I desire to mention as worthy of praise for great gallantry, Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, who ran the field-piece out amid a storm of bullets, took a sure and deliberate aim at the rebels and sent a charge of canister among them that completely silenced their fire at that point.
On October 26, 1862, Admiral S. P. Lee reports:
Lieutenant W. B. Cushing has been put in command of the gunboat Ellis, and is increasing his reputation by active operations.
On October 18, William had written to his cousin:
I am alone, inside the outer bar. The nearest friendly vessel or citizen is forty miles away. Three miles off, up the inlet, is the rebel town of Swansboro. I am going to run up and take possession in a few days, when I have burned up enough coal to lighten my vessel so I can cross the other bar. * * * You see I have a sort of roving commission and can run around to suit myself. * * * If under these circumstances I can not stir the rebels up in more places than one, it will be strange indeed.
He ran up to Swansboro in due time and burned the "Adelaide" with a $100,000 cargo, besides destroying salt works. On November 23, he worked his vessel to Jacksonville, a depot for blockade runners, and on the way caused a ship loaded with turpentine to be burned. At the town he captured a lot of guns and other public property, and started back. About 5 o'clock p. m. he found and shelled a camp of Confederate troops on the river bank, and came to anchor at nightfall, staying all night with his prizes, two large schooners.
The next morning Cushing moved on. Reaching a difficult passage in the river, he was attacked by shore artillery, but replied so vigorously that the gunners on shore were driven away, and he passed along. Shortly after, however, the "Ellis" ran aground and had to be burned, but not before her outfit had been mostly removed to one of the schooners, amid some hours of fighting. Then Cushing and his companions escaped in a small boat to the schooner which, with its companion, was taken back to open water.
He asked for a court of inquiry on account of the loss of his gunboat, but the admiral said there was no need, and the Navy Department at Washington approved, saying, "We don't care for the loss of a vessel when fought so gallantly as that."
A much thicker volume than this would be required to tell the stories of the young sailor's various adventures during the ensuing year. The reader must be content with relations of occasional adventures, sometimes in Cushing's own language. Our hero was now given command of the "Commodore Barney," a steamer of five hundred and thirteen tons with a very powerful battery, and, according to his own statement, a good crew of over one hundred men and thirteen officers. He continues, in his letter (written April 5) to his cousin, Mrs. Smith, at East Troy: "Of course I am as proud as a peacock at being the only lieutenant in the regular navy who has a [separate] command."