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380 Norta Carorina Troops, 1861-’65.

the black and angry sky in which there was no hope of the
storm’s abatement. The men were tied to life lines, hag-
gard and despairful as they toiled wearily at the pumps.
Steadily the leaks gained until the firemen stood in water up
to their hips. Our lives depended upon getting the ship
about so that we could head her for Bermuda. This move-
ment would bring us broadside to the sea, and the captain
waited several hours for a favorable lull in which to make the
venture. At last he put the helm hard over and took the only
alternative; great masses of water surged over the side and
for several moments we sank into the trough until it seemed
we would never rise again. A merciful Providence spared
us; the ship groaned and shook as if she would go to pieces
under the strain, but we got her head to the wind, and steered
back towards St. George’s. On the morning of the third day
we sighted the islands. The water in the fire rooms was re-
duced by the pumps so that we could drive along at a four-
teen knot pace. ‘The captain, worn with anxiety and lack
of sleep, and perhaps stupid frdm the effect of stimulants,
forgot the dangerous reef which runs miles out from the
islands, and suddenly, without a moment’s warning, our ship
struck the rocky bottom with terrible force, tearing a hole in
the bow, through which the water rushed like a mill stream.
The concussion threw us flat on the deck, and our captain,
losing his head completely, sang out: “All hands take to the
boats!” Immediately the firemen and stokers and sailors
rushed to the side, some of them so frantic with fear that I
saw them chop with an axe the iron davits, the falls of which
they had fouled in their eagerness to escape. In the midst
of this exciting scene, I saw General Preston, who was a
passenger with us, dragging a large trunk about the deck in a
vain endeavor to get it in one of the boats.

Our signal officer, Mr. Gregory, stood with me waiting for
the panic to subside. We noticed that the engines were still
driving at full speed ahead, and we supposed that the en-
gineer on duty had fled. Such, however, was not the case.
There was one man who had kept his head, our chief en-
gineer, Jack Chambers, of Georgia, who was fortunately on
duty when the ship struck. Our captain had not ordered the

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BLocKADE RUNNING. 381

engines stopped and Chambers said he never acted without
orders from the bridge. Consequently, his presence of mind
saved the ship and our lives; the furious movement of the
paddle wheels lifted the steamer over the reef into deep
water and then we ran for the beach upon which, inside the
harbor, we were stranded a short time afterwards. Several
weeks were spent in patching up, by means of divers whose
movements under the water so interested our captain that he
decided to put on the diving dress and descend-to inspect the
work. He had scarcely reached the bottom, about twenty
feet deep, when he made frantic signals to be hauled up
again, and he declared upon the removal of the helmet that
he had seen the devil or a shark making straight for him,
and that he thought his end had come. We, of his subordi-
nates, inclined to the latter hypothesis, because we believed
that the former was his warm, personal friend who need not
have sought the captain in such an out-of-the-way place.
We failed to get permission from the British Government to
use the naval dry-dock, and we found it necessary to proceed
to Nassau in a crippled condition, to complete repairs on
the public dock there. For several days we did not secure a
crew, owing to the unseaworthy condition of the ship, but at
last we signed on a sufficient number at high wages, and after
an uneventful voyage reached Nassau, where we were im-
mediately docked.

While we were repairing at Nassau, the Confederate
steamer Owl, commanded by Captain Maffitt, appeared in the
offing and later ran close past us in the harbor, a shot hole
through her funnel, several more in her hull, standing rig-
ging in rags, and other indications of a hot time, confirming
our apprehensions that she had failed to reach the Confeder-
acy. A few minutes later the gallant Maffitt reported that
Fort Fisher had fallen and that Charleston harbor was also
in possession of the Federals. The gateway to the South
was at last closed and the occupation of blockade-runners
was at an end.

It was not believed that the war would terminate so soon
after, and I accepted an invitation to join Major Green, with
dispatches for the Confederate Government from representa-