On April the 17th I received orders to proceed to Petersburg, and join Captain Pegram there. The iron-clad which was building at Norfolk was not likely to be ready for several months; and, as Captain Pegram was anxious to be in active service, he was assigned to the command of the iron-clad Louisiana, which was building at New Orleans, and said to be nearly finished. With his usual kindness he caused me to be ordered to the same vessel, and asked me to go down with him. My first visit to the “Cockade City” was a very agreeable one, as I made acquaintance there with a number of Captain Pegram’s relatives, including his niece, Mrs. Annie T. White, and his sister, Mrs. David May.

From Petersburg the journey by railroad to Louisiana was dreary and monotonous in the extreme. I have a bare recollection of being invited at Kingville, S. C, to go to the end of the station and inspect an astonishingly fat hog, which was the wonder of that part of the country. There really was no other incident of note that I recall, except the frequent delays, and the arrival at different points too late for the connecting trains. As we neared our destination, the air was full of ugly rumors. We learned that the United States fleet had attacked the forts below New Orleans, and it was reported that the city had been evacuated. But we pressed on, and finally reached Jackson, Miss., where we were told that it was no use to go any further. No passenger trains were now running, but we succeeded in getting on a train that was going down, and got within twenty miles of New Orleans. There the cars were stopped; and in a short time train after train came up from the city, bringing out the Confederate troops, under command of General Mansfield Lovell, and such stores as could be carried off. A number of the soldiers who belonged to the “Garde d’Orleans,” flatly refused to go any further, and, to my surprise, were allowed to return to the city, which was now in the possession of Butler’s forces. There was no choice for us but to go back to Virginia; and Captain Pegram took charge of dispatches from General Lovell, giving an account of the disaster. So it turned out that, by stopping a day or two at Petersburg, we had missed an opportunity of participating in one of the fiercest naval fights of the war. The vessel which Captain Pegram was to have commanded was taken down the river in an unfinished condition, and was either sunk or was blown up. The journey back was worse than the journey down, as the delays were multiplied. It was on the train, soon after leaving Lovell’s troops at Tangipahoa, that I first met Colonel James M. Morgan (then a midshipman), whose sister I afterwards married. The vessel on which he was serving, the McRae, was lost in the engagement, and he made his escape from the city with great difficulty.

When we reached North Carolina there was no comfort there. Norfolk had been evacuated by the Confederate forces, and the Virginia had been destroyed to prevent her from falling into the hands of the enemy. I received permission to rest in Sussex for a few days, and then went to Richmond, where I was assigned to duty on a floating battery lying in the James River, and commanded by Captain Parker, with whom I had served on the Beaufort. This so-called battery was a large flat, with a shield heavily plated with iron in front. The name of the battery was the Drewry, and she lay at Rockett’s, below Richmond. I had fancied that she was a vessel of the same class as the Virginia, and when I went down to the place where she lay I looked about vainly for the vessel. Hailing a man who was at work on what I supposed to be a dredge, I asked which was the Drewry. “This is she,” said he. I was both disappointed and disgusted. The Drewry was really a lighter, about eighty feet long and fifteen feet broad, and was intended to be loaded down within eight or ten inches of the water. She had a wooden shield, V shaped, covered with heavy iron bars, and in the angle of the shield was cut a port-hole for her one heavy gun. She had no engines or sails, and was to be towed or allowed to drift into position when an engagement was expected.

I engaged quarters at a very pleasant house in Franklin Street, and found amongst the boarders there the mother and sister of Clarence Cary, whom I had known on the Nashville. The sister, Miss Constance Cary, married, after the war, Mr. Burton N. Harrison, who was the private secretary of President Davis. Miss Constance Cary, or Miss “Connie,” as she was usually called, wrote a good deal in war times under the nom de plume of “Refugitta;” and during the last few years has written at least one very charming society novel, besides an admirable work on household decoration. There were also there, in the pleasant company, Miss Hettie Cary, the famous Baltimore beauty, and her sister, Miss Jennie Cary, a handsome woman, and unfailingly amiable. Of course she was overshadowed by her sister; and she used to say that the only inscription necessary for her tomb-stone would be: “Here lies the sister of Hetty Cary, the lady who presented the Confederate colors to Beauregard’s troops at Manassas.” Miss Hetty Cary, late in the war, married General John W. Pegram, a nephew of Captain R. B. Pegram. A fight took place two or three weeks after her marriage, and Mrs. Pegram went immediately to the front to assist in caring for the wounded. Almost the first man who was brought up, as she reached the field hospital, was her dead husband. The Carys and Captain Pegram’s sister-in-law, Mrs. General Pegram, and her daughters, Miss Mary and Miss Virginia Pegram, were as kind and considerate to me as if I had been a member of their family. To one of Captain Pegram’s nephews, Willie Pegram, the youngest son of Mrs. General Pegram, I became very warmly attached. He was at this time particularly boyish looking, and wore spectacles, which added to the simplicity of his appearance. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, he had gone into service as a private in Company F of the First Virginia Regiment, and upon the promotion of Captain Lindsey Walker, had been elected Captain of the Purcell Battery.

My time in Richmond passed almost too pleasantly. I was not satisfied with myself, and saw no prospect of accomplishing anything as long as I remained in the Navy. McClellan’s army was close to Richmond, and one fine morning, at the end of May, the battle of Seven Pines began. I obtained leave of absence, and, armed with a navy sword, hastened down to the field, arriving there about night-fall. The first troops I fell in with at the front belonged to a Georgia regiment, the Eighth Georgia, I think; and I asked to be permitted to take a musket and go in with them as a volunteer, the next morning. Next morning came, but the fight did not, and I trudged disconsolately back to Richmond.

I now made up my mind to leave the Navy. Fearing that Captain Pegram would object to this, I went to the Navy Department myself and handed in my resignation, which had been approved by Captain Parker. I took care to say that I only resigned in order that I might go into the army as a private soldier. My purpose was to join the Purcell Battery, which Willie Pegram commanded, but he refused to consent to this, telling me that if I waited something better would turn up. I was not willing to wait, and went out to the battery and reported to him for duty a few days before the Seven Days Battle began.