Recollections of a Rebel reefer

Front matter

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Preface

Said a writer in Blackwood's Magazine many years ago: " None but kings and egoists are fit to indite the record of their lives. The king knows himself to be the first of his world, and what to the king is knowledge is to the egoist a confident belief. Pride, then, personal and overwhelming, is essential to the perfect autobiography; and if the pride be simple enough, we may perhaps dispense with the other great quality — self-knowledge. For though it obscure reality, pride can create a phantom at once improving and consistent. Nequidquam sapit qui sibi non sapit, wrote Cicero."

The following account of some of my experiences in life will have at least the merit of simplicity, and, the story being about myself, I ask indulgence for its unavoidable egotism.

It has been said that "adventures come only to him who seeks them," but I am doubtful of the correctness of this adage, for I can truthfully say that I had as little to do with the shaping of my course in life as has an empty bottle thrown overboard in mid-ocean. I spent the most important years of a boy's life, those between fifteen and nineteen, so far as education and the formation of character are concerned, tied to a sword and in the midst of a most cruel war, and when peace came I was wafted hither and thither, the sport of the fickle winds of varying fortune; and, having "sailed 'neath alien skies and trod the desert path," naturally I imagine that I have met with some adventures out of the usual run of the average schoolboy's experiences, and if I have written some of them down, it has been with the laudable desire of amusing other people rather than personal. vanity or desire for notoriety.

Its novelty is another excuse for this volume. The shelves of libraries are filled with "Recollections," "Remiviii PREFACE

niscences," and "Services Afloat," written by admirals, but who ever before saw the memoirs of a "Reefer," unless it was those of "Mr. Midshipman Easy," and he, being a mythical person, of course did not write them himself. I make no apology for its many faults and shortcomings, for were it told in a scholarly manner and in the rounded periods and faultless language of a Macaulay, it would not be the story of a midshipman who had few opportunities of acquiring an education, and neglected the few which came in his way, as the story will make apparent to the dullest landlubber.

If I have omitted to mention one or two affairs of honor in which I took part, either as principal or second, I trust that my not doing so will not be regarded as evidence that I have any doubt as to the correctness of my attitude on those occasions. I do not mention them because I have passed the threescore years and ten and do not wish to offend the sensibilities of the living, or to reawaken old feuds in a State where one of my daughters and my grandchildren live.

If I mention an unfortunate shooting affair which occurred in Columbia, South Carolina, it is because the bloody tragedy became a matter of record in the courts. Other personal encounters are recounted because they had an amusing side to them.

J. M. M.

Chapter I

Childhood — "Billy Bowlegs" — The Choctaws — Blowing up'and burning of the steamboat Princess — Charloe and Katish — Throwing the lasso — Buck-jumpers i

Chapter II

Unlucky in love — The home of a Louisiana aristocrat — Hospitality and lengthy visits — The sugar-house — Appointed a midship* man — The only Southern man who could not whip ten Yankees — Religious mania — Fortress Monroe — Mexican pulque . . II

Chapter III

Annapolis — "Old Ironsides" — The habit of command — Show remarkable leniency toward the midshipman's hereditary enemies, the commandant and lieutenants — The "Brood of the Constitution" — "Bill Pip," our first hero — Other heroes — Skating on thin ice — The bilged — Secession 21

Chapter IV

Out of the United States Navy — Complete disguise — Captain Maynadier, U.S.A. — Passing through the Union and Confederate lines — Senator Wigfall and President Andrew Johnson — Montgomery, Alabama — President Jefferson Davis and Judah P. Benjamin — Tender services and sword to the Confederacy — Declined with thanks — The "Marseillaise" 34

Chapter V

Arrive in New Orleans — Brother Harry killed next morning in a duel

— Home-coming in Baton Rouge 41

CHAPTER VI Volunteers — Lonely — Captain Booth, late U.S.A., finds use for me

— Pensacola — " Give them a little more grape, Captain Bragg " 44

Chapter VII

The sloop-of-war McRae arrives at Baton Rouge — Receive warrant as a midshipman and ordered to the McRae — Fail to get through the blockade — Attack on Federal fleet at the Head of the Passes x Contents

