April 23d. At six A. M. weighed anchor, got under way, and steamed down the river, Albatross and ram Switzerland in company, bringing up the rear. On our way down came to several times, for the purpose of destroying some flat boats which we came across in the river, and which were used in the transportation of sugar, molasses, &c., across the river to the rebel forces at Port Hudson. At two P. M. brought ship to anchor, five miles above the batteries at Port Hudson. Engaged signalizing (by means of army signals) from masthead to lower fleet.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Thursday, 23rd—Friday, 24th—Remain in camp this morning, all day nothing of interest.
23rd. In the morning Dod killed the beef. Issued some rations. Received letters from home and Lucy Randall, also one from Charlie Crandall. Does me good to hear of him, an old schoolmate. Pitched quoits with Henry Drake. In the evening played three games of chess with Capt. Nettleton, all success.
London, April 23, 1863
Troubled times! troubled times! My own opinion is that our bed here is getting too hot for comfort and I don’t much care how soon we are out of it.
The last storm really amounts to very little, but serves to show the temper of the people here, or rather, of the business men. I had not sent my last to you when it burst, and you would have thought the devil was loose. Ecoute, mon chéri.
The cursed blockade-runners got up a lovely scheme of trading to the Rio Grande, a few months ago, and to insure success they made a contract with J. D. at Richmond to furnish cotton at half price on the spot, etc., etc., and in accordance with the program, a steamer called the Peterhoff was sent out, which Admiral Wilkes very properly bagged, and deserves the thanks of the Government for doing so. But the owners had covered the transaction under the appearance of a trade with Mexico and Matamoras, and finding their whole game spoiled and the officers refusing at any price to insure their ships or any ships to Matamoras, they set up a tremendous cackle, and the Times and the Telegraph and all the newspapers cackled, and deputations of blockade runners went to the Foreign Office and in short the whole blockade-breaking interest, the insurance Companies and underwriters, the ship-owners, and all and every their relations, friends and acquaintances, were exasperated and acrimonious.
Meanwhile two Americans named Howell and Zerman had been some time here engaged in purchasing articles on account of the Mexican Government, but mostly with British money. The capture of the Peterhoff suddenly destroyed their chance of insurance. In great disgust they went to the Minister and asked him for a certificate of loyalty, on which they might act. The Minister saw his chance of hitting the Peterhoffers a hard blow, and at the same time of helping Mexico, and so wrote the letter which you have probably already seen in the newspapers. Of course it was secret, for its publication would necessarily destroy the insurance, but it was intended for the gentlemen at Lloyd’s. It had the intended effect. The policy was to have been executed the next day, when one of the very underwriters made public a copy of the letter which his clerk had surreptitiously taken in short-hand as he himself read it aloud to the other four underwriters; within an hour a deputation had gone up with it to Earl Russell; the Exchange was raving mad; the Times next day thundered at the Minister for his insolent attempt to license British trade; the Standard cried for his dismissal; the public cursed and threatened; even our friends were frightened, and all thought that at last salt had been deposited upon the caudal appendage of a very venerable ornithological specimen.
The Minister was grand. I studied his attitude with deep admiration. Not all the supplications of his friends could make him open his mouth either to put the public right on his letter or on the gross falsehoods told about the Peterhoff. The time had not come. Of course he was cursed for his obstinacy, but he is used to that. We remained perfectly silent while the storm raged and laughed at it. But you can’t conceive how bitter they were in the city, and the matter was twice brought up in Parliament, though nothing was said there, nor shown, except a strong desire to get hold of the Minister. Luckily Lord Russell was firm and his course irritated the Peterhoffers so as to draw off a large portion of indignation upon him. Meanwhile the man who betrayed the letter in the hope of getting revenge for being called “dishonest and fraudulent,” and of stirring up hostility to our Government, honorably refused to proceed with the insurance and was blackguarded in his own office like a thief by Howell. To complete their discomfiture, a letter of the Minister to a London firm is published this morning, coolly putting it right as to the licensing business, and referring British subjects to their own Government for protection. When the whole Peterhoff story is told we shall reverse everything and overwhelm these liars, I hope, but meanwhile the storm seems to have blown itself out and we are still steady and going straight ahead. But England is not comfortable with such Irish rows.
April 24
You may judge the state of feeling here by the debate in Parliament last night, where much bad temper was shown, but no case. You will observe that our friends kept silence and left the Government to manage the matter. As to Lord Russell’s declaration about the Minister’s course and the complaint at Washington, it is of course annoying and hurts us here, but I believe it to be only the result of the outside pressure, and I do not believe he expects really to affirm that the American Government has no right to protect its own citizens against its own fleets. One thing however is certain. There is great danger in this feeling of irritation on both sides and a rupture is highly probable. But then, if we can weather it and turn the current, as I hope we may do, if the Peterhoff case is a strong one, we shall have plain sailing for another spell. Meanwhile we still bear up and steer right onward. Another debate comes on tonight and our friends will have their innings on the Alabama case. You will probably see this in our papers, but I shan’t be able to send it to you….
Thursday, 23d.—Last night about midnight, several gunboats passed the batteries, and the scene of the night of the 17th was repeated with greater fury. Regiment called out and remained until morning. Orders to have everything ready to move at any time.
23d April (Thursday).—The wily Mr Sargent drove the animals down to the mud-hole in the middle of last night, and so stole a march upon Ward.
Our goat’s flesh having spoiled, had to be thrown away this morning. We started at 5.30 A.M., and reached “Rocky” at 7.30.; but before this two of Ward’s horses had “caved in,” which completely restored our driver’s good-humour.
