 |
| Remains of the redoubt at Hampton Bridge.1 |
 |
| John Tyler's summer residence. |
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[514]
pleasant country, with fine-looking houses and cultivated fields, that seemed to have suffered but little from the effects of war. The twilight had passed when we reached the Southwest Branch, and the remainder of the journey we traveled in the light of an unclouded moon.
We spent Tuesday among the ruins at Hampton and vicinity, and in visiting the schools and hospitals, and making sketches.
Among these was
a drawing of the two-gun redoubt (erected, as we have observed, by order of General Butler, at the eastern end of Hampton Bridge), including a view of the desolated town.
Near the bridge, on that side of the creek, were the summer residences of several wealthy men, then occupied for public uses.
That in which Doctor McClellan resided belonged to Mallory, the so-called “Confederate Secretary of the Navy.”
A little below it was the house of Ex-President Tyler; and near it the spacious and more ancient looking mansion of Doctor Woods, who was then with the enemies of the Government, in which several Quaker women, from Philadelphia, had established an Orphan's Home for colored children.
Tyler's residence was the home of several of the teachers of the children of freedmen, and others engaged in benevolent work.
On our return to Fortress Monroe in the evening, we received orders to go on board the Ben, Deford, a stanch ocean steamer which was to be General Butler's Headquarters in the expedition about to depart.
At. near noon the following day we left the wharf, passed out to sea with a large fleet of transports, and at sunset were far down the coast of North Carolina, and in full view of its shores.
Our military company consisted of Generals Butler, Weitzel, and Graham, and their respective staff officers, and Colonel (afterward General) Comstock, General Grant's representative.
We were the only civilians, excepting Mr. Clarke, editor of a newspaper at Norfolk.
A record of the events of that expedition will be found in another volume of this work.
1 in this view the new Hampton Bridge and the remains of the old one are seen, with the ruined village beyond. It was sketched from the gallery of a summer boarding-house near the Bridge.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.