— Heroes until a newspaper " Mahan " discovered that we ought to have towed the whole Federal fleet up to New Orleans in triumph 51

Chapter VIII

The McRae made flagship of the Mississippi flotilla — Commodore Hollins — Appointed aide-de-camp to the commodore — Island No. 10 — New Madrid — The Swamp Fox of Missouri — Masked batteries — Wanted to challenge a major — U.S. ironclads pass Island No. 10 — Stung — New Madrid and Island No. 10 evacuated — "Savez" Read administers a lesson in discipline to the volunteers — Gunboats pretty badly cut up by shore batteries — Go back to New Orleans — Fort Jackson under heavy bombardment from Porter's mortar fleet — Commodore Hollins relieved from his command — Farragut passes the forts — Death of Captain Huger and sinking of the McRae 60

Chapter IX

Farragut's fleet at New Orleans — Mob threatens to kill his officers who demand the surrender of the city — Farragut threatens to destroy the city if a hair of their heads is hurt — Pierre Soul£'s hypnotic fore-finger saves the critical situation — I take to the swamp — The " Irreconcilable Home Guard" — Reach General Lovell's camp at Amite — Reach Norfolk in time for the evacuation — Richmond — The battle between the U.S. Ironclads Galena, Monitor, and Naugatuck and Drewry's Bluff batteries — Battle of Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) — Seven Days' Battle . . 75

Chapter X

Charleston — Commodore Ingraham — C.S. Ironclad Chicora — , The looting of my home in Baton Rouge — George Hollins dies of yellow fever — The Honorable George A. Trenholm — Naval officers "never unbutton their coats" — Ordered abroad . . 89

Chapter XI

Run through the U.S. blockading fleet — Out of our reckoning — Bermuda — Blockade-runners throw money into the street — Commodore Wilkes's famous ship San Jacinto gives us a scare — Halifax — Sail for England in company with some of Her Majesty's Life Guardsmen

Chapter XII

Liverpool — London — Visit " Hill Morton," near Rugby — Ordered to the C.S.S. Alexandra — Snubbed — Ordered to Paris — Ordered to London — Birthday properly celebrated — Damn the

Contents xi

Marquis of Westminster and lose my only friend — Meet several Mr. Grigsons 106

Chapter XIII

White Haven — The active tug Alar — Meet the Japan, which turns out to be the Confederate cruiser Georgia — Ushant Island — Break neutrality laws, and away to sea — Hoist Confederate flag, but don't use it much — Capture our first prize, the clipper ship Dictator — Treatment of prisoners — Cape Verde Islands

— Narrow escape from U.S.S. Mohican — Crew of Dictator ship with us — Chasing ships 113

Chapter XIV

The Doldrums — Water-spouts — Bahia — Meet the Alabama — Changing of the Confederate flag — Corsairos — Brazilian ball

— Midshipman Anderson makes a pillow out of Captain Semmes

— U.S.S. Niagara and Mohican on our trail — " Does he want his pretty paint spoiled? " — Refused permission to depart after

4 p.m. — Brazilian battery fires one shot as we pass out . . . 124

Chapter XV

"Tempest in a teapot" — Capture clipper ship George Griswold of New York — Burn bark Good Hope of Boston — Funeral at sea

— Bark Seaver goes to assistance of the Good Hope and is captured — Transfer prisoners to the Seaver 133

Chapter XVI

Barren island of Trinidad — The natural monument — Surf five hundred feet high — Battle in the air between frigate bird and sailor lad -i— Capture of splendid ship Constitution loaded with coal and missionaries — Georgia, by mistake, fires into the Constitution

— Capture of ship City of Bath — Despoiled of $16,000 of our hard-earned wealth by trick of skipper's wife — Learn of the death of " Stonewall " Jackson — The Cape of Good Hope . . 140

