A ture was made of three brigs, respective- lady," who was supposed to be bent on ly laden with coffee, ice and coal, a highly some repetition of his previous advenacceptable prize under the privations of ture. Lieutenant Carmichael of the pothe blockade to the people of Fredericks- lice, becoming aware of the presence of burg, whither the whole was transported. these distinguished personages, directed The winners, of course, laughed as the Captain Mason L. Weems to land his vessels were sold and the prize money passengers at Fort McHenry. Captain distributed, and the purchasers munched Thomas loudly questioned the propriety the longed-for ice in their cobblers and of the order, when he was informed that scented the unaccustomed flavor of the it was by authority from the Provostcoffee. Indeed the joke was thought so Marshal of Baltimore. Upon this he good a one that the people of Fredericks- drew his pistol, called his comrades burg gave a dinner to the captors, when, around him, and threatened to throw the at a proper moment of the festivities, the officers overboard. overboard. The latter drew exhilaration of the occasion was immense- their revolvers and invited them to try ly heightened by the appearance of Cap-it. The ladies screamed, the male tain Thomas, in unbounded female attire, passengers supported the police, and in his original part of "The French order was maintained till the arrival at Lady." In the absence of more active McHenry, when the lieutenant informed proceedings of the war, the newspapers on General Banks of the capture. A comboth sides, of course, liberally entertained pany of infantry was sent on board and their readers with the incident. Present- arrested the rebel party, with the exceply, however, the tables were turned. The tion of the main actor, Thomas, who had nine days' wonder over this valorous disappeared. At length, still true to the affair had barely expired when news came of the accidental capture of the redoubtable Captain Thomas, and his safe delivery to the guardianship of Fort McHenry. On the 8th of July, officers Carmichael and Horner of the Baltimore Police were on a visit down the Chesapeake, at Fair Haven, to arrest an offending barber, charged with participation in the street riot and assault on the Massachusetts soldiers. They secured the culprit and took the up river boat, the Mary Washington, on their return. It so happened that on board the steamer were the released officers of the St. Nicholas and several of their captors, including Captain Thomas, the "French millinery associations of the French lady, he was found hidden away in the drawer of a bureau in the ladies' cabin, when he was unpacked and, without further resistance, lodged a prisoner in the Fort. An explanation of his attempted return to Baltimore was afforded in certain mysterious approaches which had been made to another steamer of the Bay, which it was supposed it might have been his purpose to "convey" somewhat after the fashion of the St. Nicholas. On the 19th July, General Banks succeeded General Patterson in his command on the Potomac, and the vacated Department of Annapolis was conferred on General Dix. CHAPTER XVIII. GENERAL BUTLER AT FORTRESS MONROE. On the 22d of May, two days before the advance across the Potomac, General Butler entered upon his command at Fortress Monroe, and immediately began preparations for the occupation of points of military importance in the vicinity upon the mainland. Up to that time the Government authority had been confined to the narrow peninsula, mostly occupied by the fort itself, an ample area, however, for the small force gathered at the spot. With barely three hundred regulars, Colonel Justin Dimick of the 1st Artillery, the commander of the post, had at the outset of the rebellion held the work free from assault of the surrounding conspirators, not indeed without certain envious glances of Governor Letcher and his associates. The Governor who, doubtless, was compelled to listen to many complaints of his neglect in this matter, afterward publicly expressed his regret that Fortress Monroe was not in his possession, and that it had not been as easily captured as the Navy Yard at Norfolk and the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. It would certainly have completed the trio very handsomely, and been the most important acquisition of the three. "As far back as the 8th of January last," said Governor Letcher in his message to the Senate and House of Delegates of Virginia, at the close of the year, "I consulted with a gentleman, whose position enabled him to know the strength of that fortress, and whose experience in military matters en abled him to form an opinion as to the number of men that would be required to capture it. He represented it to be one of the strongest fortifications in the world, and expressed his doubts whether it could be taken, unless assailed by water as well as by land, and simultaneously. He stated, emphatically and distinctly, that with the force then in the fortress, it would be useless to attempt its capture without a large force, thoroughly equipped and well appointed. At no time previous to the secession of Virginia had we a military organization sufficient to justify an attempt to take it, and events since that occurrence demonstrate very clearly that with our military organization since, and now existing, it has not been