A more greasy, oniony meal was never better enjoyed. One of our guests was a jolly Yorkshire farmer-looking man, up to about 16 stone weight, with any hounds, dressed in a tunic of green baize or frieze, with scarlet worsted braid down the front, gold lace on the cuffs and collar, and a felt wide-awake, with a bunch of feathers in it. He wiped the sweat off his brow, and swore that he would never give in, and that the whole of the company of riflemen whom he commanded, if not as heavy, were quite as patriotic. He was evidently a kindly affectionate man, without a trace of malice in his composition, but his sentiments were quite ferocious when he came to speak of the Yankees. He was a large slave-owner, and therefore a man of fortune, and he spoke with all the fervour of a capitalist menaced by a set of Red Republicans.
His companion, who wore a plain blue uniform, spoke sensibly about a matter with which sense has rarely anything to do—namely uniform. Many of the United States volunteers adopt the same grey colours so much in vogue among the Confederates. The officers of both armies wear similar distinguishing marks of rank, and he was quite right in supposing that in night marches, or in serious actions on a large scale, much confusion and loss would be caused by men of the same army firing on each other, or mistaking enemies for friends.
Whilst we were talking, large shoals of mullet and other fish were flying before the porpoises, red fish, and other enemies, in the tideway astern of the schooner. Once, as a large white fish came leaping up to the surface, a gleam of something still whiter shot through the waves, and a boiling whirl, tinged with crimson, which gradually melted off in the tide, marked where the fish had been.
“There’s a ground sheark as has got his breakfast,” quoth the Skipper. “There’s quite a many of them about here.” Now and then a turtle showed his head, exciting desiderium tam cari capitis, above the envied flood which he honoured with his presence.
Far away, towards Pensacola, floated three British ensigns, from as many merchantmen, which as yet had fifteen days to clear out from the blockaded port. Fort Pickens had hoisted the stars and stripes to the wind, and Fort M‘Rae, as if to irritate its neighbour, displayed a flag almost identical, but for the “lone star,” which the glass detected instead of the ordinary galaxy—the star of Florida.
Lieutenant Ellis, General Bragg’s aide-de-camp, came on board at an early hour, in order to take me round the works, and I was soon on the back of the General’s charger, safely ensconced between the raised pummel and cantle of a great brass-bound saddle, with emblazoned saddle-cloth and mighty stirrups of brass, fit for the fattest marshal that ever led an array of France to victory; but General Bragg is longer in the leg than the Duke of Malakoff or Marshal Canrobert, and all my efforts to touch with my toe the wonderful supports which, in consonance with the American idea, dangled far beneath, were ineffectual.
As our road lay by head-quarters, the aide-de-camp took me into the court and called out “Orderly;” and at the summons a smart soldier-like young fellow came to the front, took me three holes up, and as I was riding away touched his cap and said, “I beg your pardon, sir, but I often saw you in the Crimea.” He had been in the 11th Hussars, and on the day of Balaklava he was following close to Lord Cardigan and Captain Nolan, when his horse was killed by a round shot. As he was endeavouring to escape on foot the Cossacks took him prisoner, and he remained for eleven months in captivity in Russia, till he was exchanged at Odessa, towards the close of the war; then, being one of two sergeants who were permitted to get their discharge, he left the service. “But here you are again,” said I, “soldiering once more, and merely acting as an orderly!” “Well, that’s true enough, but I came over here, thinking to better myself as some of our fellows did, and then the war broke out, and I entered one of what they called their cavalry regiments—Lord bless you, sir, it would just break your heart to see them—and here I am now, and the general has made me an orderly. He is a kind man, sir, and the pay is good, but they are not like the old lot; I do not know what my lord would think of them.” The man’s name was Montague, and he told me his father lived “at a place called Windsor,” twenty-one miles from London. Lieutenant Ellis said he was a very clean, smart, well-conducted soldier.
From head-quarters we started on our little tour of inspection of the batteries. Certainly, anything more calculated to shake confidence in American journalism could not be seen; for I had been led to believe that the works were of the most formidable description, mounting hundreds of guns. Where hundreds was written, tens would have been nearer the truth.
I visited ten out of the thirteen batteries which General Bragg has erected against Fort Pickens. I saw but five heavy siege guns in the whole of the works among the fifty or fifty-five pieces with which they were armed. There may be about eighty altogether on the lines, which describe an arc of 135 degrees for about three miles round Pickens, at an average distance of a mile and one-third. I was rather interested with Fort Barrancas, built by the Spaniards long ago—an old work on the old plan, weakly armed, but possessing a tolerable command from the face of fire.