Chapter XVII

Simon's Town — The Alabama had just sailed from the port — Two of the Georgia's engineers, the boatswain, gunner, and several seamen get "cold feet" and leave us — Our first lieutenant, Mr. Chapman, ordered to Europe — Visit the city of Cape Town — Skippers of burned ships not friendly and disposed to start a rough-house — H. M. troopship Himalaya — " Dixie" — Exciting experience with Malay fishermen — Albatross and Cape pigeons — Meet the tea fleet — Also the U.S.S. Vanderbilt — Myriads of fish follow the Georgia making the ocean at night appear to be in flames 147 xii Contents

chapter XVIII

The prize Bold Hunter, abandoned and on fire, runs down and seriously damages the Georgia — Mirage at night — Peak of Teneriffe — Santa Cruz — Battle with a Frenchman — Rescue French brig Diligente — Captain Maury ill — Sailors get at the spirit-room — Mutiny 156

Chapter XIX

Cherbourg — Letters from home tell of the deaths of my two brothers, captains in Stonewall Jackson's corps — French fleet arrives to keep us in order — Great storm and loss of flagship's launch and crew — Impressive military pageant at funeral — Captain Maury relieved from the command of the Georgia. The C.S.S. Rappahannock — Kearsarge and Tuscarora waiting for us outside . . 165

Chapter XX

Leave Cherbourg — Storm off Cape Trafalgar — Coast of Morocco — Anchor in the open sea near the Great Desert — Caravans — Moors bring fish — Ancient Moor swims to the ship — We return visits and are kicked into the sea — We bombard the troglodytes

— Give up hope that the Rappahannock will meet us — Weigh anchor and have a narrow escape from shipwreck and falling into the hands of the Moors 172

Chapter XXI

Bordeaux — U.S.S. Niagara and Sacramento wait outside for us — Two fine sloops-of-war intended for the Confederacy lay near, but beyond our reach — Escape from the United States men-of-war

— Liverpool — A hero at last — Georgia put out of commission

— Georgia captured by U.S.S. Niagara — Last of the Georgia — Men-of-war, privateers, and pirates 180

Chapter XXII

Paris — Alabama sunk by Kearsarge — Havre — Southampton — Ordered to return to the Confederacy — Halifax — Sail for Bermuda and passengers mistake us for pirates — St. George's, Bermuda — Take passage in the blockade-runner Lillian — Chased by U.S.S. Shenandoah and have narrow escape running through blockading fleet off Wilmington 187

Chapter XXIII

Shells dropping in the grass-grown streets of Charleston, South Carolina — Mr. Trenholm is Secretary of the Confederate Treasury — Columbia — Mr. Trenholm's beautiful villa — Go to Richmond and ask the millionaire Secretary for the hand of his daughter — Mrs. Trenholm calls on Mrs. (?) Stephens 197

Contents xiii

Chapter XXIV

"Pride goeth before a fall" — Humiliated and sent to school — A realistic war college — Call a commander "My man," and order him forward — Assault on Fort Harrison — General Lee appears on the battle-field — Repulsed — I prove to be something of a sprinter 204

Chapter XXV

I finally become a passed midshipman — Battery Semmes — The Dutch Gap Canal — Mortar pits and rifle pits — The lookout tower — Trading with the enemy — Pickett's famous division charges a rabbit — A shell from a monitor destroys my log hut — Good marksmanship — An unexploded shell — General Lee inspects battery — Costly result of order to "give him a shot in fifteen minutes" — Demonstration against City Point — Confederate ironclads badly hammered — "Savez" Read cuts boom across the river — A thunderous night 212

Chapter XXVI

The Confederate "White House" — President Davis gives an impromptu lecture on bridle bits — Letter of Mrs. Jefferson Davis denying truth of anecdote relating to President Buchanan, Mrs. Joseph E. Johnston, and herself — The Southern soldiers and girls dance, flirt, and marry, oblivious of the signs that the "debacle" draws near 220

