WE were living in the deserted village. That is to say, our battery of light artillery was stationed at Bluffton, South Carolina.
At ordinary times Bluffton had a population of about three thousand souls. At the time of which I write it had no population at all.
It was a town built upon a high bluff overlooking an arm of the sea, or more properly a great bay, broken by multitudinous islands into various inlets. Hilton Head lay within sight, twelve miles away, and all the waters of the great island-studded bay were navigable.
Bluffton never had any business to do. It had no shops, no factories, no anything but planters’ residences. Its houses were all elegant and all comfortable. Its streets were shaded by great spreading trees, not planted in symmetrical rows, but growing wherever they pleased, in the midst of the thoroughfares.
Bluffton was exposed to the direct assault of gun-boats or expeditions of any sort. So, early in the war, its entire population left and went to points in the interior. At the time I write of, in 1863, there was not a soul in the town except the men of the battery to which I belonged.
Our captain was commandant of outposts. I was adjutant of the same.
Our support consisted of two or three small troops of cavalry. Their camps were several miles in rear of our own. These cavalrymen did all the picketing. In the event of an attack we and they were charged with the duty of harassing the advance of the enemy and delaying him on his march to the railroad, seventeen miles away, long enough for troops to be sent down from Charleston or up from Savannah.
It was a wild, free, gypsy-like life. We lived in the handsomely furnished houses, made free use of the very rich libraries, fished, played at chess, shot deer and turkeys in the woods, dozed upon “joggling boards” in sea-breeze-swept piazzas, and altogether did nothing most industriously and delightfully.
There was one duty to be done, and that a very important one. It was necessary for some officer to make the grand rounds of the pickets every night. This task devolved upon me about once a week. The pickets were stationed at all available points of observation below, all points from which the channels could be seen. To visit them required an all night’s ride, which in that country is by no means an agreeable undertaking.
The weeds rise above the head of a horseman, and the dew drips as rain might, from every leaf. The night rider becomes water soaked and chilled to the very bones, even during the fierce summer weather. During the autumn and winter a night ride on this subtropical coast brings with it a degree of suffering from cold which the fiercest Northern winter never produces.
But it was absolutely necessary to visit the picket posts. Upon their efficiency depended our safety and that of the railroad we were set to defend. If a single picket slept, a fleet of gun-boats or ship’s launches might come to Bluffton wholly unannounced. The battery, without support at hand, would fall helpless into the enemy’s hands, and the railroad communication, on which the safety of Charleston and Savannah depended, would be broken.
It was Christmas Eve, crisp and cool. A heap of fat hard pine was blazing in the great fireplace in our quarters. The negro servant was busy in the kitchen without. Our guests, half a dozen officers from the cavalry companies, were already assembled. We had invited them to dine with us upon a haunch of venison, a wild turkey, fish, oysters, crabs, shrimps, etc., all of which, except the first two, could be taken at any time within a hundred yards of the door. Our little party-giving promised to be a thoroughly successful bit of hospitality.
Curry, the cook, had just begun to put the dinner on the table when a messenger came to report that Lieutenant C——, the officer appointed to make the picket rounds that night, was ill and could not go. It was my turn next and there was no escape. At the holiday season pickets especially need watching. I knew very well it would never do to leave them unvisited that night. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to turn the guests over to my messmate, the captain, and order my horse.
My guide—for without a guide no one could possibly find his way at night through parts of that country—was a dull, taciturn fellow, with whom I found it impossible to maintain a conversation. My twelve miles’ ride to the farthest picket post, which I visited first, was therefore a very disagreeable substitute for the jovial, social evening I had planned.
By the time I had reached Bear’s Island, I was wet to the skin with dew and stiff with cold. It was about ten o’clock when we rode across the causeway from the mainland to the island, and the first thing I observed was the utter darkness of the place. Ordinarily the pickets on this post kept up a little fire behind a screen at which to warm and dry themselves during the night. Approaching from the rear, I always saw this fire when I crossed the causeway, the screen standing between it and the water on the other side. To-night, however, everything was dark, and it was with some little difficulty that we found our way across the island to the picket post.
“What’s the matter, sergeant?” I asked. “Where’s your fire to-night?”
“I had to put it out and move away from it,” he replied. “They are loading up two gun-boats and three transports just across the creek there, and they threw two or three charges of grape-shot over here an hour or two ago. They killed one of my men, poor fellow. I’ve been watching them and was on the point of sending a man up with the alarm. I’m glad you’ve come to take the responsibility off my shoulders.”
By this time I had brought my glass to bear upon the pier upon the other side of the inlet, or creek, as it is commonly called, and saw that the sergeant was right. Three transports were rapidly receiving troops, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, while two rather formidable looking gun-boats were sullenly steaming up and down in front.
The inlet was nearly a mile wide, and as the enemy showed few lights and dim ones, the sergeant without a glass had not been able to discover the number of troops taken on board. I soon made out that at least five field batteries had been shipped, and that the transports were almost full of troops, while a battalion of infantry, a squadron of cavalry, and two batteries remained on shore, apparently waiting for those on board to be so disposed as to afford room for them.
I rapidly weighed all the probabilities in my mind. There were two and only two possible purposes in this embarkation of troops. It was a formidable expedition against the railroad, via Bluffton, or else it was merely a removal of troops from one point on the coast to another. If the first were the object, the vessels would steam up the inlet; if the other, they would put to sea.
But if it were merely a transfer of troops, why were the transports crowded in this way, and why were the convoying gun-boats there? There was no enemy off the coast, except storms; and as storms were conspicuously disregarded in the overloading of the steamers, it seemed to me clear that the expedition was bound for Bluffton.
“How many men have you, sergeant?” I asked.
“Two,” he replied.
“Trusty fellows?”
“As good as ever threw a leg over a saddle.”
“Send them to me,” I said.
When they came, I asked: “Are your horses good ones?”
“Pretty good.”
“Mount, then,” I said to one, “and ride as fast as you can to Buckingham Ferry. Wait with the pickets there till the fleet comes within sight. Then send a man to Bluffton to announce the fact. Stay yourself till the fleet has passed, observing which creek it takes. As soon as you satisfy yourself on that point, ride to Bluffton and report.”
Then turning to the other, I said: “You go to Hunting Island and do the same thing. Tell the sergeants there to follow their standing orders in all other regards. Be quick, now, both of you. I’ll expect you at Bluffton at the right time.”
As the men galloped away, I walked to the place where the sergeant was still standing, and said: “Sergeant, you and I will stay here till the fleet leaves. Then we’ll ride straight to Bluffton on a full run and give the alarm in time.”
“It’s already leaving,” he replied. “And look! it’s steaming straight up the creek.”
Looking, I saw that it was as he said. The two gun-boats abreast led the column, the three transports following.
“It’s time for us to be riding, then,” I said, hastily springing into my saddle. “But we can beat them by two hours, as the creek is crooked and they must sound all the way for want of buoys.”
We galloped across the island; but when we came to the little creek we found an unexpected obstacle in our way. The tide had risen well-nigh to the flood, and was exceedingly high in consequence of a strong wind that had been blowing on shore all day. The strip of marsh which separated the island from the mainland was completely covered with water, and even the causeway leading across it was submerged. The two men sent to alarm the pickets had reached the place only a little while earlier than we. We found them hunting for some landmark or other by which to find out where the causeway lay.
The sergeant thought he knew its locality and direction. He boldly plunged in. The rest of us followed.
Just what we did, or where we went, or how it all happened, none of us ever knew. But we rode off the submerged track, about midway the stream, and found ourselves floundering in the water, some of us on our horses, and some of us under them. It was the darkest night I ever knew. Once in the water we could see no shore anywhere. Naturally, each took the direction in which he thought the desired bank lay. And it seemed that no two of us agreed in our views on this point except by accident.
My horse swam pretty well and finally made the edge of the water. But the bottom was a quagmire, and sinking in it he could not extricate himself. To relieve him I slipped off his back and into the water, but it proved too late. With every frantic struggle the poor beast sank deeper, and within a minute he lay lifeless in the water, half buried in the mud of the bottom.
My own situation was a perilous one. My feet sank at once in the slimy ooze. To save myself I threw my body forwards. Succeeding in freeing my feet, I swam until the water was too shallow for swimming. After that, by crawling on my belly, I managed to avoid sinking and smothering in the mud.
It was half an hour, however, before I stood upon firm ground again, and then I did not know which side of the marsh I had reached.
I was covered with slime, stiff with cold, and utterly exhausted by my exertions. Of myself, however, I thought little. I was anxious only about the sleeping battery at Bluffton. If the alarm were not given,—and unless some one or other of our party had succeeded in getting across with his horse, it could not be,—Bluffton would be taken completely by surprise. The battery would be captured. A rapid march would take the enemy to the railroad, either at Grahamville or at Hardeeville, before any force could be sent to oppose. Our defence of an essential line of communication would fail. Even if the two men from the picket post had got out on the other side, they would go not to Bluffton, but to Buckingham Ferry and Hunting Island, as I had ordered. It was not at all certain that the fleet would pass either of those points. It could sail up other creeks quite as easily, particularly on such a tide as that.
With these thoughts in my mind I felt the need of bestirring myself. I was not long in discovering that we were still on the island, and not on the mainland. Following the margin of the water, I presently came to the two men who had been with the sergeant on picket. One of them was stuck in the mud, and the other was trying to draw him out with a pole. Both of them had lost their horses. The sergeant and my guide had escaped with their steeds, and I found both of them on the island, a little further up the shore.
The guide was utterly demoralized with fright, or cold, or both. So I took his horse and ordered him to wait on the island till morning, and then to make his way to whatever point he should find it easiest to reach. The sergeant and I determined to make another effort to get to Bluffton and give the alarm.
“Run back to the other side of the island,” said he to one of his men, “and see if the fleet is still in sight and what it is doing. We must let our horses blow a little, and you can get back by the time we are ready to start.”
The man went, and his comrade, having nothing better to do, went with him. Presently one of them returned, bringing the news that the fleet was making its way up a narrow creek from which, as we knew, neither the Buckingham Ferry nor the Hunting Island picket could see it. As those were the only posts from which after seeing it a man could get to Bluffton in time to give the alarm, the sergeant and I were more than ever determined to make our way thither at all hazards. Luckily the road from Bear’s Island to Bluffton was the easiest one in all that country to find, and the one I happened to know best. So that even if the sergeant should not get across the marsh, I was confident of my ability to make the journey alone.
“Now,” said the sergeant, “if I get across I won’t wait for you, but will go right on; if you succeed, don’t wait for me. It’s no time for ceremony. It’s better one of us should drown than that the other should be delayed.”
“Spoken like a man and a soldier, sergeant,” said I. “Now for it.” And with that we again essayed to follow the submerged track. About midway the sergeant’s horse went down as before; and just as I was about to call out something encouraging to him the guide’s horse, which I was riding, plunged headforemost into the salt water, throwing me completely over his head.
For a moment I was senseless from a blow received either from the hoof of the sergeant’s horse, or by falling against one of the timbers of the causeway. When I came to myself I was clinging to the tail of the sergeant’s horse, while the sergeant, as I presently discovered, was holding by one of the stirrups.
How long we remained in the water, I do not know, but it must have been nearly an hour. The poor horse swam around in a purposeless way, not knowing where to go, until finally he sank exhausted beneath the tide. Cool as the night was the salt water was tepid as it always is on that coast. Otherwise I should not now be alive to tell of that Christmas Eve.
We got out at last and found ourselves on the island again. Despairing now—for without horses it was simply impossible to get to Bluffton until long after the time when our coming would be of any use—we trudged doggedly across the island, that we might wait and listen at the water’s edge for the booming of the cannon.
Two more utterly wretched young men no Christmas morning ever dawned upon.
“See there,” said the sergeant, halting suddenly. “There’s the fleet, and bless my soul it’s putting to sea.”
It was true enough. No attack was to be made after all. We had spent the night drowning horses, and nearly drowning ourselves for nothing.
Why the fleet had steamed several miles up the creek before putting to sea, I have never been able to guess. But I vividly remember that its prank subjected me to a twelve miles’ walk that morning, and compelled me to substitute quinine and dogwood-root-bark bitters that day for the Christmas dinner I had planned.