“THE PAWNEE WAR.”
For a day or so
since there has been a report current that the United States steamer
"Pawnee" was certainly on its way to Richmond, and we were ordered to
hold ourselves in readiness to leave at a moment's notice. We have not yet been
"mustered into service," and of course we spend our nights and spare
moments at home, consequently there must be some preconcerted signal to call us
together if we should be immediately wanted. That signal was the tolling of the
public bell—three strokes, silence, then three strokes again. Last night I was
"on guard," and this morning 'twas nearly midday before I arose.
Having dressed myself I sauntered leisurely up Main street toward the Spotswood
Hotel, where our battery was stationed, thinking sombrely of the great struggle
before us, when hark! a bell tolls—once, twice, three times—silence; again it
tolls. "Fall in, Howitzers!" The first command of the war!
With a shout the
soldiers rush to their rendezvous and soon we are on our way to Wilton—a high bluff
commanding the approach to Richmond, and some eight miles below. Of all the
amusing spectacles this "Pawnee War" was the most amusing I ever
beheld. It was a matter of utter impossibility for such a vessel as the
"Pawnee" to come up the river any where near Richmond, yet no one
thought of that—young and old, rich and poor, bond and free turned out en masse
to drive back or sink with double-barrel shot guns, and long-let-off-from-duty
horse-pistols, this formidable Northern War steamer. ’Tis said that one of our
heaviest citizens paid Walsh, the gunsmith, five dollars in good and
lawful Virginia currency to show him how to load his pistol. Walsh
must have taken it for granted that somebody was going to be hurt.
The Richmond
Howitzers, a battery of six guns; the Fayette Artillery, six guns; the Richmond
Grays; Company "F," and a host of amateur warriors took position on
the Wilton Bluffs and calmly awaited the war ship's approach, but no Pawnee
came, and quietly we gathered our blankets around us, and, for the first time,
"slept the warrior's sleep."
The "pale moon
rose up slowly”—rose on a country just commencing a fratricidal war, and the
twinkling stars seemed holding a "council of grief," as from their
starry home they beheld sleeping men who would awake to a soldier's life.
SOURCE: William S.
White, A Diary of the War; or
What I Saw of It, p. 92-3
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