Chapter XXVII

Ordered to accompany Mrs. Davis and party south — No Pullman cars in those days — President Davis bids his family good-bye — Insolent deserters insult Mrs. Davis at Charlotte, North Carolina— A Hebrew gentleman gives her shelter — Midshipmen guarding the Confederacy's gold escort her to Abbeville, South Carolina — President Davis and his Cabinet at Abbeville . . 228

Chapter XXVIII

President Davis departs from Abbeville — I carry communication to General Fry at Augusta, Georgia — United States troops occupy Abbeville. We bury the silver chests — Paroled at Washington, Georgia — Accompany Mr. Trenholm to Columbia, where he buys a home — Mr. Wagner, of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., pays to avoid arrest in Charleston, and Mr. Trenholm is arrested in Columbia — Placed in the common jail — Mrs. King hides the gold under the Federal commander's nose — General Gillmore, U.S.A., treats Mr. Trenholm magnanimously 238 xiv Contents

Chapter XXIX

Mr. Trenholm and others of Mr. Davis's Cabinet imprisoned in Fort Pulaski — I make a hurried trip to New Orleans to engage counsel — I get married — Study (?) law — General Daniel E. Sickles orders Mr. Trenholm's home returned to him — I become a widower — Yellow fever saves me from being on board of the fated Evening Star 253

Chapter XXX

Try cotton-planting with the usual sailor's success — Better success following the hounds — Charles Astor Bristed ;" Man is a gregarious animal" — Drayton Hall — Discovery of the phosphate rocks — Visit Philadelphia — Go on the New York Yacht Club cruise — General McClellan — General W. S. Hancock views the yacht race 259

Chapter XXXI

Receive a commission as captain in the Egyptian Army — Hurried trip to Egypt with nineteen other ex-Union and Confederate officers — Alexandria — Call an Oriental bluff — Cause small panic in hotel by opening windows during the "kempsine" — In uniform — Presented to the Khedive — American officers in Khedive's army — Letters of President Davis and General R. E. Lee 266

Chapter XXXII

The Egyptian Army — Eunuchs important beings — Polyglots — Anecdote (from court gossip) about the two Schnieders — Adventuresses — The permanent Secretary — The bounding horse Napoleon — Did n't cut His Highness — Napoleon gets me in and out of trouble about being too fresh with a Princess, a flower, and a dainty lace handkerchief — The Khedive orders a wedding to amuse the Empress Eugenie — Divorce — Harems (pronounced hareems) 274

Chapter XXXIII

Egyptian Army splendidly drilled in manual of arms and tactics' — American officers dine with the Effendina — Sham battle — Napoleon disgraces me — Feast of the Doss6 — Marriage of the Nile — Offend Arabi Bey and am sent to Rosetta — Sailing on the great canal — Rosetta — A deserted palace — See ghosts which turn out to be lepers — Accept hospitality of an Armenian — Commander of garrison not overjoyed to see me . . . . 287

Contents xv

chapter xxxiv

Khedive always just to the American officers, but it was difficult to obtain an audience with him — Go to Alexandria with General Loring and occupy a royal palace — Difficult to get paid — Row with customs officials — An Egyptian military banquet — I have not rank enough to entitle me to a seat at the table — Cabal formed against General Stone — I am sent to the staff of Ratib Pasha, commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Army .... 296

Chapter XXXV

Ratib Pasha — Attempted suicide gained him promotion — Ratib is presented to a pretty soubrette, and calls on her accompanied by his staff — The commander-in-chief is peeved — The Abyssinian campaign — Ratib Pasha the only court favorite faithful to the Khedive Ismail in the hour of humiliation and sorrow — The Duke of Hamilton,* General Mott, and the duel that did not come off 301

Chapter XXXVI

The Franco-Prussian War — Apply for leave to go to France — Wrecked — Paris in sackcloth and ashes — A generous Jew . . 310

