USA > Wisconsin > Waukesha County > The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources; an extensive and minute sketch of its cities, towns and villages etc > Part 82
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' Steeds More white than snow, huge and well shaped, whose fiery pace exceeds The winds in swiftness.'
It was quite as daring a thing which Lieut. Cushing now proposed to do.
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HISTORY OF WAUKESHA COUNTY.
" He had already, on a reconnaissance, found that the rebel confidence was so great that when grazing the very face of the forts he had received no challenge, and therefore on this night he took twenty men, entered the Cape Fear River, and pulled directly up to Smithville, the rebel headquarters, landing before the hotel, perhaps twenty-five yards from the fort, and hiding his men on the shore. Ohtaining from a negro at a salt work on the bank the requisite information, with two of his officers he crept at midnight, when not a sound disturbed the air, up the princi- pal street to the commanding General's residence, a large house, with verandas, opposite the bar- racks, where, about fifteen yards off, lay twelve hundred men without a dream of danger. There had been a gay gathering, apparently, in the house that evening, and delaying till after the guests had gone and the occupants might be supposed to sleep, Lieut. Cushing noiselessly tried the unbolted door, entered the hall, glanced into a mess-room, and then ascended the stairs. But at the moment of softly opening the door of a sleeping-room he heard a crash and the whis- pered call of his officer, below, and quickly springing to answer it, he found that his other compan- ion, whom he had left on the veranda, had, in a sublime confidence that the place was already taken, gone strutting up and down, awaking the Confederate Adjutant General, who, throwing up a window, found himself suddenly looking into the muzzle of a navy revolver, upon which the sash had been dropped with a clang, and the Adjutant, escaping through a back-door, had made for the brush. In an instant the Lieutenant was in the room, and struck a wax match, had floored the remaining occupant, the chief engineer of the forces there, and with his pistol at the head of the man, still half dazed with sleep, threatening to blow out his brains if he spoke, had made him put on some clothes, had learned from him that the commanding General had gone that day to Wilmington, had possessed himself of the Adjutant General's papers and plans, and was in his boat again and in the middle of the stream before the outraged rebels had gained their senses, or had begun to swarm out and fill the air with cries and calls ; and while the signal-lights were flashing to the forts below, and the long roll calling to arms, he was pulling quietly aboard his ship, and carrying the chief engineer of the enemy, snatched from the very teeth of that enemy, to breakfast with his commander-if not exactly what he had promised, at least the next best thing. There being occasion on the following day to send in a flag of truce, a note was dis- patched by it, of which a copy is given below :
MY DEAR GENERAL,-I deeply regret that you were not at home when I called. I inclose my card. Very respectfully,
W. B. CUSHING.
" Of course, after the first burst of indignation, the' matter was taken very good-naturedly by the offended party, but this note was declared to be the very climax of impudence, and Lieut. Cushing was given very distinctly to understand that his experiment could not be repeated-a gage which he had no opportunity to take up until the following June.
"Having been undergoing repairs at Norfolk, in June Lieut. Cushing returned to Beaufort, his coaling station, and there learned that a rebel iron-clad, the Raleigh, had been defying the fleet after wanton fashion, and, conscious of her strength, had not only convoyed blockade-run- ners through the intimidated squadron, but had remained out of harbor for several hours, only returning at her leisure after daybreak. Of course the younger officers of the navy were hurn- ing with resentment, and Lieut. Cushing, in the Monticello, accompanied by the Vicksburg, immediately started in pursuit, though unsuccessfully, as she had taken harbor ; and it was not until a letter came from Admiral Lee himself that Lieut. Cushing was allowed the men and boats that he desired to go upon an expedition inside the bar, and to avenge the insult the navy had received by boarding and taking possession of the Raleigh where she lay. After dark, then, one night late in June, with fifteen men and two officers-Mr. Howorth and Mr. Martin-he slipped into the harbor, passing Forts Caswell and Holmes and the other batteries, and pulled up the river with muffled oars, just escaping being run down by a tug, and passing the town of Smith- ville-the scene of his capture of the chief engineer-in safety. His object was to determine the whereabouts of the Raleigh, and then to return and bring back a hundred men to board her. The Raleigh, however, was not to be seen anywhere, either inside the bar or at quarantine, and he accordingly pursued his course up stream, although a strong current made it best for him to
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in the tideway, knowing they would knock about safely there till morning, when they would be hazard pulling on the side where the moon lay. Just as the boat reached Fort Anderson, there came a sentry's hail, followed by the shouting of a dozen other voices and a quick volley of musketry. Immediately, the Lieutenant put the boat about and pointed her head down stream, and, giving the helm a turn so as to present the least possible surface to the moon's rays, he cut across into the shadow of the other bank, where he once more made his way to the river, leaving the enemy to pursue an imaginary foe in the opposite direction.
