The following private letter has been received by a Senator
from Flag Officer Dupont:
WABASH, OFF FERNANDINA,
March 6, 1862
MY DEAR SIR. The victory here was bloodless, but most
complete in its results. The Georgians
were first to run, and abandon a formidable battery on Cumberland Island.
The defences have astounded us by their capabilities,
formidable character and scientific location, with wonderful immunity from
danger. Their cannon are heavy and
fine. One 130-pound rifle gun which they
had slung in the track to get away, but dropped on the beach, we have nothing
to compare with.
Gen. Lee pronounced the place entirely tenable two weeks
since, and Col. M. Blair of Ordnance, late commander in the Navy, declared he would
keep me “off until hell and frozen over.”
But their valor gave out when they received the telegraph from
Brunswick, that I had got into St. Andrew’s Sound with all the light vessels;
but even by this route we had to encounter Fort Clinch and the Georgia Battery
on Cumberland Island.
But as I have requested Capt. Davis to call and see you, he
will tell you I have swept nearly the whole coast, and am holding it by inside
and outside the blockade.
The younger officers, of course, regret there was no fight,
but I console them by saying they fought too well and too successfully at Port
Royal ever to get much of a chance at the rebels on this coast.
The most curious feature in the operations was the chase of
a train of cars by a gunboat for one mile and a half; two soldiers being killed,
the passengers rushed out in the woods, one of your late members among them –
Mr. Yulee. He passed the night under a
bush, and I hope had a blanket, as it was the coldest of the season.
S. F. DUPONT.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 2
No comments:
Post a Comment