The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner | Page 5

part of Gen. Ed. Johnson's division, which held the salient angle in Gen. Lee's line at Spottsylvania C. H. when it was forced by the Federal troops. The attack was made at early dawn and in the additional obscurity of a Scotch mist; and so complete was the surprise according to B.'s account, that he was only made aware of the close proximity of the enemy by dimly discerning, a few paces distant, a Federal soldier with his musket levelled at him. The soldier fired, and B. fell insensible, shot through one of the lungs. Upon recovering consciousness, he found himself on a litter borne by Federal soldiers. An officer leaned over him, and offered him some liquor from his canteen, which revived him so far that he was able to speak. His humane captor then volunteered to transmit any message to B.'s friends and relatives. While B. was rallying his failing senses to deliver what he believed to be his dying messages to the loved ones at home, a rattling fire of musketry opened upon them, the litter bearers and the officer were shot down; the latter falling across Brown, who relapsed into insensibility. When he again recovered consciousness, he found himself borne in the same litter, now carried by Confederate soldiers. The position had been retaken. His good friend had been shot dead.
Our mess at Acquia Creek was abundantly supplied with food from land and water. Every member of it, no doubt, frequently longed afterwards for the "flesh pots of Egypt." We discovered, by chance, a large bulk of coal, which had been stored on the long wharf where the Acquia Creek steam-boats used to make their landings. When the Point was shelled about the commencement of the war by the gunboats, the wharf was destroyed, the coal falling uninjured ten or twelve feet to the bottom of the river. We fished up our supplies with oyster tongs as they were needed, and our snug quarters were kept warm during the winter. Towards the end of the season, one of the mess servants lately arrived from the rural districts, was sent in the boat for a supply from the coal mine. He had made many a fire of soft coal in the drawing room at home; but although an accomplished servant, his education had been so far neglected that he was ignorant of all the "'ologies." He was very much astonished at our process of coal mining, and asked me with great gravity, on his return with the load, "if coal grew like that all over the Potomac." Of course I replied in the affirmative. It was anthracite hard coal, a specimen of which he had never seen; so he was further informed that it was hard or soft according to the season when it was fished up, being soft in the summer and hard in the winter. He was much pleased to have acquired all this information, and probably took the earliest opportunity, on his return home, to enlighten his circle of friends and acquaintances upon the subject of coal mining on the Potomac.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The belief still prevails, probably, at the North, that extensive preparations had been made by the South for the war. But General Joseph E. Johnston who was assigned to the service of organizing and instructing the Virginia volunteers called out by Governor Letcher states the contrary. He asserts that all the arms to be depended upon at that time, were those found in the Southern arsenals, U. S. muskets, and rifles of discarded patterns to the number of about 75,000; 40,000 flint muskets belonging to the State of Virginia, and 20,000 procured for the State of Georgia by Governor Brown.
It was charged that Mr. Floyd of Virginia while Secretary of War under President Buchanan had caused the removal of public arms to the Southern arsenals; but a Committee of the House of Representatives, in 1861, exonerated Mr. Floyd from the charge, and the chairman of that Committee was the Hon. Mr. Stanton, a prominent and zealous member of the Republican party.
General Johnston, who was in a position to know the facts, states in his "Narrative, etc.," that the "Confederate States began the war with one hundred and twenty thousand arms of obsolete models, and seven hundred of the recently adopted weapons rifled-muskets, and the United States with about four hundred and fifty thousand of the old, and all of the modern arms that had been made since the adoption of the new models."
When in August, 1861, it was in contemplation to send the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, want of ammunition, according to the distinguished authority just quoted, was one of the chief obstacles to the project.
[2] The allusion is made to Genl. Mears, who commanded at Acquia Creek and to the