At last the time came for me to leave. The colonel and Captain Berry came down to the beach with me. Outside we found Captain Vodges kindly keeping my friends in conversation and in liquid supplies in the shade of the bakehouse shed, and, after a little more pleasant conversation, we were afloat once more. Probably no living man was ever permitted to visit the camps of two enemies within sight of each other before this, under similar circumstances, for I was neither spy nor herald, and I owe my best thanks to those who trusted me on both sides so freely and so honorably. A gentleman who preceded me did not fare quite so well. He landed on the island and went up to the fort, where he represented himself to be the correspondent of an American journal. But his account of himself was not deemed satisfactory. He was sent off to the fleet. Presently there came over a flag of truce from General Bragg, with a warrant signed by a justice of the peace, for the correspondent, on a charge of felony; but the writ did not run in Fort Pickens. The officers regarded the message as a clever ruse to get back a spy, and the correspondent is still in durance vile or in safety, as the case may be, on board the squadron.
All sails filled, the Diana stood up toward the navy-yard once more in the glare of the setting sun. The sentinels along the battery and beach glared at us with surprise as the schooner, with her flag of truce still flying, ran past them. The pier was swept with the glass for the Mobile gentlemen; they were not visible. “Halloa! Mr. Captain, what’s that you’re at?” His mate was waving the Confederate flag from the deck—“It’s only the signal, sir, to the gentlemen on shore.” “Wave some other flag, then, while there’s a flag of truce flying, and while we are in these waters.” After backing and filling for some time the party were descried in the distance. Again, the watery skiff was sent off, and in a few minutes they were permitted, thanks to their passes, to come off. Some confidential person had informed them the attack was certainly coming off in a very short time. They were anxious to stay. They had seen friends at Pensacola, and were full of praises of “the quaint old Spanish settlement,” but mine is, unfortunately, not an excursion of pleasure, and it was imperative that I should not waste time. Every thing had been seen that was necessary for my purpose. It was beyond my power to state the reasons which led me to think no fight would take place, for doing so would have been to betray confidence. And so we parted company—they to feast their eyes on a bombardment—and if they only are near enough to see it they will heartily regret their curiosity, or I am mistaken—and we to return to Mobile.
It was dark before the Diana was well down off Fort Pickens again, and, as she passed out to sea between it and Fort M’Rae, it was certainly to have been expected that one side or other would bring her to. Certainly our friend Mr. Brown in his clipper Oriental would overhaul us outside, and there lay a friendly bottle in a nest of ice waiting for the gallant sailor who was to take farewell of us according to promise. Out we glided into night and into the cool sea breeze, which blew fresh and strong from the north. In the distance the black form of the Powhatan could be just distinguished; the rest of the squadron could not be made out by either eye or glass, nor was the schooner in sight. A lantern was hoisted by my orders, and was kept aft for some time after the schooner was clear of the forts. Still no schooner. The wind was not very favorable for running toward the Powhatan, and it was too late to approach her with perfect confidence from the enemy’s side. Besides, it was late; time pressed. The Oriental was surely lying off somewhere to the westward, and the word was given to make sail, and soon the Diana was bowling along shore, where the sea melted away in a fiery line of foam so close to us that a man could, in nautical phrase, “shy a biscuit” on the sand. The wind was abeam, and the Diana seemed to breathe it through her sails, and flew along at an astonishing rate through the phosphorescent waters with a prow of flame and a bubbling wake of dancing meteor-like streams flowing from her helm, as though it were a furnace whence boiled a stream of liquid metal. “No sign of the Oriental on our lee-bow?” “Nothin’ at all in sight, sir.” The sharks and huge rays flew off from the shore as we passed and darted out seaward, marking their runs in brilliant trails of light. On sped the Diana, but no Oriental came in sight.