Rocky consists of two huts in the midst of a stony country; and about a mile beyond it we reached a pond, watered our mules, and filled our barrels. The water was very muddy to look at, but not bad to drink.
The mules were lazy to-day; and Mr Sargent was forced to fill his bucket with stones, and pelt the leaders occasionally.
At 8 A.M. we reached an open, undulating prairie, and halted at 10.30. Mr Sargent and I killed and cooked the two chickens.
He has done me the honour to call me a “right good companion for the road.” He also told me that at one time he kept a hotel at El Paso — a sort of half-way house on the overland route to California— and was rapidly making his fortune when the war totally ruined him. This accounts for his animosity to “Uncle Abe.” [1]
We hitched in again at 3 P.m., and after pushing through some deepish sand, we halted for the night only twenty-four miles from San Antonio. No corn or water, but plenty of grass; our food, also, was now entirely expended. Mr Ward struggled up at 8.15, making a desperate effort to keep up with us, and this rivalry between Sargent and him was of great service.
This was our last night of camping out, and I felt almost sorry for it, for I have enjoyed the journey in spite of the hardships. The country through which I have passed would be most fertile and productive (at least the last 150 miles), were it not for the great irregularity of the seasons. Sometimes there is hardly any rain for two and three years together.
[1]General Longstreet remembered both Sargent and the Judge perfectly, and he was much amused by my experiences with these worthies. General Longstreet had been quartered on the Texan frontiers a long time when he was in the old army.—August 1863
April 23 — I slept in a little mountain barn last night. It rained nearly all night and a greater part of to-day. We renewed our march this morning toward Moorefield. Early in the day we passed Howard’s Lick, or more properly the Hardy White Sulphur spring, which is situated four miles from Lost River and at the eastern base of Branch Mountain. It is a beautiful spring, boxed with white marble slabs, and the water is as clear as the purest virgin crystal, and very sulphury. The surrounding mountain scenery is wild, grand, and magnificent; spurs of the Branch Mountain and long wooded ridges thickly clad with laurel and ferns rise around the spring and its neighborhood in every direction which bounds the view of the beholder. On one side not more than fifteen or twenty feet from the spring a steep bank rises almost perpendicularly, covered with mossy rocks and mountain fern, all darkly shaded by overhanging spruce and pine, foot-noted by the ever present shiny green of mountain laurel. About a hundred yards from the spring is an old hotel, weatherstained, gray with age, and embowered with giant oaks that have swayed their spreading branches in a thousand mountain storms, and no doubt often looked down on the stealthy Indian hunter as he silently kindled his camp-fire to prepare his frugal evening meal beneath their own sheltering canopy that caught the evening dew; and at early dawn heard the sharp twang of the bow-string as it sped the deadly arrow to the heart of unsuspecting game. A dark heavy fog hung on Branch Mountain all day, at some places so dense that we could not see fifty yards, and the fog looked like wool packed among the trees and shrubbery. After we had been some four or five hours in the damp, dense, cloud-like fog that hung around and hugged the rugged steeps, the rain ceased and the clouds partially broke away. We suddenly descended below the fog line on the western slope of the mountain, and the beautiful Moorefield Valley lay before us in all its smiling splendor, with its wheat fields, pasture lands, and grass fields all arrayed in different hues of living green. Gentle spring had already trailed her bright emerald robe along the grassy hillside and scattered the fragrant children of the sunshine along its balmy track. The South Branch and South Fork meandered with sweeping bends through the rain-cleaned landscape like bands of silver woven in a divers green carpet. Moorefield, almost in the center of the picture, looked in the evening glow like a bright jewel with an emerald setting. All of which was a delicious feast for eyes that have been befogged for four or five hours in the gloom of a wet, dripping mountain.
We forded the South Fork three times this evening; it is swollen considerably from the recent rains. The fords are deep and rough and the current so rapid that at one ford it swept some of us down stream. We marched till an hour after dark, then camped on South Fork, a mile and a half above Moorefield.
April 23.—There is a report that there is fighting at the front.
We have numbers of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-eighth Alabama Regiments very sick. I suppose the sickness is caused by the change in coming so far south. Lieutenant Robinson, of Mobile, has been to call on some of his men.
I have received a letter from a friend in Mobile, requesting me to buy some dry goods and children’s shoes for her. There is not a pair of the latter in the whole place. Calico is three dollars and fifty cents per yard, and white domestic four.
Thursday, 23d—Brig. Gen. M. M. Crocker took command of our brigade today. I got a pass to go down to the landing to buy bread for the officers’ mess in my charge. Our troops are encamped by the thousands all along the Mississippi river, for thirty miles up from Vicksburg. There is much sickness among the new troops in camp here, caused by using the river water and by camping on the low ground. Many of them have already died and their bodies have been buried upon the levee instead of in the low ground. It is reported that five of our transports loaded with supplies for the army below ran the blockade last night. One of the transports when almost past was hit by a solid shot and sunk.
April 23, Thursday. Favorable, though not very important, news from lower Virginia and North Carolina.
My letter of the 2d and telegram of the 15th to Porter have been effective. The steamers have run past Vicksburg, and I hope we may soon have something favorable from that quarter.
Senator Sumner called this P.M. to talk over the matter of the Peterhoff mail. Says he has been examining the case, that he fully indorses my views. Seward, he avers, knows nothing of international law and is wanting in common sense, treats grave questions lightly and without comprehending their importance and bearings. He calls my attention to the opinion of Attorney-General Wirt as to the rights of the judiciary.
