Chapter 12

A VISIT TO CHARLESTON.

All being ready, we steamed out of Nassau harbour, and were soon again in perilous waters. We had a distant chase now and then--a mere child's play to us after our experience--and on the third evening of our voyage we were pretty well placed for making a run through the blockading squadron as soon as it was dark. As the moon rose at twelve o'clock, it was very important that we should get into port before she threw a light upon the subject.

Unfortunately, we were obliged to alter our course or stop so often to avoid cruisers that we ran our time too close; for, as we were getting near to the line of blockade, a splendid three-quarter-size moon rose, making everything as clear as day. Trying to pass through the line of vessels ahead with such a bright light shining would have been madness; in fact, it was dangerous to be moving about at all in such clear weather, so we steamed towards the land on the extreme left of the line of cruisers, and having made it out, went quite close inshore and anchored.

By lying as close as we dare to the beach, we must have had the appearance of forming part of the low sand-hills, which were about the height and colour of the vessel; the wood on their tops forming a background which hid the small amount of funnel and mast that showed above the decks. We must have been nearly invisible, for we had scarcely been an hour at anchor when a gun-boat came steaming along the shore very near to the beach; and while we were breathlessly watching her, hoping that she would go past, she dropped anchor alongside of us, a little outside where we were lying--so close that we not only heard every order that was given on board, but could almost make out the purport of the ordinary conversation of the people on her decks. A pistol shot would have easily reached us. Our position was most unpleasant, to say the least of it. We could not stay where we were, as it only wanted two hours to daybreak. If we had attempted to weigh anchor, we must have been heard doing so. However, we had sufficient steam at command to make a run for it. So, after waiting a little to allow the cruiser's fires to get low, we knocked the pin out of the shackle of the chain on deck, and easing the cable down into the water, went ahead with one engine and astern with the other, to turn our vessel round head to seaward.

Imagine our consternation when, as she turned, she struck the shore before coming half round (she had been lying with her head inshore, so now it was pointed along the beach, luckily in the right direction, i.e. lying from the cruiser). There was nothing left to us but to put on full speed, and if possible force her from the obstruction, which after two or three hard bumps we succeeded in doing.

After steaming quite close to the beach for a little way, we stopped to watch the gun-boat, which, after resting for an hour or so, weighed anchor and steamed along the beach in the opposite direction to the way we had been steering, and was soon out of sight. So we steamed a short distance inshore and anchored again. It would have been certain capture to have gone out to sea just before daybreak, so we made the little craft as invisible as possible, and remained all the next day, trusting to our luck not to be seen. And our luck favoured us; for, although we saw several cruisers at a distance, none noticed us, which seems almost miraculous.

Thus passed Christmas Day, 1863, and an anxious day it was to all of us. We might have landed our cargo where we were lying, but it would have been landed in a dismal swamp, and we should have been obliged to go into Wilmington for our cargo of cotton.

When night closed in we weighed anchor and steamed to the entrance of the river, which, from our position being so well defined, we had no difficulty in making out. We received a broadside from a savage little gun-boat quite close inshore, her shot passing over us, and that was all. We got comfortably to the anchorage about half-past eleven o'clock, and so ended our second journey in.

I determined this time to have a look at Charleston, which was then undergoing a lengthened and destructive siege. So, after giving over my craft into the hands of the owner's representatives, who would unload and put her cargo of cotton on board, I took my place in the train and, after passing thirty-six of the most miserable hours in my life travelling the distance of one hundred and forty miles, I arrived at the capital of South Carolina, or rather near to that city--for the train, disgusted I suppose with itself, ran quietly off the line about two miles from the station into a meadow. The passengers seemed perfectly contented, and shouldering their baggage walked off into the town. I mechanically followed with my portmanteau, and in due course arrived at the only hotel, where I was informed I might have half a room.