When within four miles of the city, it being nearly day light, the crew went ashore, and draw- ing the boat by means of their united strength into a patch of swamp, they masked her with branches of trees, and disposed of themselves in the growth along the bank. Here during the long summer's day they saw several steamers going unsuspiciously up and down the river, with the rebel Commodore's flag-ship and many smaller crafts, but there was no sign of the iron-clad to be seen. At twilight, however, fancying that an approaching party of fishermen in a couple of boats was a discovery and an attack, Lieut. Cushing stepped from his hiding-place, hailed them, and boldly ordered them to surrender, which the gentle creatures did upon the spot. From these prisoners he ascertained that there was very good reason for his not finding the Raleigh at her anchorage, nature having taken the matter out of the Lieutenant's hands ; for, having run upon a sand bar some time previously, the iron-clad, with the falling of the tide, had broken in two by her own weight, and was now an utter wreck. Being satisfied that this was really the case, Lieut. Cushing resolved, before returning, to obtain all the information possible concerning the batteries and obstructions of the place, knowing that a movement upon it was already in contemplation. Having mastered all the facts of the forts and channels, he at last stationed himself with eight men at a junction of the main turnpike with two other roads, hardly two miles from the city and all its swarms of soldiery and lines of fortifications. The first thing done was to capture the army mail-carrier with his mail of between four and five hun- dred letters, among which were those containing plans of the rebel defenses, and other impor- tant documents ; and the adventurers being by this time rather hungry. and having taken pris- oner a wandering storekeeper, Mr. Howorth put on the coat and cap of the mail-carrier, mounted his horse, and started for the town to procure provisions, his pocket being well lined with the Confederate money taken from the mail ; and he presently returned from his danger- ous errand-one on which detection would have twisted a rope round his neck, with a very short shrift-bringing in good refreshments, and having mingled freely with the enemy, for whom he had been obliged to exert his inventive faculties after a manner that would have done justice to the best romancer living. In the mean time, the Lieutenant and his men had not been idle, and they were now guarding twenty-six prisoners under the most excellent discipline since a shout from any one of them would have brought an army about their ears ; and he was now only wait- ing for the evening courier with the Richmond mail before rejoining the remainder of his party and putting off for sea. He decided, however, to send his prisoners to the boat, and it was just as they were crossing the road that the mail-carrier came in sight, accompanied by a Confeder- ate officer, who, drawing a swift conclusion, turned about to flee. Being mounted on the horse of one of the prisoners, the Lieutenant instantly gave chase, but to no purpose, as his horse was neither one of the best nor the freshest; and thereupon, cutting the telegraph wires in two places, he hastened to his boat, which now lay moored in a little creek, put the prisoners into. the canoes which had been picked up, and dropped down toward the river, which was reached exactly as the shadows of night darkened it pleasantly. It had been the Lieutenant's intention to leave the greater part of his prisoners on the lighthouse island in the river, having captured them merely to secure their silence ; but just as he was putting in under the bank for that pur- pose the steamer Virginia came puffing close upon him. In a breath the order was given for every man to jump overboard and push the boats into the marsh grass, and the prisoners were promised instant death upon the first sign ; and while every head was held under the gunwale for a moment, the steamer plowed by without suspicion. Having eluded this danger, Lieut. Cushing now removed the oars and sails from the canoes, and set twenty of his prisoners adrift.
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HISTORY OF WAUKESHA COUNTY.