deemed prudent to make the attempt.' So it was owing to no good will on the part of Governor Letcher that the valuable possession of Fortress Monroe was delivered in safety by President Buchanan to the keeping of his successor. It owed that immunity from the withering touch of treason to the strength of its defences and the equally unapproachable loyal officers who had it in charge. "Three hundred men to guard a mile and a half of ramparts!" wrote Theodore Winthrop on his arrival shortly after General Butler. "Three hundred to protect some sixty-five broad acres within the walls. But the place was a Thermopylæ, and there was a fine old Leonidas at the head * Message of Governor Letcher, Dec. 2, 1861. of its three hundred. He was enough 32's, and lower denominations. Outside to make Spartans of them. Colonel of the walls were the work-shops, foundDimick was the man, a quiet, modest, ery and machine-shops, for the manufacshrewd, faithful, Christian gentleman; ture of shot and shell; the Hygeia and he held all Virginia at bay. The Hotel, kept by permission of the Governtraitors knew, that, so long as the Colo- ment, for the convenience of summer nel was here, these black muzzles with visitors to Old Point Comfort; and on the their white tompions, like a black eye beach was mounted the famous experiwith a white pupil, meant mischief. To mental 15-inch columbiad the Constituhim and his guns, flanking the approaches tion, sometimes called after the late Secand ready to pile the moat full of seced-retary of War, the Floyd. Within the ers, the country owes the safety of Fortress Monroe.” fortress, the officers were lodged in the casemates and separate residences, which, As the key to the waters of Virginia with their gardens and foliage and the and Maryland; the great Chesapeake finely shaded parade ground of twentyBay with its numerous affluents from the five acres, with a neat Episcopal chapel, Susquehannah to Hampton Roads; the gave the interior the appearance of a approaches to the national Capital, to rural village. The water battery, the Baltimore, to Fredericksburg, Yorktown, most substantial part of the work, facing Richmond and Norfolk by the vast series the sea, mounted the heaviest guns in its of river communication of the Potomac, forty-two embrasures. The inner side the Patapsco, the Rappahannock, the was less protected, but a deep and wide York, the James and the Elizabeth, the moat, communicating with the sea, surfortress was of inestimable advantage. rounding the work on all sides, gave Its possession immediately controlled a security to the whole. Even toward the great part of the Confederate territory, mainland, however, the fort was nearly secured the blockade of some of its most isolated by the waters of the bay, a narimportant products, and as a base of row dyke or causeway, about half a mile operations might at any time be turned in length, terminating in a wooden bridge to the most profitable account in the sup- of some three hundred feet, being the pression of the rebellion. As a defensive only communication by land with the work it was second to none in the coun- neighboring region. Beyond the bridge try. Commenced in 1819, under the the country extended mostly in a dead direction of the eminent French engineer, level, broken at a distance of about two General Bernard, it had been an object miles to the northwest by an inlet of the of attention with successive administra-bay, where the traveller from the fort, tions, at a cost to the country of nearly $2,500,000. The walls, thirty-five feet in height, mostly built of granite, casemated below, were surmounted on the ramparts by a formidable series of heavy ordnance. The armament numbered nearly four hundred guns of all descriptions, columbiads, mortars, 42-pounders, crossing a second bridge, entered the village of Hampton. The first reinforcement of Fortress Monroe, when it was threatened by the rebellion, was immediately after the affair at Sumter, when the garrison was strengthened by the 3d and 4th Massachusetts Regiments, a portion of whom, occupy Newport News, the promontory some twelve miles distant, commanding the entrance to James River. The place was successfully taken possession of, entrenchments were thrown up, and a permanent occupation effected. Colonel Phelps, the energetic officer placed in charge of the expedition, and who for some months held command of the camp, was a graduate of West Point, who had long served with distinction in the army, and having resigned his position about two years before, was living at Brattleboro, when the call for volunteers again cummoned him to the field. He was early appointed a Brigadier-General. We shall find him hereafter again in intimate military relations with General Butler, as second in command in the operations leading to the capture of New Orleans. it will be remembered, were immediately tachment of several of the regiments to on their arrival embarked with Captain Paulding in his hurried expedition to save the public property at the Gosport Navy Yard. It was not till three weeks after this event, on the 13th of May, that the pickets of the rebel guard, who flaunted their Confederate flag within sight of the fortress, were driven from the bridge by Colonel Dimick, and the Government authority thus established over the whole of its property at the Point. The same day Colonel Phelps' 1st Vermont