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directed my senior aide-de-camp, Colonel Harrison Ritchie, in concert with Major Stephen Cabot, who is the commanding officer at Fort Warren, to consult with Admiral Stringham, commanding at the Navy Yard at Charlestown, and co-operate with him in any measures he may deem expedient in this connection; at the same time warning all the officers commanding the forts on the Massachusetts coast.
The expectation of an attack upon the coast of
Maine was based upon information contained in a letter to
President Lincoln, dated
Montreal, July 15, 1864, the writer of which was a confidential agent of the
Government.
It was referred by the
President to
Major-General Peck, and was in these words:—
Eighteen or twenty rebel officers are to leave to-night for New Brunswick, via Quebec.
I have learned, from a most reliable source, that a concentration of rebels and their sympathizers is to take place at St. Andrews and Grand Menan Island, N. B., preparatory to an attack upon Belfast or Eastport or Calais, as the prospect of success may seem most favorable.
They are to be conveyed to the place of attack by a rebel steamer and brig.
The men who leave here to-night are under command of a Colonel D. Wood and Captain Nichols, late “Missouri guerillas,” and men of very bad fame.
The Colonel D. Wood is a very large-built man. He has had a complete outfit made here for this special occasion.
Each of the men are armed with rifles and revolvers purchased here.
This expedition, whatever may have been its purpose or its strength, failed; nothing more was ever heard of it.
Among the presents which the
Governor received from our officers at the front was a green turtle, weighing 352 lbs. It was sent from
Florida, by
Major D. B. Keith, of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry.
The Governor was absent from the
State when it arrived.
The box containing it was placed in the basement of the
State House, where, after a consultation between the principal officers of the
State Government as to how long it would live without eating, the creature was put under a Cochituate water-spout, and turned upon its back.
It died before the
Governor returned.
In a letter, dated July 29, the
Governor wrote to
Major Keith, in which he said,—
When I reached the State House, life was wholly extinct.
Feeling
