Until within a few years their principal occupation was wrecking. Hatteras lies on the direct route of vessels bound from the West Indies to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. The plan adopted by these guileless natives to aid the storm in insuring a wreck was simple, but effective. There is a half-wild pony bred upon the island called "marsh pony." One of these animals was caught, a leg tied up Rarey fashion, a lantern slung to his neck, and the animal driven along the beach on a stormy night. The effect was that of a vessel riding at anchor. Other vessels approached, and were soon unpleasantly aware of the difference between a ship and a marsh pony.
The dwellings bear witness to the occupation of their owners. The fences are constructed of ships' knees and planks. In their parlors you may see on one side a rough board door, on the other an exquisitely finished rose-wood or mahogany cabin door, with silver or porcelain knobs. Contrast reigns everywhere.
But the place is not without its attractions to the botanist. A wild vine, of uncommon strength and toughness, grows abundantly, and is used in the place of rope. The iron-tree, hard enough to turn the edge of the axe, and heavy as the metal from which it takes its name, is found in abundance, and the tea-tree, from whose leaves the inhabitants draw their tea when the season has been a bad one for wrecks. This tea-tree furnishes the "black drink," which the Florida Indians drank to make themselves invulnerable. They drank it with due religious ceremonies till it nauseated them, when it was supposed to have produced the desired effect. What a pity that we can not associate some such charming superstition with the maladie de mer! It would so comfort us in our affliction!
But we were not to stay long on this enchanted isle. Butler had organized his expedition against New Orleans, and it was now ready to sail. He had applied for Thomas Williams, who had been strongly recommended to him by Weitzel, Kenzel, and other regular officers of his staff. Early in March we received orders to report to Butler at Fortress Monroe. We took one of those rolling tubs they call "propellers," which did the service between the fortress and Hatteras for the Quartermaster's Department; and, after nearly rolling over two or three times, we reached Old Point. Here we found the immense steamer the Constitution, loaded with three regiments, ready to sail. Williams had hoped to have two or three days to run North and see his wife and children, whom he had not seen for months. But with him considerations of duty were before all others. He thought that three regiments should be commanded by a brigadier, and he determined to sail at once. It was a disappointment to us all. To him the loss was irreparable. He never saw his family again.
It has always appeared to me that General Butler has not received the credit to which he is entitled for the capture of New Orleans. Without him New Orleans would not have been taken in 1862, and a blow inflicted upon the Confederacy, which the London Times characterized as the heaviest it had yet received—"almost decisive." The writer has no sympathy with General Butler's extreme views, and no admiration for his protégés; but he was cognizant of the New Orleans expedition from its inception, he accompanied it on the day it set sail, he landed with it in New Orleans, he remained in that city or its neighborhood during the whole of Butler's command; and a sense of justice compels him to say that Butler originated the expedition, that he carried it through, under great and unexpected difficulties, that he brought it to a successful termination, and that his government of the city at that time, and under the peculiar circumstances, was simply admirable.
It is not perhaps generally known that it was Butler who urged this enterprise upon the President. He was answered that no troops could be spared; M'Clellan wanted them all for his advance upon Richmond. Butler thereupon offered to raise the troops himself, provided the Government would give him three old regiments. The President consented. The troops were raised in New England, and three old regiments—the Fourth Wisconsin, the Sixth Michigan, and the Twenty-first Indiana—designated to accompany them. At the last moment M'Clellan opposed the departure of the Western troops, and even applied for the "New England Division." It was with some difficulty that, appealing to the President, and reminding him of his promise, Butler was able to carry out the design for which the troops had been raised.
We sailed from Old Point on the 6th of March with the three regiments I have named. We numbered three thousand souls in all on board. If any thing were wanting at this day to prove the efficacy of vaccination, our experience on board that ship is sufficient. We took from the hospital a man who had been ill with the small-pox. He was supposed to be cured. Two days out, his disease broke out again. The men among whom he lay were packed as close as herring in a barrel, yet but one took the disease. They had all been vaccinated within sixty days. I commend this fact to the attention of those parish authorities in England who still obstinately refuse to enforce the Vaccination Act.
Five days brought us, in perfect health, to Ship Island. Here was another Hatteras, with a milder climate, and no "black drink;" a low, sandy island in the Gulf, off Mobile. This part of the Gulf of Mexico was discovered and settled by the French. They landed on Ship Island, and called it "L'Isle des Chats," from the large number of raccoons they found there. Not being personally acquainted with that typical American, they took him for a species of cat, and named the island accordingly. From Ship Island and the adjacent coast, which they settled, the French entered Lake Borgne and Lake Pontchartrain, and so up the Amite River in their boats. They dragged their boats across the short distance which separates the upper waters of the Amite from the Mississippi, embarked upon the "Father of Waters," and sailed down the stream. Here they played a trick upon John Bull; for, meeting an English fleet coming up, the first vessels that ever entered the mouths of the Mississippi, they boarded them, claimed to be prior discoverers, and averred that they had left their ships above. There existed in those days an understanding among maritime nations that one should not interfere with the prior discoveries of another. The English thereupon turned, and the spot, a short distance below New Orleans, is to this day called "English Turn."
We remained at the "Isle of Cats" about six weeks—the life monotonous enough. The beach offered a great variety of shell-fish, devil-fish, horse-shoes, and sea-horses. An odd thing was the abundance of fresh, pure water. Dig a hole two feet deep anywhere in the sand on that low island, rising scarcely five feet above the sea, and in two hours it was filled with fresh water. After using it a week, it became brackish; when all it was necessary to do was to dig another hole.