I was tired. The sun had been very hot; the ride through the batteries, the visits to quarters, the excursion to Pickens, had found out my weak places, and my head was aching and legs fatigued, and so I thought I would turn in for a short time, and I dived into the shades below, where my comrades were already sleeping, and kicking off my boots, lapsed into a state which rendered me indifferent to the attentions no doubt lavished upon me by the numerous little familiars who recreate in the well-peopled timbers. It never entered into my head, even in my dreams, that the captain would break the blockade if he could—particularly as his papers had not been indorsed, and the penalties would be sharp and sure if he were caught. But the confidence of coasting captains in the extraordinary capabilities of their craft is a madness—a hallucination so strong that no danger or risk will prevent their acting upon it whenever they can. I was assured once by the “captain” of a Billyboy, that he could run to windward of any frigate in Her Majesty’s service, and there is not a skipper from Hartlepool to Whitstable who does not believe his own Mary Ann or Three Grandmothers is, on certain “pints,” able to bump her fat bows and scuttle-shaped stern faster through the seas than any clipper which ever flew a pendant. I had been some two hours and a half asleep, when I was awakened by a whispering in the little cabin. Charley, the negro cook, ague-stricken with terror, was leaning over the bed, and in broken French was chattering through his teeth: “Monsieur, Monsieur, nous sommes perdus! Le batement de guerre nous poursuit. Il n’a pas encore tiré. Il va tirer bientot! Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!” Through the hatchway I could see the skipper was at the helm, glancing anxiously from the compass to the quivering reef-points of his mainsail. “What’s all this we hear, captain?” “Well, sir, there’s been somethin’ a runnin’ after us these two hours” (very slowly). “But I don’t think he’ll keech us up no how this time.” “But, good heavens! you know it may be the Oriental, with Mr. Brown on board.” “Ah, wall—may bee. But he kept quite close up on me in the dark—it gave me quite a stark when I seen him. May be, says I, he’s a privateerin’ chap, and so I draws in on shore close as I cud,—gets mee centre-board in, and, says I, I’ll see what yer med of, mee boy. He an’t a gaining much on us.” I looked, and sure enough, about half or three-quarters of a mile astern, and somewhat to leeward of us, a vessel, with sails and hull all blended into a black lump, was standing on in pursuit. I strained my eyes and furbished up the glasses, but could make out nothing definite. The skipper held grimly on. The shore was so close we could have almost leaped into the surf, for the Diana, when her centre-board is up, does not draw much over four feet. “Captain, I think you had better shake your wind, and see who he is. It may be Mr. Brown.” “Meester Brown or no I can’t help carrine on now. I’d be on the bank outside in a minit if I didn’t hold my course.” The captain had his own way; he argued that if it was the Oriental she would have fired a blank gun long ago to bring us to; and as to not calling us when the sail was discovered he took up the general line of the cruelty of disturbing people when they’re asleep. Ah! captain, you knew well it was Mr. Brown, as you let out when we were off Fort Morgan. By keeping so close in shore in shoal water the Diana was enabled to creep along to windward of the stranger, who evidently was deeper than ourselves. See there! Her sails shiver! so one of the crew says; she’s struck! But she’s off again, and is after us. We are just within range, and one’s eyes become quite blinky, watching for the flash from the bow, but, whether privateer or United States schooner she was too magnanimous to fire. A stern chase is a long chase. It must now be somewhere about two in the morning. Nearer and nearer to shore creeps the Diana. “I’ll lead him into a pretty mess, whoever he is, if he tries to follow me through the Swash,” grins the skipper. The Swash is a very shallow, narrow, and dangerous passage into Mobile Bay, between the sand-banks on the east of the main channel and the shore. The Diana is now only some nine or ten miles from Fort Morgan, guarding the entrance to Mobile. Soon an uneasy dancing motion welcomes her approach to the Swash. “Take a cast of the lead, John!” “Nine feet.” “Good! Again!” “Seven feet.” “Good—Charley, bring the lantern.” (Oh, Charley, why did that lantern go out just as it was wanted, and not only expose us to the most remarkable amount of “cussin’,” imprecation, and strange oaths our ears ever heard, but expose our lives and your head to more imminent danger?) But so it was, just at the critical juncture when a turn of the helm port or starboard made the difference, perhaps, between life and death, light after light went out, and the captain went dancing mad after intervals of deadly calmness, as the mate sang out, “Five feet and a half! seven feet—six feet—eight feet—five feet—four feet and a half—(Oh, Lord!)—six feet,” and so on, through a measurement of death by inches, not at all agreeable. And where was Mr. Brown all this time? Really, we were so much interested in the state of the lead-line, and in the very peculiar behavior of the lanterns which would not burn, that we scarcely cared much when we heard from the odd hand and Charley that she had put about, after running aground once or twice, they thought, as soon as we entered the Swash, and had vanished rapidly in the darkness. It was little short of a miracle that we got past the elbow, for just at the critical moment, in a channel not more than a hundred yards broad, with only six feet of water, the binnacle light, which had burned steadily for a minute, sank with a sputter into black night. When the passage was accomplished, the captain relieved his mind by chasing Charley into a corner, and with a shark, which he held by the tail, as the first weapon that came to hand, inflicting on him condign punishment, and then returning to the helm. Charley, however, knew his master, for he slyly seized the shark and flung his defunct corpse overboard before another fit of passion came on, and by the morning the skipper was good friends with him, after he had relieved himself, by a series of castigations of the negligent lamplighter with every variety of Rhadamanthine implement.