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seen and cared for from shore; and attaching to a buoy, where it could not fail to be seen and taken off, a note, in which he happily recalled to the memory of the authorities their declara- tion that he would not again enter their harbor, he made all haste for sea, intending to pass through the upper outlet, and having Forts Anderson and Fisher to pass, together with the island and outer batteries. It was a little below Fort Anderson that, encountering a boat-load of soldiers, he captured them without ado, and learned that a guard-boat containing seventy-five men awaited him on the bar. This was not unexpected ; and the fresh prisoners having been menaced with assurance of their due deserts if they attempted aid or comfort to the enemy at the critical time, it was resolved by the Lieutenant and his officers to pull for the bar, the tide set- ting down strongly, lay themselves alongside the guard-boat in the bright moonlight, and while engaging the men there with cutlases and revolvers, drift with them by the batteries, which, since they could not destroy them without firing on their own men, would be likely to let them pass. It was no great while before glimpses were caught of a boat rocking on the tide below them, and they eagerly made for it, quite confident of their ability to occupy many times their own number of land-lubbers until they should be out of range of the batteries, when it would be just as easy to leave their foe behind. . But when still some yards distant from the boat, and just preparing to open a broadside upon it, suddenly four other boats darted out from behind a neighboring point, and five from the opposite island, and formed a line across the bar, completely entrapping the Lieutenant and his men, while at the same time, going short round, a large sail- boat was discovered to windward. Misfortune could hardly have seemed more imminent and absolute, and if anything could be done it must be done on the instant. The river, as it chanced, divided at that point round an island, making two channels, one that up which they had passed on the preceding night from Fort Caswell, now lying seven miles below, and which it would have been madness to try, since it would have brought them opposite Smithville and the forts by broad daylight, even if the southwest gale had not been blowing there, and making breakers in which the boat would have been crushed like a bubble. Of course, then, their only hope was to circumvent the enemy, so that the other and shorter channel might be gained, at whose entrance no such dangerous sea was to be encountered. Quickly giving the word to his men, the Lieutenant darted off with his boat as if for Smithville, passing the large sail-boat ; then suddenly shcering, so as to escape the full moonlight (as in going by Fort Anderson the night before), he was for one moment invisible in the swell, and the whole ten boats were after him on the way to Smithville-boats mauned by soldiers instead of sailors, who were, therefore, totally unaware of the impossibility of exit by that channel. Seizing the opportunity, the Lieutenant boldly turned about, and when he came in sight again was making for the sail-boat as if he intended to board her. Of course, the crow of the sail-boat, unused to such contests, hesitated, and started to tack, but missed stays, and drifted away on the tide, before they could recover themselves, while the crew of the Lieutenant's boat, bending all their strength to the oars, darted round in a broad curve astern the line of boats, and were in the desired channel, a hundred yards in advance of all the rest, before their object was fairly understood ; and heading for the breakers on Carolina Shoals, lest on another course the batteries should blow them to atoms-breakers which the boats rowed by soldiers could not dare dream of attempting-they took the great waves safely, and were presently past all pursuit. The results of this expedition were so important, and the conduct of it so remarkable, that we are not surprised to find its leader again receiving the formal thanks of the Navy Department. Indeed, these official congratula- tions became apparently quite a matter of course ; and in the following October he was earning them again, together not only with the engrossed thanks of the Congress of the United States, and addresses from chambers of commerce, boards of trade, municipalities, and clubs without number, but with the more substantial reward of a promotion to the grade of Lieutenant Com- mander, at the age of twenty-one, all in recognition of his destruction of the rebel ram Albemarle, an iron-clad of the same model as the Merrimac, which had done great damage, and met the fire of hundred-pounder Dahlgrens and Parrotts at ten yards range without injury.
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" Directly upon his promotion the young hero took command of the flag-ship Malvern, bearing the broad pennant of the rear-admiral, and in December was part of the force operating against Fort Fisher. Here Commander Cushing performed what, with the exception of the Albemarle affair, was in reality the most dangerous exploit in all his term of service, and one requiring a more steady courage, being nothing less than the buoying of a channel in an open skiff-a skiff rivaling the famous little boat of the battle of Lake Erie-in the midst of a shower of round shot, shell and shrapnel. the. work continuing for six hours, the skiff frequently half filled with water by the plunging shot, and its companion being sunk.
