sir: In obedience to your orders I left this place on the twenty-third inst., in the
Lockwood, with the
Whitehead and
Putnam, in company, each with an officer and a detachment of men on board, the
Lockwood towing the wrecking schooner
Emma Slade, with the apparatus for blowing up the banks to block up the
Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal at the mouth of the
North River.
We were joined by the
Shawsheen, having in tow a schooner which had been sent the day before to
Roanoke Island, to be filed with sand.
On the afternoon of the twenty-third, fifty men were landed on each bank, while a launch with a heavy twelve-pounder was sent up the canal, and with this force we moved up two miles, examining the banks to find the best place for operations.
I concluded to place the obstructions near the mouth, that the men while at work might be under the cover of the guns of the steamers, and the enemy be prevented from removing it. The schooner was sunk just inside of the canal, and with brush, stumps, rails, trunks of trees and earth, the passage was obstructed from the schooner about fifty yards above.
We were occupied from noon until sunset of the twenty-third, and from half-past 7 A. M. until half an hour after sunset of the twenty-fourth.
Earth was thrown in by hand as far as it could be, but we had no wheelbarrows to carry it to the middle.
Prof. Maillefert, of the
New-York Submarine Engineering Company, and his assistants, were of the greatest assistance to me. Indeed I was merely governed by his advice, as he is more familiar with this sort of work than I am. He is of the opinion that it will require two or three months labor with a dredging-machine to remove what we have placed in a day and a half.
He says it will be easier and cheaper to cut a new outlet than to remove the obstruction.
The rebels have, I think, no thought of using the canal, as they have themselves been obstructing it above and below the bridge.
It would be well to send a steamer there daily until the lumber is well water-soaked and sunk.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
