The veteran sailor’s sad story demands deep sympathy. I, however, cannot help enjoying at least the variety of hearing a little of the altera pars. It is now nearly six weeks since I entered “Dixie’s Land,” during which period I must confess I have had a sufficiency of the music and drums, the cavaliering and the roystering of the Southern gallants. As an impartial observer, I may say I find less bitterness and denunciation, but quite as dogged a resolution upon the Roundhead side. Some experience, or at least observation of the gunpowder argument, has taught us that attack is always a more grateful office than defence, and, if we are to judge of the sturdy resolution of the inmates of Fort Pickens by the looks of the officers and crews of the fleet, Fort Pickens will fall no easy prize, if at all.
After some conversation with Captain Adams, and the ready hospitality of his cabin, he said finally he would take on himself to permit me and the party to land at the navy-yard, and to visit the enemy’s quarters, relying on my character as a neutral and a subject of Great Britain that no improper advantage would be taken of the permission. In giving that leave he was, he said, well aware that he was laying himself open to attack, but he acted on his own judgment and responsibility. We must, however, hoist a flag of truce, as he had been informed by General Bragg that he considered the intimation he had received from the fleet of the blockade of the port was a declaration of war, and that he would fire on any vessel from the fleet which approached his command. I bade good-by to Captain Adams with sincere regret, and if—but I may not utter the wish here. Our barge was waiting to take us to the Oriental, in which we sailed pleasantly away down to the Powhatan to inform Captain Porter I had received permission to go on shore. Another officer was in his cabin when I entered—Captain Poore of the Brooklyn—and he seemed a little surprised when he heard that Captain Adams had given leave to all to go on shore. “What, all these editors of Southern newspapers who are with you, sir?” I assured him they were nothing of the kind, and after a few kind words I made my adieu, and went on board the Diana with my companions.
Hoisting one of our only two table-cloths to the masthead as a flag of truce, we dropped slowly with the tide through the channel that runs parallel to one face of Fort Pickens. The wind favored us but little, and the falling breeze enabled all on board to inspect deliberately the seeming artistic preparations for the threatened attack which frowns and bristles from three miles of forts and batteries arrayed around the slight indenture opposite. Heavy sand-bag traverses protect the corners of the parapets, and seem solid enough to defy the batteries ensconced in earthworks around the lighthouse, which to an outside glance seems the most formidable point of attack, directed as it is against the weaker flank of the fort at its most vulnerable angle.
A few soldiers and officers upon the rampart appeared to be inhaling the freshening breeze which arose to waft the schooner across the channel, and enable her to coast the main-shore, so that all could take note of the necklace of bastions, earthworks, and columbiads with which General Bragg hopes to throttle his adversary. We passed by Barrancas, the nearest point of attack (a mile and a quarter), the commander-in-chief’s head-quarters, the barracks, and the hospital successively, and as the vessel approached the landing-pier of the navy-yard one could hear the bustle of the military and the hammers of the artificers, and descry the crimson and blue trappings of Zouaves, recalling Crimean reminiscences. A train of heavy tumbrils, drawn by three or four pairs of mules, was the first indication of a transport system in the army of the Confederate States, and the high-bred chargers mounted by the escorts of these ammunition wagons corroborated the accounts of the wealth and breeding of its volunteer cavalry. The Diana now skirted the navy-yard, the neat dwellings of which, and the profusion of orange and fig groves in which they are embosomed, have an aspect of tropical shade and repose, much at variance with the stern preparations before us. Our skipper let go his anchor at a respectful distance from the quay, evincing a regard for martial law that contrasted strangely with the impatience of control elsewhere manifested throughout this land, and almost inspiring the belief that no other rule can ever restore the lost bump of veneration to American craniology.
While the master of the Diana was skulling his leaky punt ashore to convey my letters of introduction to the commander-in-chief, I had leisure to survey the long, narrow, low sand-belt of the island opposite, which loses itself in the distance, and disappears in the ocean forty-seven miles from Fort Pickens. It is so nearly level with the sea that I could make out the mainyards of the Sabine and the Brooklyn, anchored outside the island within range of the navy-yard, which is destined to receive immediate attention whenever the attack shall begin. Pursuing my reflections upon the morale of the upper and nether millstones between which the Diana is moored, I am sadly puzzled by the anomalous ethics or metaphysics of this singular war, the preparations for which vary so essentially—it were sin to say ludicrously—from all ancient and modern belligerent usages. Here we have an important fortress, threatened with siege for the last sixty days, suffering the assailants of the flag it defends to amass battery upon battery, and string the whole coast of low hills opposite with every variety of apparatus for its own devastation, without throwing a timely shell to prevent their establishment.
War has been virtually declared, since letters of marque and a corresponding blockade admit of no other interpretation, and yet but last week two Mobile steamers, laden with £50,000 worth of provisions for the beleaguering camp, were stopped by the blockading fleet, and, though not permitted to enter this harbor, were allowed to return to Mobile untouched, the commander thinking it quite punishment enough for the rebels to thus compel them to return to Mobile, and carry up the Alabama river to Montgomery this mass of eatables, which would have to be dispatched thence by rail to this place! Such practical jokes lend a tinge of innocence to the premonitories of this strife which will hardly survive the first bloodshed.
