Memoirs of General William T. Sherman | Page 8

Minorcan girl of about fourteen years of age. Mrs.
Ashlock herself was probably eighteen or twenty years old, and a very
handsome woman. I was hurriedly informed that the murder trial was in
progress at St. Augustine; that Ashlock had given his testimony, and
had availed himself of the chance to take a wife to share with him the

solitude of his desolate hut on the beach at Indian River. He had
brought ashore his wife, her sister, and their chests, with the mail, and
had orders to return immediately to the steamer (Gaston or Harney) to
bring ashore some soldiers belonging to another company, E (Braggs),
which had been ordered from St. Augustine to Fort Pierce. Ashlock left
his wife and her sister standing on the beach near the pilot-hut, and
started back with his whale-boat across the bar. I also took the mail and
started up to the fort, and had hardly reached the wharf when I
observed another boat following me. As soon as this reached the wharf
the men reported that Ashlock and all his crew, with the exception of
one man, had been drowned a few minutes after I had left the beach.
They said his surf-boat had reached the steamer, had taken on board a
load of soldiers, some eight or ten, and had started back through the
surf, when on the bar a heavy breaker upset the boat, and all were lost
except the boy who pulled the bow-oar, who clung to the rope or
painter, hauled himself to the upset boat, held on, drifted with it outside
the breakers, and was finally beached near a mile down the coast. They
reported also that the steamer had got up anchor, run in as close to the
bar as she could, paused awhile, and then had started down the coast.
I instantly took a fresh crew of soldiers and returned to the bar; there
sat poor Mrs. Ashlock on her chest of clothes, a weeping widow, who
had seen her husband perish amid sharks and waves; she clung to the
hope that the steamer had picked him up, but, strange to say, he could
not swim, although he had been employed on the water all his life.
Her sister was more demonstrative, and wailed as one lost to all hope
and life. She appealed to us all to do miracles to save the struggling
men in the waves, though two hours had already passed, and to have
gone out then among those heavy breakers, with an inexperienced crew,
would have been worse than suicide. All I could do was to reorganize
the guard at the beach, take the two desolate females up to the fort, and
give them the use of my own quarters. Very soon their anguish was
quieted, and they began to look, for the return of their steamer with
Ashlock and his rescued crew. The next day I went again to the beach
with Lieutenant Ord, and we found that one or two bodies had been
washed ashore, torn all to pieces by the sharks, which literally swarmed
the inlet at every new tide. In a few days the weather moderated, and
the steamer returned from the south, but the surf was so high that she

anchored a mile off. I went out myself, in the whale or surf boat, over
that terrible bar with a crew of, soldiers, boarded the steamer, and
learned that none other of Ashlock's crew except the one before
mentioned had been saved; but, on the contrary, the captain of the
steamer had sent one of his own boats to their rescue, which was
likewise upset in the surf, and, out of the three men in her, one had
drifted back outside the breakers, clinging to the upturned boat, and
was picked up. This sad and fatal catastrophe made us all afraid of that
bar, and in returning to the shore I adopted the more prudent course of
beaching the boat below the inlet, which insured us a good ducking, but
was attended with less risk to life.
I had to return to the fort and bear to Mrs. Ashlock the absolute truth,
that her husband was lost forever.
Meantime her sister had entirely recovered her equilibrium, and being
the guest of the officers, who were extremely courteous to her, she did
not lament so loudly the calamity that saved them a long life of
banishment on the beach of Indian River. By the first opportunity they
were sent back to St. Augustine, the possessors of all of Ashlock's
worldly goods and effects, consisting of a good rifle, several cast-nets,
hand-lines, etc., etc., besides some three hundred dollars in money,
which was due him by the quartermaster for his services as pilot. I
afterward saw these ladies at