The Diana had thus distinguished her dirty little person by breaking a blockade, and giving an excellent friend of ours a great deal of trouble (if it was, indeed Mr. Brown), as well as giving us a very unenviable character for want of hospitality and courtesy; and, for both, I beg to apologize with this account of the transaction. But she had a still greater triumph. As she approached Fort Morgan, all was silence. The morning was just showing a gray streak in the east. “Why, they’re all asleep at the fort,” observed the indomitable captain, and, regardless of guns or sentries, down went his helm, and away the Diana thumped into Mobile Bay, and stole off in the darkness toward the opposite shore. There was, however, a miserable day before us. When the light fairly broke we had got only a few miles inside, a stiff northerly wind blew right in our teeth, and the whole of the blessed day we spent in tacking backward and forward between one low shore and another low shore, in water the color of pea-soup, so that temper and patience were exhausted, and we were reduced to such a state that we took intense pleasure in meeting with a drowning alligator. He was a nice-looking young fellow about ten feet long, and had evidently lost his way, and was going out to sea bodily, but it would have been the height of cruelty to take him on board our ship miserable as he was, though he passed within two yards of us. There was to be sure the pleasure of seeing Mobile in every possible view, far and near, east and west, and in a lump and run out, but it was not relished any more than our dinner, which consisted of a very gamy Bologna sausage, pig who had not decided whether he would be pork or bacon, and onions fried in a terrible preparation of Charley the cook. At five in the evening, however, having been nearly fourteen hours beating about twenty-seven miles, we were landed at an outlying wharf, and I started off for the Battle House and rest. The streets are filled with the usual rub-a-dub-dubbing bands, and parades of companies of the citizens in grotesque garments and armament, all looking full of fight and secession. I write my name in the hotel book at the bar as usual. Instantly young Vigilance Committee, who has been resting his heels high in air, with one eye on the staircase and the other on the end of his cigar, stalks forth and reads my style and title, and I have the satisfaction of slapping the door in his face as he saunters after me to my room, and looks curiously in to see how a man takes off his boots. They are all very anxious in the evening to know what I think about Pickens and Pensacola, and I am pleased to tell the citizens I think it be a very tough affair on both whenever it comes. I proceed to New Orleans on Monday.
NEW-ORLEANS, May 25, 1861.