" During the brief cessation of more active operations against the Wilmington forts, Com- mander Cushing offered battle to the Chickamauga, a rebel privateer carrying an extra crew ; but the challenge being declined, he drove a large blockade-runner ashore under her nose, and returned to the fleet, which, on the 12th of January, resumed the attack upon the forts, the ships being sixty in number, comprising iron-clads, frigates, sloops of war and gunboats. An assault being ordered, after three days' bombardment, Commander Cushing, with other officers, accom- panied the force of sailors and marines about to storm the sea-front of Fort Fisher. Marching to within a few hundred yards of the embrasures, the entire body threw themselves down under the slope of the beach, waiting for the signal of attack, the whole fire of the navy passing with a deafening noise just over their heads. Springing to their feet at the word of command, they moved forward steadily over the soft white sand, which the sunshine made dazzling, and the relief of which rendered every officer in his uniform of blue and gold-lace-and, indeed every man-a conspicuous target, the rebels meanwhile pouring forth an unceasing fire that cut down their foes in windrows. Finding himself alone at last, just after reaching the palisades, Com- mander Cushing turned to rally his men, and was obliged to cross a hundred yards of the bare sand with the bullets pattering about him in such wise that it seems as if he must have borne a charmed life. Most of the ranking officers were either dead or badly wounded by that time, or else remaining under shelter of the palisades till nightfall-more fortunate than their comrades, who, dropping on the beach, were swept out to sea by the rising and falling of the tide-he therefore assumed the command himself, and gathered some hundreds of men with great effort, he was again proceeding to the assault, when requested to relieve with them a regiment which went to the assistance of the army on the other side, which was operating to such effect under the gallant Gen. Ames that before midnight the works had surrendered.
" The first important action of Commander Cushing after the surrender was the seizure of the pilots who had so many times safely steered the blockade-runners into port; and when his preparations to hang them had thoroughly frightened them into obedience, he agreed to spare their lives on condition of their erecting customary signal lights on Oak Island, by which the blockade-running steamers came in and out. Accordingly, some four or five days after the capt- ure of the forts, the large blockade-running steamer Charlotte, trusting to the lights, came over the bar and made her private signals to Fort Caswell, and being hailed and told that the signal corps had been withdrawn to Smithville, came confidently up to her anchorage. She was com- manded by a British ex-naval officer, and she carried, among her other passengers, two officers of the British army, coming over to see the Confederate sport, and the owners of her costly cargo of arms and munitions-all of whom, in great glee at the successful termination of their hazardous enterprise, had just sat down to a sumptuous banquet, and were toasting their safe arrival in champagne. Suddenly the door opened, a light form stepped in, a hand was laid upon the captain's chair, and every one looked up in amazement, to meet the gaze of these dauntless eagle-eyes of Commander Cushing, which no one who has once seen him is likely to forget. "Gentlemen," said he, " you are my prisoners. Allow me the pleasure of joining in your toast. Steward, another bottle of champagne !" Of course there was nothing but sub- mission, for his men were already disposed about the deck, and the Charlotte was his prize. There was a moment or two of sullen silence, on the part of the discomfited passengers ; then one of the British officers looked at his vis-a-vis, and exclaimed, in noble rage, " I say-beastly luck !" To which his comrade presently replied, in a voice proceeding from the depths of his
Henry Sheans. NORTH LAKE.
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disgust, " Unmitigated sell !" After which disembarrassment a better feeling prevailed, and the banquet was proceeding as gayly as the circumstances allowed, when Commander Cushing was summoned on deck with the announcement that another steamer, the Stag, was coming up the river, upon which he bade adien to the festive scene, and proceeded to make prize of the second steamer.
