Mayport, Wednesday, P. M., April 9.
At six o'clock this morning, the evacuating fleet, in all eleven sail, got under way in regular order, and started down the St. John's River, a part bound to St. Augustine, and a portion to Fernandina.
The vessels formed a long line, the United States steamer Ottawa, Senior Lieutenant Commanding T. H. Stevens, leading off, with the army transports Cosmopolitan and Belvidere in her wake.
These steamers towed the schooners Chas. M. Neal, James G. Stille, Rachel S. Miller, and Magnum.
Bonum. Then followed the gunboat Pembina, Lieutenant Commanding J. P. Bankhead, with the schooner Anna C. Leaverett; and last, least, but not most unimportant, came the useful little Ellen, Acting Master Budd, with the champion prize yacht America in tow.
The United States steamer Seneca, Lieutenant Commanding Ammen, with several families aboard, left Jacksonville twenty-two hours in advance of the fleet, and had gone to sea, bound to Port Royal, when we got here.
The Ottawa brought down the families of Mr. Frazer, a lawyer, formerly from Montrose, Susquehannah County, Pennsylvania, and Judge Burritt, an old and influential resident of Florida.
Last night the rebel officers went to the Judge's house, and invited him to remain, but he “didn't see it.”
His kind entertainment of Captains Stevens, Ammen, Bankhead, and Budd, together with the military officers during their stay, made his chances of protection from the rebels very doubful.
The Cosmopolitan bore, in addition to the Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania regiment, several companies of the Fourth New-Hampshire regiment, all the regimental equipage, and a large number of the refugees with their baggage.
The Belvidere had a section of Sherman's celebrated battery, under Capt. Ransom, portion of the Fourth New-Hampshire regiment, and several families aboard.
The Pembina carried Gen. Wright and part of staff, while the Ellen was freighted with the valuable able law and literary libraries of Judge Burritt.
We ascertained this morning that a company of rebel cavalry, acting as escort to the “secesh” commander, had been in the city all night, and as we passed the lower path of the place, saw their saddled horses hitched within two hundred and fifty yards of us, and several uniformed officers and privates came on the wharf to see the “Yankees” off. Truly, this is at times a very “civil war!”
Our passage down the Walaka (the Indian name of the river) was several times interrupted by trifling causes.
After experiencing several squalls, however, and shelling the woods and yellow low bluff, where the Seneca was attacked a few days since, we reached Mayport.
Here we found the stone schooner David Faust, and the despatch yacht Azalea, the latter from St. Augustine.
At half-past 1 the entire fleet anchored to await calmer weather for crossing the bar. This text is part of:
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Van Nostrand. New York, New York. 1862.
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