Occasionally some war steamers would come near enough to throw shells into Fort Fisher, but they did very little damage.
The main annoyance was the reports given out that every large naval expedition was designed for Wilmington. On one of these occasions a company of volunteers, mainly lawyers and the like, most elegant men, arrived in Wilmington from Fayetteville and tendered their services to defend Fort Fisher. Although I had learned the destination of the fleet was not the Cape Fear river, I accepted their services, sent them to Fort Fisher, and put them to work with wheelbarrows and shovels to build ramparts. It went hard with them at first, but after a while they considered it as being a rather good offer too prolonged. Their complexions were soon tanned, their hands blistered. They, however, made the time pass away merrily, worked hard, slept well, improved in health, and when their time expired Capt. Devereux and his companions thanked me for the opportunity given them to fight for the cause, and making the fort impregnable, as they expressed it. They enjoyed working because they were men of character.
The battles around Richmond had been fought, and Gen. McClellan driven to seek shelter at Harrison's Landing, on the James river, under cover of the heavy guns of the navy. Gen. R. E. Lee's army rested around Richmond. My line of defense commenced on the James near Drewry's Bluff, thence down the James, down the Blackwater, thence on to the mouth of the Cape Fear river, over three hundred miles in length, with the enemy at intervals along the front at Norfolk, Suffolk, Washington, Plymouth, New Berne, and other places, constantly threatening and making raids. It was imposing on me unceasing labor and a grave responsibility; and I will here remark, once for all, that during my command of this department, although Smith, Hill, and Longstreet were temporarily in command, at intervals, they did not remain in the department any length of time, or interfere with the defense.
Sometime toward the last of July Gen. D. H. Hill, who had no command, came over from Richmond, and as no defensive works had been constructed for Petersburg, the matter was mentioned, and it resulted in our riding out and selecting a point on the Appomattox river to start from; and we determined on the line to the City Point railroad, thence on by the farms of Hare, Friends, and Dunns. And as I may not refer to it again, I will state I went to work with my troops, and, staking out the line, constructed the entire works around the city, crossing the Jerusalem pike and on to the lead works on the P. and W. railroad. It took one year to build this line, and it served a good purpose in the end, and gave one year of life to the Confederacy.
On the evening of July 28 Gen. Hill handed me a letter from Gen. Lee stating that he would send over to Petersburg the next day Gen. W. D. Pendleton, his chief of artillery, with six batteries. To these other batteries could be added as desired, the whole to go down to Coggins's Point, on the James, and attack, at night, the shipping and camp of the Federal army at Harrison's Landing, on the opposite shore; and that I should command the expedition, etc. Accordingly I increased the number of guns to seventy-five, and designated Gen. Daniel's brigade as the escort. We started on the morning of the 30th, intending to make the attack that night. The forces were halted in the woods. I then rode down with Gen. Pendleton to the dwelling of Mr. Ruffin, on the river, to reconnoiter the grounds and select positions for the guns. At Ruffin's I took off my coat, put on a straw hat, hoisted an umbrella, and in the seeming garb of a farmer examined the shore, rode down to the river and watered my horse near a war steamer. After going down a half mile I returned. It was then growing late, and we started back. To my astonishment, in the darkness, I met the artillery moving toward the river. As not one captain had any idea of the ground, every gun was ordered back, and such trouble to encamp, by reason of the intense darkness, seldom occurs. Gen. Hill, who was in camp, said we would "be discovered next day," and he returned to Petersburg. The next morning the captains of the batteries were instructed to go through the clover fields to the river bank and select positions for their guns. This was done without attracting the notice of the enemy, or the hundreds of vessels in the stream.
