Sketches From My Life by Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden

Author:Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden [Hobart-Hampden, Augustus Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781511917230
Google: EZeVrgEACAAJ
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2015-04-26T00:18:23+00:00

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CHAPTER XIV.

LAST DAYS ON THE 'D——N.'

As no vessel had succeeded since the blockade was established in getting into Savannah (a large and flourishing town in Georgia, situated a few miles up a navigable river of the same name), where there was a famous market for all sorts of goods, and where plenty of the finest sea-island cotton was stored ready for embarkation, and as the southern port pilots were of opinion that all that was required to ensure success was an effort to obtain it, I undertook to try if we could manage to get the 'D——n' in.

The principal difficulty we had to contend with was that the Northerners had possession of a large fortification called Pulaski, which, being situated at the entrance of the river, commanded the passage up to the town.

To pass this place in the night seemed easy work enough, as it would be hard for the sentry to make a vessel out disguised as we were; but to avoid the shoals and sand-banks at the river's mouth, in a pitch-dark night, seemed to me, after carefully studying the chart, to be a most difficult matter. This, however, was the pilot's business; all we captains had to do was to avoid dangers from the guns of ships and forts; or, if we could not avoid them, to stand being fired at.

The pilot we had engaged was full of confidence; so much so, that he refused to have any payment for his services until he had taken us in and out safely. I may as well mention that there were few if any blockading vessels off Savannah river, the Northerners having perfect confidence, I presume, in Fort Pulaski and the shoals which surrounded the entrance of the river being sufficient to prevent any attempt at blockade-running succeeding. The lights in the ship off Port Royal, a small harbour in the hands of the Northern Government, a few miles from the entrance to Savannah, were as bright as in the time of peace, and served as a capital guide to the river's mouth. After two days' run from Nassau we arrived without accident to within twenty miles of the low land through which the Savannah river runs, and at dark steered for the light-vessel lying off Port Royal. Having made it out, in fact steaming close up to it, we shaped our course for Fort Pulaski, using the light as a point of departure, the distance by the chart being twelve miles. We soon saw its outlines looming through the darkness ahead, and formidable though it looked, it caused me no anxiety, compared with the danger we seemed to be in from the shoalwater and breakers being all around us. However, the pilot who had charge of such matters seemed comfortable enough.

So we went cautiously along, and in ten minutes would have been past danger, at all events from the batteries on the fort, when one of the severest storms I ever remember of wind and rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, came on, and enveloped us in a most impenetrable darkness.

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