Chapter XXXVII

Return to America — Tired of the Egyptian service, but the Khedive declines to allow me to resign — Grants me a furlough with permission to go home — Determine again to become a farmer — "Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses" — Columbia, South Carolina — Become lord and master of the great Hampton plantation — A bachelor's mSnage and appetite — A lively fox hunt in which the wily Carpetbag Government is run to cover — Matches cost only five cents a box — Trial Justice Sam Thompson 315

Chapter Xxxviii

The name Galapagos inspires the preacher — I take Northern friends to a prayer meeting — "Getting glory" — A chicken thief and a bulldog get hitched together — Death of Hector as a consequence — The preponderance of the evidence — Ball toilets in the middle of the day and champagne orgies on the main street — The comptroller of the State opens fire on the house of Colonel Black, U.S.A., the commandant — Moses, promised immunity, gives testimony in the fraudulent bonds case — Questions of personal privilege — Nancy Eliot 323 xvi Contents

Chapter XXXIX

Corrupt judiciary — Melton voted for Seymour and Blair, but bet his money on Grant — Feud between Attorney-General Melton and Colonel Montgomery in which Mr. Caldwell was killed and I was wounded 332

Chapter XL

Cotton-picking by moonlight — Swindled by a carpetbagger out of my hay crop — Legislative debates — Confiscation by taxation

— Poverty no bar to marrying and giving in marriage — Hound dog gives the alarm and saves my family from death when house catches fire — Pay taxes in a novel way, and sell Hampton plantation — Move to Charleston 340

Chapter XLI

Friendly shooting-match — Dancing the "Too Ral Loo" — Negro mobs — Dawson wounded — U.S. Regulars attacked with stones — General Hunt, U.S.A., takes command of the rifle clubs

— This action costs General Hunt his promotion on retirement — Feud between Governor Chamberlain and Captain Bowen, the sheriff of Charleston County 348

Chapter XLII

Captain Dawson, editor of the " Charleston News and Courier," denounces Bowen as the assassin of Colonel White — Bowen brings libel suit — Eli Grimes, the actual murderer, located — I go to Leesville and bring Grimes to Charleston to testify — Grimes attempts to kill himself — Grimes's sensational testimony — Mistrial 353

CHAPTER XLII I

Exciting political campaign of 1875 — I return to Columbia — The dual legislature — Hamilton, negro member of the legislature, makes a Democratic speech — The military evict the Democrats from the capitol 360

Chapter XLIV

General M. C. Butler elected U.S. Senator by Democratic legislature

— Carpetbag conspiracy against Butler proves a fiasco — Don Cameron, to the amazement of the country, forces the seating of Butler in the U.S. Senate — Senator Blaine traps Senator Vance who was fond of_ practical jokes — Astonishing clash between Senators Bayard and Blaine — Visit of a Senate Committee to the Indian Territory — Attempt to give a scolding to Chief

Contents' xvii

Joseph, of the Nez Perces Indians, and the result — The mountain would not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed had to go to the mountain — Joseph turns the tables on the Senators and administers a stinging tongue-lashing — We leave Joseph, but do not feel very proud of ourselves 370

Chapter XLV

" Fighting Bob " Evans gets me employment with Governor Alexander R. Shepherd and I go to Mexico — My brother, P. H. Morgan, is appointed U.S. Minister to Mexico — San Antonio, Texas, where we buy a herd of unbroken mules — The Canon de las Iglesias — Dangers of the mountain trail — Batopilas — The San Miguel silver mine — Governor Shepherd as an executive — A law unto himself, he wins the favor of Porfirio Diaz — In Bonanza — My conducta carries a hundred and forty thousand dollars in silver bars to Chihuahua — Jnstinct of the mountain mule — Beware of the polite Mexican — Narrow escape from falling into the hands of Victoria, the Apache Chief — The mountain trail strewn with silver bars 383

Chapter XLVI

Resign position as chief of conductas and start for home via Mazatlan and- San Francisco — Alamos — Witness marriage between a Mexican girl and a German — New York — A dress-suit my chief asset — Return to Mexico and become a civil engineer (?) — Primitive coaching — Queretaro and its opal mines . . . 395