As the day closed a drizzling mist made the darkness thick. Like the interior of the Mammoth Cave, it could be felt, but not seen. However forty-five guns were put in position, exclusive of the two long Parrott guns captured at Manassas. Amidst such darkness what a beautiful sight was before us! Ten thousand lights from the shipping and the camp shone the brighter from some reflection of the darkness that should have obscured them. At midnight the battery on the right was to open fire, to be followed in quick succession along the line, and in a minute it was a continuous fire. Soon the lights were all extinguished, save one or two on some lone craft in the river. When the firing commenced all the monitors and other war vessels moved up the river to meet the ironclad built in Richmond that was reported to be ready to come down the river, and so we were not subjected to any fire except from one gunboat, and from some Whitworth guns that sent bolts, whistling like birds, high over our heads. As the day dawned the guns were withdrawn and we returned to Petersburg. The report of Gen. Pendleton and my own can be found in the war records. There were no casualties on our side. It was real amusement.
Officers of the Union army, years after, gave me accounts of the wild confusion in their camps. Unexpected as a midnight earthquake it burst upon the slumbering army. Horses and mules broke loose and ran affrighted over the grounds, stumbling over tent cords. Captains shouted everywhere for men to fall in line. The blue was here and there mingled with midnight summer's sleeping uniforms of white indescribables, airy and cool, that were seen only by the light of bursting shells. Gen. Alfred Pleasanton told me he could find nothing in his tent to put on, except now and then by the light of the shells, and my good friend, Gen. Rufus Ingalls, in the first letter he wrote me after the surrender, said: "You don't know, dear Sam, how near you came killing me that night, which, had it happened, would have been a great sorrow to you." I was informed that a war correspondent wrote a letter severely criticising Gen. McClellan's inability with eighty thousand men to offer any resistance to this attack, that was successfully used, with other charges, by his enemies to have him relieved from command of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan, perhaps mortified that his position was shelled without being able to make any defense, treated the matter very lightly in his reports. He had not taken the precaution to place any guns on the river bank, and the intense darkness prevented moving artillery through his camp. Besides, he could not use guns, as the ships and vessels of every kind lined the river shore and were in the way.
Gen. Lee directed me to have my scouts watch McClellan's movements closely, especially movements of the shipping down the James. In time I reported the departure of the transports, and the crossing of the Chickahominy with the infantry. Soon after followed the battles of Cedar Run, August 9; the second Manassas, September 2, where Pope met his reward; then Fredericksburg, December 13, where the vain Burnside was defeated.
There is an incident connected with this last battle that I will here relate, although it has been published in a magazine called the Confederate Veteran. The Federal army had crossed the Rappahannock river and formed in line of battle to attack the Confederate army on the heights beyond. Maj. Pelham commanded a battery belonging to Stuart's cavalry, away on our right flank, in age a youth, in character a hero. When the Federal line commenced to advance, in full view of friends and foe, in the silence that often precedes a great battle, Pelham, with a piece of artillery, dashed forward between the two armies, halted, a puff of smoke, a shell burst over the Federal line, and in a moment the fire of twenty batteries centered on that lone gun; and there, amidst shrieking shot and bursting shell, flame and smoke, that detachment of Frenchmen worked their gun and stayed the battle near an hour, all the while singing the "Marseillais," which was now and then heard for a moment, borne by the fitful breeze, in the break of an almost continuous roar of artillery. France and glory evermore abides in the hearts of Frenchmen. Macaulay, in his lays of ancient Rome, tells in song the story of Horatius and his two friends defending the bridge over old Tiber against the hosts of Lars Porsena, and here is a deed of modern date that rivals that of old, and some day it will be a theme of inspiration for a poet. A boy, one gun, eight Frenchmen holding in check so long eighty thousand men!
Sometime in November, I think it was, I received a dispatch from the President to come over to Richmond. On calling at the President's house I found Gen. Lee there. The General asked me what was the least number of troops I would require, for a short time, to hold my line. Reflecting awhile, I said about six thousand. His reply was: "That is reasonable. When you return order all above that number to report to me." Now I write this as an illustration of the delicate consideration Gen. Lee had for the officers under him. He could have ordered from the department such troops as he desired, without seeing me, but he was ever a gentleman, and considerate to every one.