Acting on a hint I received from a black waiter that food was being devoured in the coffee-room, and that if I did not look out for myself I should have to do without that essential article for the rest of the day, I hurried into the _salle-à-manger_, where two long tables were furnished with all the luxuries then to be obtained in Charleston, which luxuries consisted of lumps of meat supposed to be beef, boiled Indian corn, and I think there were the remains of a feathered biped or two, to partake of which I was evidently too late. All these washed down with water, or coffee without sugar, were not very tempting; but human nature must be supported, so to it I set, and having swallowed a sufficient quantity of animal food, I went off to my room to take a pull at a bottle of brandy which I had sagaciously stored in my carpet-bag. But, alas! for the morals of the beleaguered city. I found, on arriving there, a nigger extended at full length in happy oblivion on the floor, with the few clothes I had with me forming his pillow, and the brandy bottle rolling about alongside of him, empty.

I first of all hammered his head against the floor, but the floor had the worst of it; then I kicked his shins (the only vulnerable part of a nigger), but it was of no use; so pouring the contents of a water jug over him, in the hope that I might thus cause awful dreams to disturb his slumbers, I left him, voting myself a muff for leaving the key in my box.

Having letters of introduction to some of General Beauregard's staff, I made my way to headquarters, where I met with the greatest courtesy and kindness. An orderly was sent with me to show me the top of the tower, a position that commanded a famous view of the besieging army, the blockading squadron, and all the defences of the place. A battery had just been placed by the enemy (consisting of five Parrot guns of heavy calibre) five miles from the town, and that day had opened fire for the first time. At that enormous range the shell occasionally burst over or fell into the city, doing, however, little damage. The elevation of the guns must have been unusually great. I am told that every one of them burst after a week's, or thereabouts, firing. Poor Fort Sumter was nearly silenced after many months' hammering, but its brave defenders remained in it to the last, and it was not till a few days before Charleston was abandoned that they gave it up. At the time I speak of the whole of the western beach was in the hands of the enemy, Battery Wagner having succumbed after one of the most gallant defences on record. While it remained in the hands of the Southerners it assisted Fort Sumter, inasmuch as from its position it kept the enemy at a distance, but after its capture, or rather destruction, the latter fort was exposed to a tremendous fire from ships and batteries, and its solid front was terribly crumbled.

Surrounded, however, with water as it was, it would have been most difficult to take by assault; and from what I could learn, certain destruction would have met any body of men who had attempted it latterly. There it stood, sulkily firing a shot or shell now and then, more out of defiance than anything else. The blockading, or rather bombarding, squadron was lying pretty near to it on the western side of the entrance to the harbour; but on the east side, formidable batteries belonging to the Southerners kept them at a respectable distance. Blockade-running into Charleston was quite at an end at the time I am writing about. Not that I think the cruisers could have kept vessels from getting in, but for the reason that the harbour was a perfect network of torpedoes and infernal machines (the passage through which was only known to a few persons), placed by the Southerners to prevent the Northern fleet from approaching the city.

Having had a good look at the positions of the attacking and defending parties, I went down from the tower and paid a visit to a battery where two Blakely guns of heavy calibre, that had lately been run through the blockade in the well-known 'Sumter' (now the 'Gibraltar'), were mounted. These guns threw a shot of 720 lbs. weight, and were certainly masterpieces of design and execution. Unhappily, proper instructions for loading had not accompanied them from England, and on the occasion of the first round being fired from one of them, the gun not being properly loaded, cracked at the breech, and was rendered useless; the other, however, did good service, throwing shot with accuracy at great distances. I saw much that was interesting here, but more able pens than mine have already described fully the details of that long siege, where on one hand all modern appliances of war that ingenuity could conceive or money purchase were put into the hands of brave and determined soldiers; on the other hand were bad arms, bad powder, bad provisions, bad everything; desperate courage and unheard-of self-denial being all the Southerners had to depend upon.

These poor Southerners never began to open their eyes to the hopelessness of their cause till Sherman's almost unopposed march showed the weakness of the whole country. Even strangers like myself were so carried away with the enthusiasm of the moment, that we shut our eyes to what should have been clearly manifest to us. We could not believe that men who were fighting and enduring as these men were could ever be beaten. Some of their leaders must have foreseen that the catastrophe was coming months before it occurred; but, if they did so, they were afraid to make their opinion public.

