick batteries, when the moon suddenly emerged from a cloud and disclosed the strange craft to the enemy's sentinels on shore. Shots were fired at the cutter, and the garrison was alarmed. Cushing directed his men to pull to the opposite shore and proceed up the river. When within seven miles of Wilmington the boat was hidden in a marsh, and the party lay all next day within sight of passing blockade runners.
After dark the cutter took to the wave and captured two rowboats filled with men, who proved to be fishermen from Wilmington. Cushing impressed them for guides and reconnoitred all the batteries and forts on the river. He discovered that the ram Raleigh was a hopeless wreck, the ram North Carolina useless because her draught didn't admit of passing the bar to attack the Union blockading fleet, and that the Confederate torpedo boats had been destroyed during a scare. On the way to sea the cutter was headed off by a gunboat and several small boats filled with men. It was night and the moon shone, and Cushing managed to turn and double on his pursuers until he got a start on them, and by vigorous rowing dashed into the breakers at the Carolina shoal, where the enemy dare not follow. The cutter was so heavy that she outrode the breakers and escaped to the fleet. On this raid two days and three nights were spent in the enemy's territory.
In the month of February, 1864, the Administration at Washington proposed a cavalry raid to Richmond. One object was to circulate, within the Confederate lines, the President's amnesty proclamation, offering full pardon and a restoration of rights to any individuals, or to States, that might wish to return to their allegiance. Another was the release of the Union prisoners in Belle Isle and Libby prisons. The expedition was intrusted to Kilpatrick, who was to have a picked force of four thousand cavalrymen and a horse battery.
It was believed in the Union camps that a surprise could be effected, and with this end in view, Kilpatrick set out one Sunday night, the 28th of February, for the lower fords of the Rapidan. Reaching Spottsylvania unmolested, he sent out from here a detachment of five hundred men, under Col. Ulric Dahlgren, toward the Virginia Central Railroad, instructing him to enter Richmond from the south, while he himself should attack from the north. Through the treachery or ignorance of a negro guide engaged by Dahlgren, his column failed to find a ford in the James River, which was a serious drawback, because he had intended to enter Richmond from the rear, the weakest point. On March 1st, Dahlgren was eight miles west of Richmond on the James, and Kilpatrick at Atlee's station, eight miles north, the distance between them being only about twelve miles. Kilpatrick, however, was returning from his raid, and the two forces were destined to remain apart and receive severe handling from enemies now swarming about them.
Kilpatrick had passed the outer defences of Richmond by one o'clock of the 1st, but on approaching the inner line he was met by infantry and artillery. Skirmishing continued for several hours, the object of the Union leader being to prolong the situation until he should hear Dahlgren on the opposite side of the city. Finally, as he saw Confederate troops moving in large bodies, he withdrew to Atlee's to pass the night.