Chapter XLVII

Leon, the city whose sole industry is the carving of leather and making of saddles — Running trial lines on the gallop — La Piedad — Did n't flop quick enough and got stoned — The brave peccary

— The strangler tree — The tree that bleeds blood — Come upon a murdered man lying on the road — The volcano of Colima

— General Grant only likes rebels who fought — Mr. Gilmore comes near losing his life in the Jule River — Return to the States to finance a silver mine 401

Chapter XLVIII

Return to Tampico and get shipwrecked on the bar — A squaw man who was a quack doctor — Find a lake of asphalt and strike oil — A precarious ferry — 111 with fever and receive a matrimonial proposal' 410

Chapter XLIX

Not even any money in oil, when I am interested — President Gonzalez and General Porfirio Diaz — Collapse of oil scheme — Enxviii Contents

counter General Charles P. Stone by accident and get employment — The Statue of Liberty — Swept to sea by harbor ice — Meet an old foe — Laying a corner-stone — General Winfield S. Hancock — Lecture my superior officer — I am appointed Consul-General to Australasia 418

Chapter L

My appointment as consul-general arouses great indignation among Southern office-seekers — Mr. Cleveland said he never would have appointed me had he known I was a "pirate" — Torpedo, in the shape of a pamphlet, comes near blowing up my prospects

— Mr. Secretary Bayard gets angry — Mr. Cleveland brushes the matter aside and wishes me bon voyage — Get married and start for San Francisco — Mr. Bayard recalls me to Washington by telegram — I sail for Australia — Seventh-Day Adventists indignant when Captain skips Saturday at the one hundred and eightieth meridian 424

Chapter LI

Sydney's beautiful harbor — The authorities compliment me by giving me a private compartment for the journey to Melbourne and I am surprised to find myself a prisoner therein — Beautiful Melbourne and its suburbs — Sir Henry Loch, the Governor of Victoria — My wife suddenly ennobled — Singular coincidence of meeting a gentleman who had been a passenger on a ship we had stopped on the high seas twenty-two years previously — Wonderful Australian horsemanship 431

CHAPTER LH

Impecunious globe-trotters — Consular courts — Become skipper of a water-logged bark against my wishes — A captain claims a dollar a day for tuition in the culinary art — For obeying my instructions an Australian court mulcts me for five hundred dollars, holding that despite my exequatur I am only a commercial agent — Grocer's assistant gets quite a large fortune — Many supposed dead men live in the South Sea Islands — "Blackbirders" 438

Chapter LIII

Vast estates — Australian hospitality — Kangaroo hunting — The dingo — Rabbits in myriads — Aborigines — Marriage customs

— Black trackers — Black swans — No songbirds, but many curious birds — The "laughing jackass" always gets a laugh when he tells a funny story — The "Ornithoryncus" . . . 445

Contents xix

Chapter LIV

Sir Henry Loch gives a fancy-dress ball in honor of the Queen's Jubilee

— The Melbourne Exhibition — Return to America via Suez Canal — Visit to the "Isle of France" (Mauritius) — Paul and Virginia must have sat down hard — Return to Melbourne — Secretary of State appoints a naval officer to take charge of appropriation for American exhibit — First World's Fair Commission ever to turn back a balance into the Treasury — Receive a medal — Leave Australia — Authorize captain of the Mariposa

to return to Sydney — Samoans as swimmers — Resign . . . 453

Chapter LV

" Cedarcroft " — Death of Captain Dawson — Ten years on a farm — Vagaries of the genus horse — Australian fox terriers . . . 459

Chapter LVI

Visit Mrs. Jefferson Davis in New York — Accompany Mrs. Davis to Richmond — Unveiling of the memorial window to Mr. Davis — Make the oration at the unveiling of the statuette to Mr. Davis in the Confederate Museum — The old Confederate "White House" — Present my sword and letters from President Davis and General Lee to the Museum — Letter from Mrs. Davis on the subject of Prince Polignac's canard about his mission to France for the purpose of selling the State of Louisiana . . 463

