But the man diligent in business shall stand before kings. Young Carleton, securing a commission as nurse from Surgeon-General Hammond, went down to the riverside, and, going on board a steamer arriving with wounded, he helped to unload its human freight. When the last man had been carried over the gunwales, young Carleton stayed on board. When far down the river, on the returning boat, he ceased being something like a stowaway, and became visible. No one challenged or disturbed him. At Acquia Creek, he found that General Augur, having sent all his wounded North, was just abandoning the communication. Young Carleton then went to Belle Plain, and thence marched three days with three companies of the Veteran Invalid Corps, and rejoined the army on its forced march, when Grant moved by the left flank down towards Petersburg.
Meanwhile, the pride of Mr. Coffin, the journalist, and the conscience of Mr. Coffin, the man, the uncle, and the Christian, had been at civil war. He was berating himself for having let his nephew go on so dangerous an errand. When the news flew round the camp that "young Carleton's back," Mr. Coffin rushed up to his nephew, wrung his hand, and cried out, with beaming face, "Ed, you're a brick."[Back to Content]
CHAPTER XV.
"THE OLD FLAG WAVES OVER SUMTER."
By this time, Mr. Coffin was himself nearly exhausted, having been worn down by constant service, day and night, in one of the most exhausting campaigns on record. Knowing that both armies would have to throw up entrenchments and recuperate, he came home, according to custom, to rest and freshen for renewed exertion. Leaving immediately after the battle of Cold Harbor, that is, on June 7th, he was back again in Washington on June 22d, and in Petersburg, June 26th. The lines of offence and defence were now twenty miles long, and the great battle of Petersburg, which was to last many months, the war of shovel and spade, had begun. Mr. Coffin remained with the army, often riding to City Point and along the whole front of the Union lines, reading the news of the sinking of the Alabama by the Kearsarge, and the call of the President for a half million of men, seeing many of the minor contests, the picket firing, the artillery duels, and learning of the splendid valor of the black troops.
He came to Washington and Baltimore, when the news of Early's raid up the Shenandoah Valley was magnified into an invasion of Maryland by General Lee, with sixty thousand men behind them. Carleton, however, was not one to catch the disease of fear through infectious excitement. Finding Grant, the commander-in-chief of all the armies in the field walking alone, quietly and unostentatiously, with his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and smoking a cigar, neither excited nor disturbed, Carleton felt sure that the raid had been anticipated and was well provided for. Both then, as well as on July 18th, when he had to argue with friends who wore metaphorically blue glasses, he wrote cheerfully and convincingly of his calm, deliberate judgment, that the prospects of crushing the rebellion were never so bright as at that moment. He concluded his letter thus, "Give Grant the troops he needs now, and this gigantic struggle will speedily come to an end."
While Lee, disappointed in the results of Early's menace of Washington, was summoning all his resources to resist the long siege, and while Grant was awaiting his reinforcements and preparing the cordon, which, like a perfect machine, should at the right moment be set in motion to grind in pieces the armies of rebellion, Carleton was chosen by the people of Boston to accompany their gift of food which they wished to send to Savannah, to relieve the needy. Between Tuesday and Thursday of one week, thirty thousand dollars were contributed. The steamer Greyhound a captured blockade-runner, was chartered. Taking in her hold one-half of the provisions, she left Boston Harbor at 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, January 23, 1865. With the committee of relief, Carleton arrived in Savannah in time to ride out and meet the army of Sherman. After attending meetings of the citizens, seeing to the distribution of supplies, and writing a number of letters, he now scanned all horizons, feeling rather than seeing the signs of supreme activity. Whither should he go?
Sherman's army was about to move north to crush Johnston, and then join Grant in demolishing Lee's host. Mr. Coffin could easily have accompanied this marvellous modern Anabasis, which, however, instead of retreat meant victory. He had an especially warm invitation from Major-General A. S. Williams, commander of the 20th Corps, to be a guest at his headquarters. There were many arguments to tempt him to proceed with Sherman's army. Nevertheless, from the war correspondent's point of view, it seemed wiser not to go overland, but to choose the more unstable element, water. For nearly a month, perhaps more, the army would have no communication with any telegraph office, and for long intervals none with the seacoast.
Carleton knew that after Gilmore's "swamp angel" and investing forces had done their work, Charleston must soon be empty. He longed to see the old flag wave once more over Sumter. So, bidding farewell to Sherman's army, he took the steamer Fulton at Port Royal, which was to stop on her way to New York at the blockading fleet off Charleston. Happy choice! He arrived in the nick of time, just as the stars and stripes were being hoisted over Sumter. It was on February 18th, at 2 P. M., that the Arago steamed into Charleston Bay, where he had before seen the heaviest artillery duel then known in the history of the world, and the abandonment of the attack by the floating fortresses. Now a new glory rose above the fort, while in the distance rolled black clouds of smoke, from the conflagration of the city. He penned this telegram to the Boston Journal: