Part 6

The Valley City remained off Newbern till June 4th, when we left at 1 p.m., and arrived off Hill's Point at 9-1/4 a. m, of the 5th. The 6th we went ashore at Maule's Point, and got a mess of strawberries. The 7th we landed at Bath. The 8th two boats' crews were sent to Maule's Point to watch the Confederates, a squad of whom had assembled there. Two shots were fired from the Valley City, one to the right and the other to the left of the house on the point. The family living in the house was very much frightened, but nobody was hurt. On the 9th and 10th, nothing of note occurred. The 11th cloudy, the Thomas Collyer, a mail-boat from Newbern, came up with a "flag of truce," and went to Washington.

On the 12th and 13th there was nothing of note took place. On the 14th we went ashore at Bath, and called on Mr. Windley's family. The 15th, we went ashore at Maule's Point, and called on Mrs. Orrell's family. Mrs. Forbes made me a present of a Confederate flag. In the evening, we steamed down to the mouth of Pungo river, and anchored for the night.

Thursday, June 16.--There was an armed party sent ashore, for the purpose of foraging. After they had returned we proceeded up Pungo river to Leechville, a small place at the head-waters of that river. The occupation of its inhabitants was cutting down timber and making shingles. There was an armed party sent ashore, who captured and brought aboard a quantity of corn. We then left with a scow in tow, and proceeded down the river and anchored off Wright's Creek. The 17th, the United States steamer Ceres arrived from Newbern. An armed party was sent ashore for the purpose of foraging. On the 18th, in company with the United States steamer Ceres, the Valley City steamed through Pamlico Sound. The Ella May soon hove in sight, with two schooners she had captured in tow. On the 19th the Valley City, Ceres, and Ella May, with the schooners in tow, steamed up the Pungo river, and anchored off Sandy Point. At about 10 p.m. we proceeded farther up the river, and landed an armed party of men for the purpose of capturing some Confederates at Leechville. On the 20th we proceeded up the river to Leechville to join the party, which had already arrived there. Three schooners were loaded with shingles. On the 21st, the United States steamers Valley City, Ceres, and Ella May, proceeded down Pungo river with the three schooners laden with shingles in tow. On the 22d, we anchored in Pamlico Sound. At 8 a.m. we proceeded towards Newbern, where we arrived with the schooners in tow at 8 p.m.

On July 4th, the Valley City, in commemoration of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, fired twenty-one guns, and a copy of the Declaration of Independence was read to the officers and crew of the Valley City by Captain J. A. J. Brooks. On the 5th, the Valley City got under weigh, and proceeded towards Tar river, and on the 6th arrived and anchored off Maule's Point. On the 10th, the Valley City got under weigh and proceeded to Bath, where an armed force was landed, and captured John Taylor, Company G, 62d Georgia cavalry. In trying to make his escape, he jumped from a buggy which was drawn by a horse in rapid flight, and in doing so injured his knee, so that he was unable to walk for five weeks. On the fly-leaf of a Bible which I loaned him to read in his leisure hours, he wrote:

"May peace and happiness attend thee, and Heaven's richest blessings crown thee ever more. When this you see, remember me.

"Your most obedient servant,

"JOHN TAYLOR.

"Houstin City, Ga., July, 1864."

At about 10 p.m. of the same day, July 10, another armed party of men was landed with the intention of capturing some Confederate pickets, but did not succeed. Bath, N. C, is a very small place on the left bank of the Tar river, at the junction of Bath creek, about ten miles below Washington. The place was built of frame principally. The people of the place were rather intelligent.

July 13.--The Valley City got under weigh, and proceeded down Tar river to Durham's creek, and sent a party out to fish; afterwards she steamed down the river, and anchored off North creek, and there brought a boat to, which had permission from the Federal Government to trade with the loyal people of Beaufort county, N.C. On the 14th, got under weigh and steamed over to South creek; from thence down to the mouth of Tar river, and anchored. On the 15th, the Valley City proceeded to off Maule's Point and anchored. Mrs. Daniels and her two children, with her sister-in-law, came aboard. On the 19th, the U.S. steamer Louisiana hove in sight. The Valley City proceeded to the mouth of the Tar river with her, where we anchored.

After taking abroad our refugees, the Louisiana proceeded to Newbern. On the 21st, at 7 o'clock a.m., the Valley City steamed for Newbern, where she arrived at 4 p.m. On the evening of July 31, the Valley City was ordered to proceed up the Trent river to guard that river in case of an expected attack. August 4th, the Valley City was ordered down to her old anchorage off Newbern. On the 5th, at 8 a.m., we weighed anchor and proceeded down the Neuse river, through Pamlico Sound, and up the Tar river, and at 6 p.m. relieved the U.S. steamer Louisiana. At 7 p.m., the Valley City anchored near the mouth of Bath creek. Mrs. Quin and Mrs. Harris were brought with us from Newbern, and landed near Bath creek.

On the 10th we weighed anchor and proceeded down the Tar river. At the mouth of Bath creek, two shells were fired from the howitzers, at a house where there were a number of Confederates. At 2 o'clock p.m. we anchored in South creek. On the 11th, at 12 m., we weighed anchor and proceeded to Pamlico light-house and anchored. On the 13th, at 4 o'clock a.m. we weighed anchor and proceeded to Brant Island light-house in order to get the mail from the U.S. steamer Massasoit that we expected to meet steaming near this point. At 1 o'clock p.m. we weighed anchor and proceeded to above Maule's point, where we anchored at 6 o'clock p.m. On the 18th, at 7 o'clock a.m., we weighed anchor and proceeded down Tar river past Maule's Point, down by the mouth of Bath creek, and down by South creek, where we anchored at 3 o'clock p.m. During this cruise there have been eight refugees taken aboard. On the 19th, we weighed anchor, and proceeded to Maule's Point. On our way we stopped at the mouth of Durham's creek. Captain J. A. J. Brooks and I went ashore. At 6 p.m. we anchored at the mouth of Bath creek. In the evening there was a heavy thunder-storm, accompanied with rain.

On the 20th, at 9-1/2 o'clock a.m., we were relieved by the United States steamer Louisiana, and the Valley City was ordered to the neighborhood of the mouth of Roanoke river, in Albemarle Sound, to join the fleet composed of United States steamers Shamrock, Sassacus, Ceres, Tacony, Chicopee, Mattabessett, and Wyalusing, to assist in watching the Confederate ram Albemarle, which was stationed at Plymouth, which is situated on the right bank of the Roanoke river, eight miles from its mouth. We arrived at Roanoke Island at 12 m., and coaled. A portion of Roanoke Island is a barren, sandy place, separating the Atlantic Ocean from Pamlico Sound.

On Roanoke Island, in 1585, the first attempt to found an English colony in America was made. Though abandoned the following year, it was in advance of any similar effort. After the war commenced, the place was held by the Confederates till the year 1862, when the Federal forces under General Burnside captured the place. On the 21st the Valley City left Roanoke Island at 12 m., and joined the fleet, and anchored for the night.

On Monday, August 22d, 1864, at 9 o'clock, a.m., the Valley City was ordered to the mouth of Roanoke river, where the United States steamers Ceres and Sassacus were anchored. We were to take a very dangerous and responsible position, immediately at the mouth of the Roanoke river. During the long dark nights the Valley City did not anchor, for it was rumored that the Confederate ram Albemarle might come down any night, and especially a very dark night under the cover of the darkness, so that the Valley City must be constantly on the alert. If the Albemarle did make her appearance at the mouth of the Roanoke river, the Valley City was to fire one gun as a signal to the fleet, which was anchored six miles farther down the Albemarle Sound, and then steam towards the fleet.

This Confederate ram was a formidable adversary on water. She had a sharp arrow-like ram extending twenty feet under water in front of her bow. She was plated with iron, which completely protected her inmates from solid shot; she had two two-hundred-pounder Brooke's rifled guns on the inside of this iron encasement, and one port-hole to each of her four sides. She was very unwieldy, but in a body of water like the Albemarle or Pamlico Sound no wooden vessel could cope with her.

Friday, August 25.--I visited Edenton to-day for the first time. It is situated pleasantly on the bank of Edenton Bay, as it is called, but really Albemarle Sound. The people are kind, courteous, educated, and hospitable. There were magnificent residences in the place, each of which was surrounded by a large yard with shade trees, having that comfortable, spacious, home-like appearance, which so many of the buildings in Southern cities present. When the officers of the Valley City first visited Edenton, they were treated very coolly by the people; but gradually they became quite sociable, and we were invited to visit many of the families of the place--in fact, one of our officers afterwards married an Edenton lady. Edenton was a sort of neutral ground, at which the Federal officers and Confederate officers often met. On August 31, the day was clear and cool. Nothing took place of any note except a false alarm that the ram was coming down the river, causing some excitement aboard the Valley City.

