August 4, 1864
This was quite a
festal day for us. The General, accompanied by the Frenchies, Rosencrantz,
Bache, Biddle and myself, paid a grand visit to Butler. Butler was in high feather.
He is as proud of all his “fixin's” as a farmer over a prime potato patch. We
first got on the Greyhound, an elegant steamer (Butler believes in making
himself comfortable), and proceeded down the Appomattox, past City Point, and
then bore up the James, passing Bermuda Hundred, with its flotilla of schooners
and steamers. . . . We had got a good
bit above Bermuda Hundred and were paddling along bravely when we came in sight
of two gunboats; that is, common steamers with some heavy guns on board. There
are many in the river and they go up and down to keep it clear. As we drew
near, I saw the men were at quarters and the guns run out. We passed between
the first boat and the high wooded bank, when I beheld the gunboat captain
dancing up and down on the paddle-box and roaring to us: “The left bank is
lined with sh-a-a-rpshooters!” It would have edified you to have seen the swift
dignity with which General Meade and his gallant Staff stepped from the open,
upper deck to the shady seclusion of the cabin! Our skipper jingled “Stop her,”
with his engine-room bell, and stop she did. Here was a chance for war-god
Butler. “Hey? What? Sharpshooters? Pshaw! Fiddledeedee! Stop her! Who said stop
her? Mr. DeRay, tell the Captain to go on, instantly!” And Butler
danced out on the open deck and stood, like George II at Dettingen, in “an
attitude of fence.” I, who looked for a brisk volley of musketry, fully
expected to see him get a bullet in his extensive stomach. Meanwhile the
Captain went on, and, as soon as we were clear, the naval party in the rear (or
“astern,” we ought to say) let go one big gun, with a tremendous whang! and
sent a projectile about the size of a flour barrel on shore, severely wounding
a great many bushes and trees. The other gunboat went ahead of us and kept up a
little marine combat, all on her own hook. Whether there really were
sharpshooters, I know not: I only think, if there were, it would be
difficult to say which party was the more scared. . . .
Finally we went on
shore where our horses were waiting, for this is not over three and a half
miles from the Appomattox, though it is fifteen or sixteen miles round by the
river. From the top of the cliff we had a splendid view of the cultivated
country towards Richmond. And so, after inspecting more of Benjamin's apple-pie
batteries, we went home.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 204-6
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