" It would be easy to go on enumerating the days of this young officer by his valiant deeds ; to tell of the capture of small towns, of great storehouses of cotton, corn, and bacon ; of his examining the obstructions before Fort Anderson, and going so close in that, one night, exasper- ated by the speech-making and caronsal there, he sent a bullet whistling through the astonished merry-makers, and in consequence very nearly robbed the navy of one of its brightest ornaments by the storm of grape that instantly scattered the water about him ; of his constructing a mock monitor out of an old flat-boat and some painted canvas, and sending her past the fort on the night tide, so that the commandant, knowing the army to be in his rear, and seeing the gunboats gaining the stream above, abandoned his fortifications without spiking the guns. But an account has not yet been given of the greatest of his achievements, and it is perhaps enough to close with the story of his destruction of the Albemarle-a more daring and spirited act than we can call to mind ont of the records of any navy.
" The Albemarle, as it has been mentioned, was an iron-clad of tremendous strength, which had already defeated the whole Federal fleet, sunk the Southfield, exploded the boiler of the Sassacus, engaged nine foes at once without danger to herself, forced the surrender of a brigade, and the abandonment of the whole region of the Roanoke by the Federal forces. The Govern- ment having no iron-clads capable of crossing Hatteras bar and encountering her, all its opera- tions in that section were rendered practically useless by the Albemarle's presence there, and the expense of the squadron necessary to keep watch upon her movements was something enormous. In this emergency Lieut. Cushing submitted two plans to Admiral Lee for the ram's destruction. The Admiral approved of one of them, and sent its projector to Washington to lay it before the Secretary of the Navy, and the latter, though at first a little doubtful of its merit, finally author- ized him to procure the means to carry it into execution ; and he immediately purchased in New York two open launches, each about thirty feet long, fitted with a small engine and propelled by screw, carrying a howitzer, and provided with a long boom that swung by a hinge, which could be raised or lowered at will, and which had a torpedo in the groove at its further extremity. These boats were taken down through the canals to the Chesapeake, one of them being lost on the way, and the other reaching the sounds at last through cuts and creeks and an infinitude of toils, hindrances and ruses. Joining the fleet which lay at the mouth of the river, the Lieuten- ant disclosed his object to his men, assuring them that they not only must not expect, but they must not hope to return, for death was almost inevitable, and then called for volunteers. They all stood by him, and six others presently joined them; Assistant Paymaster Frank Swan and Mr. Howorth, who had often accompanied him on his most reckless adventures, being of the number. The Albemarle lay moored at the Plymouth wharf, eight miles up the river, both banks of which were lined with batteries, and held by several thousand soldiers, while at some distance up, that portion of the wreck of the Southfield which still lay above water was occu- pied by a picket-gnard, whose duty it was to throw up rockets on the first alarm, for, unknown to the attacking party, rumor of the intended endeavor had in some mysterious way already reached the Plymouth authorities, and every provision had been made for their reception. How- ever, on the night of the 27th of October, the little launch entered the Roanoke River, her engine at low pressure, to make the least noise possible, left behind all obstructions, passed within thirty feet of the unsuspicious picket on the Southfield, and approached the wharf where the ram lay, a vast black mass in the darkness. Greatly emboldened by this success, the Lieu- tenant for a moment resolved to change his plan, and, knowing the town perfectly, to put in shore and trust to the effect of a night surprise, with which he was so well acquainted, over- power those on board, get her into the stream before the forts could be aroused, and fight the batteries with her on her way down. But just as he was about to carry his sudden plan into
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execution, a cry from the ram rang out sharply on the night, repeated on every side, followed by the instantaneous booming of the great guns from ship and shore ; and returning no answer, the Lieutenant put on all steam and made for her. At the same moment an immense bonfire of pine knots and turpentine blazed up on the bank, most fortunately for him, since it revealed directly the untoward fact that a boom of logs extended around the ram in all directions to. guard her from torpedoes, which for one second seemed an insurmountable obstacle. Only for one second, though. With the next the lieutenant had given orders to sheer off across the stream, so as to get room for acquiring headway and carrying his launch by the force of its own impe- tus straight across the boom, though it never could get out again, he knew. As they turned, a volley of buckshot tore away the whole back of his coat and the sole of his shoe, and the man by his side fell lifeless. Before the volley could be repeated, the launch had struck the boom, was over, and was forging up under the Albermarle's quarter, directly beneath the mouth of a rifle-gun, and so close that the merest whisper on board the ram, where they were endeavoring to bring the gun to bear, could be distinctly heard.
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