Thursday, September 1, 1864, the double-ender Shamrock came up from the fleet. Last night some army gunboats took an armed body of men up the Chowan river, to be landed and marched across to Plymouth for the purpose of destroying the Albemarle. The project was not successful. The day is cool and hazy. The double-ender Wyalusing came up from the fleet during the night. The Albemarle ram is expected out to-night.

2d.--The ram did not make her appearance. The double-enders all went to Edenton. The weather is pleasant.

On the 4th I went to Edenton and spent the afternoon at Mr. B.'s, and made the acquaintance of his daughters. On the 6th, H. T. Wood, paymaster's clerk, and myself, went aboard a tug, and were conveyed to the United States steamer Shamrock, from whence we boarded the Trumpeter, where Dr. P. H. Barton and myself held a medical survey upon H. T. Wood, and sent him to the United States Naval Hospital at Norfolk, Va. I accompanied him. We left the Shamrock at 7 o'clock p.m., in the Trumpeter, and anchored at 1 a.m., September 7th, and at 6 o'clock a.m. weighed anchor, and arrived at Roanoke Island at 8 a.m. We left Roanoke Island at 1 p.m., and at 8 p.m. we changed to the Fawn, and after steaming two hours anchored for the night. On the 8th we weighed anchor at 5 a.m., and changed boats to the Undine at 11 a.m., and arrived at Norfolk at 1 p.m., when I immediately took H. T. Wood to the hospital. I stopped at the National Hotel.

On the 9th I went to Quartermaster's office at Norfolk to procure transportation to Roanoke Island, but I was a half hour too late, the boat Undine having left at 8 o'clock a.m. At 5 p.m. I heard that the Fawn, which had made connection with the Undine in the Dismal Swamp Canal, and the boat I would have been aboard had I not been too late for the Undine, was captured and burned by the Confederates. In the evening I went to the theatre. I passed the time pleasantly at Norfolk in viewing whatever there was of beauty and interest in the place. On Sunday morning I attended service at the Episcopal church, and also in the evening, in company with Mr. Y., of Bellefonte, Center county, Pa. On Monday the 12th, and Tuesday 13th, Mr. Y. and I promenaded the principal streets and visited places of interest.

At 6 p.m., Wednesday, September 14, I left Norfolk in the C. W. Thomas, which steamed to Fortress Monroe, where she arrived at 7-1/2 p.m., when I got aboard the John Farran, and steamed by the way of the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Hatteras, through the Swash, and through Pamlico sound to Neuse river, and thence up to Newbern, where we arrived at 7 p.m. of the 15th. Having expended all the money that I took with me but a few cents, I felt perplexed as to how I should reach the Valley City, which I supposed was at the mouth of the Roanoke river, where I had left her; but on going ashore at Newbern, I soon learned that she was anchored off that place, having steamed there during my absence. I quickly arrived aboard her, feeling delighted that I was once more among my old naval companions. The next thing of interest I learned was, that Newbern was being visited by an endemic of yellow fever.

Having already passed twice through the Dismal Swamp Canal, and would have steamed through it the third time had I not been too late for the boat that was destroyed, but I was destined to pass through it still again on my passage home. Lossing, in his history of the American Revolution, in volume I, page 311, gives a very complete description of the Dismal Swamp, through which this canal passes. He says:

"Schemes for internal improvements, for facilitating the development of the resources of the country, often occupied Washington's most serious attention. At the time we are considering, he was engaged, with some other enterprising gentlemen, in a project to drain the Dismal Swamp, an immense morass lying partly in Virginia and partly in North Carolina, and extending thirty miles from north to south, and ten miles from east to west. Within its dark bosom, and nowhere appearing above its surface, are the sources of five navigable rivers and several creeks; and in its centre is a body of water known as Drummond's lake, so named from its alleged discoverer. A great portion of the morass is covered with tall cypresses, cedars, hemlocks, and junipers, draped with long mosses, and covered with creeping vines. In many places it is made impassable by fallen trees, thick brakes, and a dense growth of shrubbery. Thomas Moore, who visited it in 1804, has well indicated its character in the following stanzas of his legendary poem, called 'The Lake of the Dismal Swamp:'

"'Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-- His path was rugged and sore; Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before!

"'And when on earth he sank to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep In venomous tears, and nightly steep The flesh with blistering dew!'

"'They tell of a young man,' says Moore, in his introduction to his poem, 'who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it was supposed that he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or had been lost in some of the dreadful morasses.' The poet makes him say:

"'They made her grave too cold and damp, For a soul so warm and true, And she has gone to the lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where all night long by her fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe.