CHAPTER VIII
CATCHING A TARTAR
BUT the good fortune that had thus far fallen to the lot of the Anderson was to take a turn, for we had not long returned to our station at Aransas when an affair occurred that was a decided damper upon the fun we had heretofore enjoyed in capturing prizes.
One morning while the watch was washing down the decks the lookout at the masthead gave the always welcome “Sail ho!” and upon closer inspection the vessel in sight proved to be a small sloop hugging the shore to the northward and evidently running down the coast on her way to the Rio Grande.
Of course we slipped our anchors at once and made sail in chase; but the wind was light and the sloop was of such light draft that, having a leading wind, she could safely keep almost in to the surf line, where we could not possibly get at her with the ship. In consequence, the sloop was rapidly approaching the entrance to Aransas Bay, where she would easily have escaped us, when I resorted to my former expedient and sent in an armed cutter, with a light gun, to head her off, knowing that if I could get her off shore I should eventually capture her.
But when the captain of the sloop saw what I was up to, he put his helm up, without hesitation, let draw his sheets, and drove his vessel through the light surf and high up on the beach. Then the crew at once abandoned the craft, and, running up over the sand hills, disappeared.
The officer in my boat, following sharp upon his chase, ran alongside the sloop, of which he took possession, and found her loaded with between forty and fifty bales of cotton. But, unfortunately, she had been beached at the very tiptop of high water; and as the tide soon after began to run ebb, it was very evident to Mr. Allen that his prize would soon be high and dry, so he returned to the ship for further orders.
That evening at high water I sent in three armed boats, with orders for one of them to lay outside the breakers and cover the landing party. The crews of the other two boats, under command of my executive officer, were directed to make every effort to get the sloop afloat, and for that purpose they were amply provided with hawsers, blocks and tackles, a kedge anchor, and such other paraphernalia as I deemed necessary for the proposed work.
The wind was light and there was a full moon, so that the conditions were very favorable for success. Mr. Bailey laid out the sloop’s anchor, backed with our kedge, brought the hawser to the sloop’s windlass, reinforced it with a heavy purchase, and got a heavy strain on the hawser with the aid of his twoscore men, who were working with all their heart, but not an inch would she budge. Her skipper had driven her up with all sail set, and she had made a bed for herself in the soft sand from which we could not possibly move her.
When the tide began to run ebb, Mr. Bailey decided to return to the ship and report progress—or rather the lack of it. I had been anxiously watching the operations from the ship, which I had anchored as near the beach as prudence permitted, and I was naturally annoyed at the want of success on the part of my people.
I presume my manner gave Mr. Bailey the impression that I attributed the failure to his insufficient effort, which was by no means the case, but I saw that he was very much dejected as he made his report.
The officers talked the matter over together in the wardroom that evening, as I learned later on, and the next morning Mr. Taylor, who was my favorite boat officer, came to me after quarters and asked, as a special favor, permission to go in with three picked boat’s crews that morning and, abandoning what seemed a well-nigh useless attempt to get the sloop afloat, to unload her and tow the cotton, worth twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars, off to the ship.
“I’ll guarantee to do it, captain,” said the plucky fellow. “I propose to take in two or three coils of inch rope in the boats and after getting the bales afloat I can lash them together so that we can tow them off to the ship in this smooth water with our three boats.”
“It will be very hard work, Mr. Taylor, even if you get the bales afloat through the surf, which is doubtful. And I don’t feel clear in my mind that it would be strictly in the line of duty. The sloop is ashore, and her blockade running can be put an end to for good and all by a match and a few pounds of powder, or we can knock her to pieces from the ship in target practice. Our men had a hard day’s work yesterday for nothing, and I don’t care to give them more of it.”
“I know that, sir; but the crew are just crazy to do it. I should only take volunteers, and there are twice as many ready to go as I require for the work.”
I saw that officers and men were alike anxious for the lark, as they considered it; they were always ready when I called upon them for the severest duty, and so against my better judgment I gave way and consented. But I insisted that the first cutter, well armed, should remain outside the surf to cover the shore operations, and that under no circumstances should she be taken off from guard duty. By this precaution alone I was saved from what would have otherwise been a very serious disaster.
Most of the forenoon was passed by the shore party in breaking out the bales and in warping them out to one of the boats outside the surf, and by noon nearly all the cotton was afloat. Just before twelve o’clock I was about giving the order to make the boat recall signal, for the men to come off to dinner, when I saw a series of puffs of smoke from the sand hills and heard the muffled reports of musketry. In a moment there was a rush of gray-coats toward my men, a rapid return fire from my guard boat, a struggle on the beach, plainly visible through the glass, two or three figures lay prone on the sand, and then the heads of men could be seen swimming from the beach out to the boat. One of the cutters was meanwhile launched and forced out through the surf, the rebels keeping up an active fire at it, and then all was quiet, with two boats pulling out toward us and a group of rebels gathered about my whaleboat on the beach!
All this had not taken much longer in the action than it has in the telling, and we on board ship were so utterly surprised at the sudden attack, that for a moment we looked on in speechless amazement! But only for a moment, for the boatswain’s call was not needed to bring all hands on deck, and the orders that rang out sharp and swift were obeyed with equal promptness.
“Aloft, topmen and lower yard men, and loose topsails and courses! Stand by to sheet home and hoist of all! Stand by to slip the anchor! Forecastle there; clear away the rifle and get a range on those fellows! Be careful, Mr. Allen, and give the gun elevation enough to clear our boats!”
The sails fell from the yards and flew to the mastheads, the courses were sheeted home and the tacks ridden down, the jibs ran up, our anchors were slipped, and filling on the starboard tack we stood in for the land, the forecastle gun, actively served, throwing shells among the rebels, who were taking shelter behind the sand hills.
“Put a leadsman in the fore chains, sir! Give me the soundings sharp, my lad!”
“And a quarter five,” came the quick response.
We were drawing sixteen feet, and that left but fifteen feet of water under my keel. I certainly could not go much farther in.
“Get another cast, and be quick about it!”
“Qu-a-a-r-ter less five!”
“Stand by to tack ship! Put your helm down!”
“And a h-a-l-f four!”
“Hard a lee! Tacks and sheets! Mainsail haul!”
The dear old barkey came up in the wind like a bird, lost her headway, paused, trembling, for a moment, and then filled on the other tack as the head yards flew round. We began to edge off shore again, while the call from the leadsman, “Quarter less four,” warned me that we had got on the other tack none too soon.
Out of danger with my ship, I could now turn my attention to the situation in shore, where I found two of my boats well off to me and the beach clear of the combatants, who did not care to face my fire; but my white whaleboat had been run up inside of the sloop, and was temporarily abandoned.
The two boats were soon alongside, and I learned, to my sorrow, that six men of the whaleboat crew were prisoners on shore and two of the second cutter’s crew had been wounded in escaping. The abandoned cotton was meanwhile floating about in the breakers, a disagreeable reminder of the cause of our discomfiture.
Mr. Taylor reported that when the rebels opened fire and made a rush for them, two of our boats were beached. The crew of the cutter ran their boat out and got her beyond the breakers under a heavy fire with only two wounded; but the crew of the lighter boat were less fortunate, and were headed off by the rebels, and six of them were compelled to surrender at discretion. Several of the Confederates were wounded by the fire from our guard boat, and Mr. Taylor thought that two of them were killed.
The next day I sent in a flag of truce boat to Colonel Hobbie, in command of the Confederates, and endeavored to effect an exchange of my men for several rebel prisoners I had on board; but failing in that attempt, I sent my boys their clothing and a liberal supply of tobacco. All of this, however, as I learned, was confiscated by the rebels, and none of their property ever came into the hands of my men.
The following day I found that my whaleboat had been taken away during the previous night, so I went to quarters for target practice and speedily knocked the sloop into kindling wood with our broadside battery,—as I should have done at first,—and so brought that episode to a close.
Six months later, while the Anderson was at New Orleans, Harry Benson, the coxswain of my whaleboat, who was one of those captured, came off to the ship and reported for duty. He had escaped from the prison pen at Matagorda wearing an old Confederate uniform he had managed to purchase, and had actually walked, nearly six hundred miles, through Texas to New Orleans!