There are doubts arising in my mind respecting the number of armed men actually in the field in the South, and the amount of arms in the possession of the Federal forces. The constant advertisements and appeals for “a few more men to complete” such and such companies furnish some sort of evidence that men are still wanting. But a painful and startling insight into the manner in which “volunteers” have been sometimes obtained has been afforded to me at New Orleans. In no country in the world have outrages on British subjects been so frequent and so wanton as in the States of America. They have been frequent, perhaps, because they have generally been attended with impunity. Englishmen, however, will be still a little surprised to hear that within a few days British subjects living in New Orleans have been seized, knocked down, carried off from their labor at the wharf and the workshop, and forced by violence to serve in the “volunteer” ranks! These cases are not isolated. They are not in twos and threes, but in tens and twenties; they have not occurred stealthily or in by-ways; they have taken place in the open day, and in the streets of New Orleans. These men have been dragged along like felons, protesting in vain that they were British subjects. Fortunately, their friends bethought them that there was still a British consul in the city, who would protect his countrymen—English, Irish, or Scotch. Mr. Mure, when he heard of the reports and of the evidence, made energetic representations to the authorities, who, after some evasion, gave orders that the impressed “volunteers” should be discharged, and the “Tiger Rifles” and other companies were deprived of the services of the thirty-five British subjects whom they had taken from their usual avocations. The mayor promises that it shall not occur again. It is high time that such acts should be put a stop to, and that the mob of New Orleans should be taught to pay some regard to the usages of civilized nations. There are some strange laws here and elsewhere in reference to compulsory service on the part of foreigners which it would be well to inquire into, and Lord John Russell may be able to deal with them at a favorable opportunity. As to any liberty of opinion or real freedom here, the boldest Southerner would not dare to say a shadow of either exists. It may be as bad in the North, for all I know; but it must be remembered that in all my communications I speak of things as they appear to me to be in the place where I am at the time. The most cruel and atrocious acts are perpetrated by the rabble who style themselves citizens. The national failing of curiosity and prying into other people’s affairs is now rampant, and assumes the name and airs of patriotic vigilance. Every stranger is watched, every word is noted, espionage commands every keyhole and every letter-box; love of country takes to evesdropping, and freedom shaves men’s heads, and packs men up in boxes for the utterance of “Abolition sentiments.” In this city there is a terrible substratum of crime and vice, violence, misery, and murder, over which the wheels of the Cotton King’s chariot rumble gratingly, and on which rest in dangerous security the feet of his throne.
There are numbers of negroes who are sent out into the streets every day with orders not to return with less than seventy-five cents—any thing more they can keep. But if they do not gain that—about 3s. 6d. a day—they are liable to be punished; they may be put into jail on charges of laziness, and may be flogged ad libitum, and are sure to be half starved. Can any thing, then, be more suggestive than this paragraph, which appeared in last night’s papers. “Only three coroners’ inquests were held yesterday on persons found drowned in the river, names unknown!” The italics are mine. Over and over again has the boast been repeated to me, that on the plantations lock and key are unknown or unused in the planters’ houses. But in the cities they are much used, though scarcely trusted. It appears, indeed, that unless a slave has made up his or her mind to incur the dreadful penalties of flight, there would be no inducement to commit theft, for money or jewels would be useless; search would be easy, detection nearly certain. That all the slaves are not indifferent to the issues before them, is certain. At the house of a planter, the other day, one of them asked my friend, “Will we be made to work, massa, when ole English come?” An old domestic in the house of a gentleman in this city said, “There are few whites in this place who ought not to be killed for their cruelty to us.” Another said, “Oh, just wait till they attack Pickens!” These little hints are significant enough, coupled with the notices of runaways, and the lodgments in the police jails, to show that all is not quiet below the surface. The holders, however, are firm, and there have been many paragraphs stating that slaves have contributed to the various funds for state defence, and that they generally show the very best spirit.
By the proclamation of Governor Magoffin, a copy of which I enclose, you will see that the governor of the commonwealth of Kentucky and commander-in-chief of all her military forces on land or water, warns all states, separately or united, especially the United States and the Confederate States, that he will fight their troops if they attempt to enter his commonwealth. Thus Kentucky sets up for herself, while Virginia is on the eve of destruction, and an actual invasion has taken place on her soil. It is exceedingly difficult of comprehension that, with the numerous troops, artillery, and batteries, which the Confederate journals asserted to be in readiness to repel attack, an invasion which took place in face of the enemy, and was effected over a broad river, with shores readily defensible, should have been unresisted. Here it is said there is a mighty plan, in pursuance of which the United States troops are to be allowed to make their way into Virginia, that they may at some convenient place be eaten up by their enemies; and if we hear that the Confederates at Harper’s Ferry retain their position, one may believe some such plan really exists, although it is rather doubtful strategy to permit the United States forces to gain possession of the right bank of the Potomac. Should the position at Harper’s Ferry be really occupied with a design of using it as a point d’appui for movements against the North, and any large number of troops be withdrawn from Annapolis, Washington and Baltimore, so as to leave those places comparatively undefended, an irruption in force of the Confederates on the right flank and in rear of General Scott’s army, might cause most serious inconvenience, and endanger his communications, if not the possession of the places indicated.