Twenty years at sea: Leaves from my old log-books

It was a blazing hot morning of the first week in September, 1842. The sun was pouring down with the fierce heat that so often marks the departing days of our Northern summers,...

When I returned to consciousness I could not at first imagine where I was, but the creaking and groaning of the ship as she labored in the heavy seaway and the abominable smell...

I had been kept so late by my kind entertainer that I found, by inquiry of the boat-keeper of a man-of-war cutter at the landing stage, that the Bombay’s boat with the liberty m...

The next voyage of the Bombay was to Mobile for a cargo of cotton, to be carried to Liverpool. It was the custom in those days for ships of any great size to discharge and take...

The next three years of my life at sea were but a repetition of the first three months of my experience, with a slight change in the scene of the incidents and a natural increas...

In 1846, while the Mexican War was in progress, it was decided by President Polk, acting upon the advice of Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, to send a volunteer regiment a...

I did not long remain as second mate, for the very next voyage the chief mate was lost overboard one morning from the top of the poop-house. The watch were about to set the span...

I at once went on shore and reported to Russell & Sturgis, and learned that we had arrived in a good time. There were very few ships in port, teas were low in price and very goo...

In 1859, after seventeen years of almost continuous sea service, for during all that time I had never been on shore more than two months at any one time, I determined to abandon...

From the time of the Richmond’s arrival at the Bélize we found ourselves the object of deep interest to a black, snaky-looking steamer that fell into the way of coming down the...

Early in March, 1862, while the Richmond was at Ship Island, where ten thousand troops had been brought together, Captain David Glasgow Farragut came out from New York in the Un...

When Flag Officer Farragut--soon to be made Rear Admiral for this night’s work--looked about him from the quarter deck of the Hartford that glorious morning of the 24th of April...

In November, 1862, while we were lying off Baton Rouge in the Richmond, I was officially notified from Washington of my promotion to the grade of acting lieutenant. A week later...

It was Christmas morning, and very early on Christmas morning, for the sun, like a great ball of burnished copper, was just rising above the mist that hung low along the eastern...

About three months after my adventure in the bay, the doctor came to me one morning after quarters and reported that he had a number of cases on the sick list of a decidedly sco...

But the good fortune that had thus far fallen to the lot of the Anderson was to take a turn, for we had not long returned to our station at Aransas when an affair occurred that...

The following spring the commodore ordered the Anderson to New Orleans to refit, and while there an official letter came to me from the Navy Department detaching me from the Wes...

Early in September, 1864, after Admiral Porter had been transferred to the North Atlantic Squadron, I was ordered from the Benton to the command of the United States steamer Tyl...

On the 9th of the following April, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Virginia to General U. S. Grant, beneath the famous Appomattox apple-tree, and our long ci...