CHAPTER LVII The hero of Manila Bay — Distinguished dead who were my friends

— Some learned societies which have honored me — "Peace at any price" 468

Chapter LVIII

The "birth of a nation" — Assistant manager of the Washington branch of the International Banking Corporation — Extracts from a diary kept on a journey to Panama — Meet my old classmates Admirals Coghlan and Glass, of the " Brood of the Constitution"— My old hulk is laid up in ordinary waiting to be scrapped 474

INDEX 483

ILLUSTRATIONS

James Morris Morgan Frontispiece

Midshipman James Morris Morgan, C.S.N., at the Age of

Fifteen 52

U.S. Sloop-of-War Richmond, of Farragut's Fleet ... 56

From a drawing made at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1872

C.S. Ram Manassas, which rammed the Richmond ... 56

From a drawing by R. G. Skerrett

C.S.S. McRae, Commodore Hollins's Flagship, coaling at

Baton Rouge, 1861 60

U.S. Ironclad Galena 82

From a drawing by R. G. Skerrett after photographs and official plans

C.S. Ironclad Chicora, on which the Author served at Charleston 82

From a drawing by R. G. Skerrett

Hon. George A. Trenholm, Secretary of the C.S. Treasury 92

From a painting

Captain W. L. Maury, commanding the Georgia . . . .114

From a contemporary photograph taken at Cherbourg

C.S. Cruiser Georgia 118

From a photograph taken at Cherbourg

Midshipman Morgan while attached to the Cruiser Georgia,

1863 126

Major W. P. A. Campbell, formerly of the C.S. Navy . .170

From a photograph taken in Cairo in iSjo

C.S.S. Patrick Henry, Confederate Naval School Ship, on the James River below Richmond, 1864 204

From a painting by Clary-Ray

Colonel Beverly Kennon, Coast Defense, Egyptian Army . 208

From a photograph taken in Alexandria

Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan, of the Egyptian Army . . 266

From a photograph taken in Cairo in 1870

Napoleon, the Bounding Horse 278

From a photograph taken in Cairo

Dr. M. Amador, First President of the Republic of Panama, 1903 ■ 476

RECOLLECTIONS

OF A REBEL REEFER

Chapter I

Childhood — " Billy Bowlegs " — The Choctaws — Blowing up and burning of the steamboat Princess — Charloe and Katish — Throwing the lasso — Buck-jumpers.

Born in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1845, — the youngest of nine children, — my parents indulged me as only the youngest of a large family or an only child is spoiled, and they were very ably assisted by my elder brothers and sisters. My old black nurse, Katish, played no unimportant r&le in the coddling process.

According to the family legends I commenced my adventures at an early age. When I could barely toddle I strayed away from the house and was found stranded in a gutter and brought home in a most sorry plight. In this day, when it is considered the proper thing to boast of one's lowly beginnings, that story ought at least to have secured me a seat in the halls of Congress, but it did n't. Another thriller told me of the adventures of my babyhood was that once, when I was playing near a pond at Pascagoula, a huge alligator was seen slowly creeping toward me when my French governess rushed to the rescue and bravely bore me out of danger. She was ever afterwards regarded as a heroine.

When I was five years of age, my father, Judge Thomas Gibbes Morgan, with his family returned to Baton Rouge, where he had lived prior to his having been appointed Collector of the Port of New Orleans. Baton Rouge at that time was a pretty little town of some three thousand inhabitants. It is situated on the first high ground as one ascends the river from the Gulf of Mexico. The bluff is at least thirty feet high and before I commenced my travels I thought that it must be the tallest hill in the world.

At that time there was a United States Arsenal and quite a large garrison there, mostly composed of heroes who had two or three years before that time conquered Mexico. I loved the soldiers, and one of the officers, Lieutenant Drum, afterwards adjutant-general of the United States Army for many years, loved my eldest sister, so we got on famously together.