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condition without my gunboat, the Coeur de Lion, which had served me for the past year so well on the Potomac, Chesapeake, and York, and which I had sent to Commodore Wilkes to aid him in the bombardment of Fort Darling, on the James River, thinking I would have no further use for it. Therefore, all I had was the balloon-boat and the steam-tug and one hundred and fifty men with muskets, a large number of wagons and gas-generators for three independent balloon outfits.
My balloon-boat was almost a facsimile of our first little Monitor and about its size, and with the flag which I kept at the stern it had the appearance of an armed craft, which I think is all that saved me and my command, for the Monitor was what the Confederates dreaded at that time more than anything else.
After General Stoneman had left me at White House, I soon had a gas-generating apparatus beside a little pool of water, and from it extracted hydrogen enough in an hour to take both the general and myself to an altitude that enabled us to look into the windows of the city of Richmond and view its surroundings, and we saw what was left of the troops that had left Yorktown encamped about the city.
While my illness at Malvern Hill prevented me from reporting to headquarters until the army reached Antietam, those in charge of transportation in Washington took all my wagons and horses and left my command without transportation.
Consequently I could render no service there, but the moment General McClellan saw me he expressed his regret that I had been so ill, and that he did not have the benefit of my services; for if he had he could have gotten the proper information, he could have prevented a great amount of stores and artillery from recrossing the Potomac and thus depleted the Confederate army that much more.
I explained to him why he had been deprived of my services, which did not surprise him, because he stated that everything had been done to annoy him, but that he must still perform his duty regardless of
Review of Reviews. New York. 1912.
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