On returning to the hotel, I found it full of people of all classes indulging in tobacco (the only solace left them) in every form. It is all very well to say that smoking is a vile habit; so it may be, when indulged in by luxurious fellows who eat and drink their full every day, and are rarely without a cigar or pipe in their mouths; it may, perhaps, be justly said that such men abuse the use of the glorious narcotic supplied by Providence for men's consolation under difficulties. But when a man has hard mental and bodily work, and barely enough food to support nature, water being his only drink, then give him tobacco, and he will thoroughly appreciate it. Besides, it will do him real good. I think that at any time its use in moderation is harmless and often beneficial, but under the circumstances I speak of it is a luxury without price.

During the evening I met at the hotel a Confederate naval officer who was going to attempt that night to carry havoc among the blockading squadron by means of a cigar-shaped vessel of a very curious description.

This vessel was a screw steamer of sixty feet in length, with eight feet beam. She lay, before being prepared for the important service on which she was going, with about two feet of her hull showing above the water, at each end of which, on the shoulder as it were of the cigar, was a small hatch or opening, just large enough to allow a man to pop through it: from her bows projected a long iron outrigger, at the end of which there was fixed a torpedo that would explode on coming into contact with a vessel's side.

When the crew were on board, and had gone down into the vessel through one of the hatches above mentioned, the said hatches were firmly closed, and by arrangements that were made from the inside the vessel was sunk about six inches below the water, leaving merely a small portion of the funnel showing. Steam and smoke being got rid of below water, the vessel was invisible, torpedo and all being immersed.

The officer having thus described his vessel, wished me good-night, and started on his perilous enterprise. I met him again next evening quietly smoking his pipe. I eagerly asked him what he had done, when he told me with the greatest _sang-froid_ that he had gone on board his vessel with a crew of seven men; that everything for a time had gone like clockwork; they were all snug below with hatches closed, the vessel was sunk to the required depth, and was steadily steaming down the harbour, apparently perfectly water-tight, when suddenly the sea broke through the foremost hatch and she went to the bottom immediately. He said he did not know how he escaped. He imagined that after the vessel had filled he had managed to escape through the aperture by which the water got in; all the rest of the poor fellows were drowned. Not that my friend seemed to think anything of that, for human life was very little thought of in those times. This vessel was afterwards got up, when the bodies of her crew were still in her hold. I imagined that the vessel contained sufficient air to enable her to remain under water two or three hours, or maybe some method was practised by which air could be introduced by the funnel; at all events, had she been successful on that night, she would undoubtedly have caused a good deal of damage and loss to the blockading squadron, who were constantly harassed by all sorts of infernal machines, torpedoes, fire-vessels, &c., which were sent out against them by ingenious Southerners, whose fertile imaginations were constantly conceiving some new invention.

On the next occasion that same enterprising officer was employed on a similar enterprise, his efforts were crowned with complete success.

He started one dark night, in a submerged vessel of the same kind as that above described, and exploded the torpedo against the bows of one of the blockading squadron, doing so much damage that the vessel had to be run on shore to prevent her sinking.

I must, before finishing my account of what I saw and did in Charleston, mention a circumstance that showed how little the laws of _meum_ and _tuum_ are respected during war times. The morning before I left, I had a fancy for having my coat brushed and my shoes polished. So having deposited these articles on a chair at the door of my room, I went to bed again to have another snooze, hoping to find them cleaned when I awoke. After an hour or so I got up to dress, and rang the bell several times without getting any answer. So I opened the door and looked out into the passage. To my surprise I saw an individual sitting on the chair on which I had put my clothes, trying on one of my boots. He had succeeded in getting it half on when it had stuck, and at the time I discovered him he seemed to be in a fix, inasmuch as he could neither get the boot off nor on. He was struggling violently with my poor boot, as if it were his personal enemy, and swearing like a trooper. Not wishing to increase his ire, I blandly insinuated that the boots were mine, on which he turned his wrath towards me, making most unpleasant remarks, which he wound up by saying that in these times anything that a man could pick up lying about was his lawful property, and that he was astonished at my impudence in asking for the boots. However, as the darned things would not fit him 'no how,' he guessed I was welcome to them; and giving a vicious tug to the boot to get it off, he succeeded in doing so, and I, picking it up with its fellow, made good my retreat. But where was my coat? I could not get an echo of an answer, where? So I went downstairs and told my piteous tale to the landlord, who laughed at my troubles, and told me he could not give me the slightest hopes of ever seeing it again; but he offered to lend me a garment in which to travel to Wilmington, which offer I gladly accepted.