1865. |
April. 16. |
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near him. We all remounted as quickly as possible, each obeying the injunction, “Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once,” and were soon out of range of the battery, when the firing ceased.
The Confederates had doubtless heard of the return of Butler from Fort Fisher, and, mistaking our little party of five for the General and his staff, gave this Salute with shotted guns.
We returned to General Butler's Headquarters at twilight, where we found George D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville Journal, who had just come through the lines from Richmond.
With him and Captain Clarke, of Butler's staff, we journeyed the next day on horseback to Aiken's Landing, crossed the James on a pontoon bridge, rode to Bermuda Hundred, and then went up the Appomattox to Point of Rocks in the Ocean Queen, which the general placed at our disposal.
There we mounted to the summit of the signal-tower delineated on page 547, and viewed the marvelous lines of intrenchments in that vicinity; and saw plainly the church-spires at Richmond and Petersburg.
We passed that night on the barge of the United States Sanitary Commission, at City Point, and the next morning went down to Fortress Monroe, bearing an order from General Butler for a tug to take us to Norfolk.
We spent New Year's day in that city, and then went homeward by way of Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Soon after the news of the evacuation of Richmond reached us, early in April,
we started for that city, and were in Baltimore on the night when the President was murdered.
There we were detained until Sunday afternoon,
in consequence of an order from the Government, prohibiting all public conveyances entering into or departing from Baltimore, because search was a-making for the assassin.
Admiral Porter was among the blockaded there.
We should not have been permitted then to pass southward, had not the writer possessed special passes, and letters from the heads of the War and Navy departments, and a note from the late President, requesting commanders of each service to give him facility for observation,1 for no passes were issued from the War Department for many days after the assassination.
We went down the Chesapeake to Fortress Monroe on Sunday night, where we met the gallant Captain Ainsworth,2 who took us in his tug to the double-turreted monitor Monadnoc, to
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