The skipper returned from shore with an orderly, who brought the needful permission to haul the Diana alongside the wharf, where I landed, and was conducted by an aid of the quartermaster-general through the shady streets of this graceful little village, which covers an enclosure of 300 acres, and, with the adjoining forts, cost the United States over £6,000,000 sterling, which may have something to do with the President’s determination to hold a property under so heavy an hypothecation. Irish landlords, with encumbered estates, have no such simple mode of obtaining an acquittal.
The navy-yard is, properly speaking, a settlement of exceedingly neat detached houses, with gardens in front, porticoes, pillars, verandahs, and Venetian blinds to aid the dense trees in keeping off the scorching rays of the sun, which is intensely powerful in the summer, and is now blazing so fiercely as to force one to admit the assertion that the average temperature is as high as that of Calcutta to be very probable. The grass-plots under these trees are covered with neat piles of cannonballs, mostly of small size; two obsolete mortars—one dated 1776—are placed in the main avenue. Tents are pitched under the trees, and the houses are all occupied by officers, who are chatting, smoking, and drinking at the open windows. A number of men in semi-military dresses of various sorts and side-arms are lounging about the quays and the lawns before the houses. Into one of these I am escorted, and find myself at a very pleasant mess, of whom the greater number are officers of the Zouave corps, from New Orleans—one, a Dane, has served at Idstedt, Kiel, Frederichstadt; another foreigner has seen service in South America; another has fought in half the insurrectionary wars in Europe. The wine is abundant, the fare good, the laughter and talk loud. Mr. Davis has been down all day from Montgomery, accompanied by Mrs. Davis, Mr. Maloney, and Mr. Wigfall, and they all think his presence means immediate action.
The only ship here is the shell of the old Fulton, which is on the stocks, but the works of the navy-yard are useful in casting shot, shell, and preparing munitions of war. An aide-de-camp from General Bragg entered as we were sitting at table, and invited me to attend him to the general’s quarters. The road, as I found, was very long and very disagreeable, owing to the depth of the sand, into which the foot sank at every step up to the ankle. Passing the front of an extended row of the clean, airy, pretty villas inside the navy-yard, we passed the gate on exhibiting our passes, and proceeded by the sea-beach, one side of which is lined with houses, a few yards from the surf. These houses are all occupied by troops, or are used as bar-rooms or magazines. At intervals a few guns have been placed along the beach, covered by sand-bags, parapets, and traverses. As we toiled along in the sand the aide hailed a cart, pressed it into the service, and we continued our journey less painfully. Suddenly a tall, straight-backed man in a blue frock-coat, with a star on the epaulette strap, a smart kepi, and trowsers with gold stripe, and large brass spurs, rode past on a high-stepping powerful charger, followed by an orderly. “There is General Bragg,” said his aide. The general turned round, reined up, and I was presented as I sat in my state chariot. The commander of the Confederated States army at Pensacola is about forty-two years of age, of a spare and powerful frame; his face is dark, and marked with deep lines, his mouth large, and squarely set in determined jaws, and his eyes, sagacious, penetrating, and not by any means unkindly, look out at you from beetle brows which run straight across and spring into a thick tuft of black hair, which is thickest over the nose, where naturally it usually leaves an intervening space. His hair is dark, and he wears such regulation whiskers as were the delight of our generals a few years ago. His manner is quick and frank, and his smile is very pleasing and agreeable. The general would not hear of my continuing my journey to his quarters in a cart, and his orderly brought up an ambulance, drawn by a smart pair of mules, in which I completed it satisfactorily.
The end of the journey through the sandy plain was at hand, for in an enclosure of a high wall there stood a well-shaded mansion, amid trees of live-oak and sycamore, with sentries at the gate and horses held by orderlies under the portico. General Bragg received me at the top of the steps which lead to the verandah, and, after a few earnest and complimentary words, conducted me to his office, where he spoke of the contest in which he was to play so important a part in terms of unaffected earnestness. Why else had he left his estates? After the Mexican war he had retired from the United States artillery; but when his state was menaced he was obliged to defeat her. He was satisfied the North meant nothing but subjugation. All he wanted was peace. Slavery was an institution for which he was not responsible; but his property was guaranteed to him by law, and it consisted of slaves. Why did the enemy take off slaves from Tortugas to work for them at Pickens? Because whites could not do their work. It was quite impossible to deny his earnestness, sincerity, and zeal as he spoke, and one could only wonder at the difference made by the “standpoint” from which the question is reviewed. General Bragg finally, before we supped, took down his plans and showed me the position of every gun in his works and all his batteries. He showed the greatest clearness of unreserved openness in his communications, and was anxious to point out that he had much greater difficulties to contend with than General Beauregard had at Charleston. The inside of Pickens is well-known to him, as he was stationed there the very first tour of duty which he had after he left West Point. It was late at night when I returned on one of the general’s horses toward the navy-yard. The orderly who accompanied me was, he said, a Mississippi planter, but he had left his wife and family to the care of the negroes, had turned up all his cotton land and replanted it with corn, and had come off to the wars. Once only were we challenged, and I was only required to show my pass as I was getting on board the schooner. Before I left General Bragg he was good enough to say he would send down one of his aides-de-camp and horses early in the morning, to give me a look at the works.