Regiment was added to the force, and within the next fortnight the arrival of other troops, including Colonel Duryee's Advance Guard, 5th Regiment New York Volunteers, gave General Butler, upon entering on his new department of Virginia, a body of about 6,000 men, to carry out a system of operations on the mainland, which, though they were attended with one memorable repulse, secured most important advantages for the ultimate prosecution of the war. On the 23d of May, the day after his arrival, General Butler ordered a reconnoissance of the neighboring country by Colonel Phelps, who advanced towards Hampton, when an attempt was made by the rebels to burn the bridge leading to the village. The Vermonters, however, were too quick for them. They arrested the conflagration, saved the bridge, and passed over it into the town, where they met with no further serious opposition. A place for an encampment was marked out, between the fort and the village, on the Segar farm, and the next day Camp Hamilton was regularly established there, occupied by Colonel Carr's Troy, New York, and Colonel Phelps' Vermont regiments. On the 27th Colonel Phelps was sent with a de To Colonel Duryee was assigned the command, as Acting Brigadier-General, of the camp before Hampton. This officer, a native of New York, had shown an early fondness for military life, having risen through the various grades of the militia service of the State to the Coloneley of the 7th Regiment, which he held for ten years. He was in command the night of the Astor Place Riots in New York, and had, with a portion of the regiment, escorted the remains of President Monroe to Richmond. Colonel Duryee remained in command of Camp Hamilton till the arrival of Brigadier - General Pierce, when he returned to his regiment. We shall meet with him presently in action at Great Bethel. Shortly after that event his regiment was removed to Washington. On the 31st of August he was promoted to the rank of BrigadierGeneral, and placed in command of a reserve corps in the vicinity of Balti- are asked to plunge. We have all confi more. dence that, in Virginians in arms against us, we have honorable foes, whom we hope yet to make our friends." These military demonstrations on the part of General Butler, were attended with a circumstance which considerably taxed his ingenuity, fertile as it was in expedients. The advance upon Hampton, while it repelled the white population brought back into the camp a considerable number of negroes, whose arrival occasioned no little perplexity. How should they be treated? Many men of General Butler's political antecedents would have been content to answer the question by sending them back to their masters. But our Boston mili Colonel Duryee, on taking command of Camp Hamilton, issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Hampton and its vicinity, marked by the moderate, earnest tone of friendly expostulation which the army had adopted in proceedings of this kind as its settled policy. "Having been placed," said he, "by order of Major-General Butler, in command of the troops in this vicinity, outside of the walls of Fortress Monroe: I hereby notify all, that their rights of person and property will be entirely respected; that their cooperation in maintaining law and order is expected, both by reporting every violation of them, when committed by any one attached to the camp, and by pre-tary lawyer was of too astute and pracserving local order and restraining such of their fellow-citizens as may entertain perverted intentions. You can rely that all offences against you will be severely punished; that no effort will be spared to detect the guilty, and that you, as a community, will also be held responsible for every act committed by any one of your numbers, where the particular of fender is not surrendered. Be assured that we are here in no war against you, your liberty, your property, or even your local customs; but to keep on high that flag of which your own great son was the bearer; to sustain those institutions and those laws made by our ancestors and defended by their common blood. Remember all these things, and if there be those among you who, maddened by party feeling, misled by wilful falsehoods, or a mistaken sense of duty, have thought to obliterate the national existence, let them at least pause till they learn the true value of what they have imperilled, and the nature of that into which they tical a turn for that. He saw that in the hands of their owners those nondescript personages, whether regarded as human beings or chattels, were very important aids in carrying on the war, and very dangerous instruments to be employed against the advancing armies of the Union. He had, indeed, a hint on the subject in the shots fired at his transports from the batteries at Sewell's Point, on the opposite side of the Roads, when they were making their way from the Fortress to Newport News. The shots were ineffectual, indeed, but the batteries were there with evil intent, and it was known to General Butler that they were largely indebted for their construction to slave labor. This unpleasant reflection, disheartening to his schemes of military progress, brought his mind to a speedy conclusion. He resolved to consider the slave property contraband of war, an ingenious, if not conclusive, solution of the difficulty. The first application of the new doc |