Yellow Bluff, Fla.,
May 10, 1864.
Dear Sister L.:—
Everybody is talking now of the event of yesterday, the destruction of the little steamer Harriet Weed by a torpedo. It occurred about four miles above here. Captain Dickey, who was coming down from Jacksonville on the Boston, saw it. The Boston is quite a large boat and carried a large party of excursionists or “inspectionists” from Hilton Head. There were some fifty ladies on board. The captain for some whim ran a little nearer the shore than the regular channel. He had never done so before. The Weed, however, was just behind, and she kept the regular channel and was blown to atoms. She sank immediately. There were ten killed and wounded. The rest escaped unhurt. The gunboat Mahaska had been lying there for some time and her launches patrolled the river, but the day before she went up to Jacksonville, and the first night she was gone two torpedoes were planted. We received orders last night to patrol that part hereafter. It brings it pretty hard on us. I am very glad it did not occur on our part of the river. Much blame is or would be attached to us if a torpedo should be found in our part. Under the circumstances it would be unhealthy business for a strange boat to be caught on the river here. I would shoot first and court-martial afterwards. This is the third steamer blown up on this river already, and any amount of torpedoes have been found.
The paymaster came on Saturday with his $7 per month. Not half the men would sign the rolls or take their pay, and those who did, did so under protest. It is too bad. Seven dollars a month for the heroes of Olustee! I received two months’ pay, deducting the tax, $213.49. Some difference between that and $26. My expenses besides clothing, etc., are about $6 a week and I hope to save some money now.
We are living very quietly, enjoying ourselves as well as we can.
The weather is extremely warm in the middle of the day, July and August weather, but the evenings—O, how I wish you could be here to enjoy a few! When the moon rises red as blood and throws across the river a long shining path; when the air is so balmy you seem to float in some other element. And then to go out on the river where your oars drip pearls or drops of fire, and the sparks fly from the prow of the boat as she plows her way along. I suppose it is electricity in the water. I know it is beauty.
A man just down from Yorktown says there is a bigger army on the Peninsula than was there before, and as many as the old army along the Rappahannock. The advance was at Bottom’s Bridge, ten miles from Richmond, when he left. I have no doubt that is the route to Richmond, notwithstanding McClellan’s failures, and Grant is the man to go in. Even now, for all I know, the North may be in jubilee over his victory. The rebels seem to have accepted our discarded “scatteration” policy, and Grant works on the concentration. Richmond must be taken. No doubt they will blow up the prison where our soldiers are, but God pity the prisoners we take after that.
