Colonel Robert Gould Shaw to his wife Annie

 

St. Simons Island, Ga. [RGS]
Tuesday, June 9, 1863

My Dearest Annie,

We arrived at the southern point of this island at six this morning. I went ashore to report to Colonel [James] Montgomery, and was ordered to proceed with my regiment to a place called “Pike’s Bluff,” on the inner coast of the island, and encamp. We came up here in another steamer, the “Sentinel,” as the “De Molay” is too large for the inner waters,—and took possession to-day of a plantation formerly owned by Mr. Gould. We have a very nice camping-ground for the regiment, and I have my quarters in “the house”; very pleasantly situated, and surrounded by fine large trees. The island is beautiful, as far as I have seen it. You would be enchanted with the scenery here; the foliage is wonderfully thick, and the trees covered with hanging moss, making beautiful avenues wherever there is a road or path; it is more like the tropics than anything I have seen. Mr. Butler King’s plantation, where I first went ashore, must have been a beautiful place, and well kept. It is entirely neglected now, of course; and as the growth is very rapid, two years’ neglect almost covers all traces of former care.

June 12th—If I could have gone on describing to you the beauties of this region, who knows but I might have made a fine addition to the literature of our age? But since I wrote the above, I have been looking at something very different.

On Wednesday, a steamboat appeared off our wharf, and Colonel Montgomery hailed me from the deck with, “How soon can you get ready to start on an expedition?” I said, “In half an hour,” and it was not long before we were on board with eight companies, leaving two for camp-guard.

We steamed down by his camp, where two other steamers with five companies from his regiment, and two sections of Rhode Island artillery, joined us. A little below there we ran aground, and had to wait until midnight for flood-tide, when we got away once more.

At 8 A.M., we were at the mouth of the Altamaha River, and immediately made for Darien. We wound in and out through the creeks, twisting and turning continually, often heading in directly the opposite direction from that which we intended to go, and often running aground, thereby losing much time. Besides our three vessels, we were followed by the gunboat “Paul Jones.”

On the way up, Montgomery threw several shells among the plantation buildings, in what seemed to me a very brutal way; for he didn’t know how many women and children there might be.

About noon we came in sight of Darien, a beautiful little town. Our artillery peppered it a little, as we came up, and then our three boats made fast to the wharves, and we landed the troops. The town was deserted, with the exception of two white women and two negroes.

Montgomery ordered all the furniture and movable property to be taken on board the boats. This occupied some time; and after the town was pretty thoroughly disembowelled, he said to me, “I shall burn this town.” He speaks always in a very low tone, and has quite a sweet smile when addressing you. I told him, “I did not want the responsibility of it,” and he was only too happy to take it all on his shoulders; so the pretty little place was burnt to the ground, and not a shed remains standing; Montgomery firing the last buildings with his own hand. One of my companies assisted in it, because he ordered them out, and I had to obey. You must bear in mind, that not a shot had been fired at us from this place, and that there were evidently very few men left in it. All the inhabitants (principally women and children) had fled on our approach, and were no doubt watching the scene from a distance. Some of our grape-shot tore the skirt of one of the women whom I saw. Montgomery told her that her house and property should be spared; but it went down with the rest.

The reasons he gave me for destroying Darien were, that the Southerners must be made to feel that this was a real war, and that they were to be swept away by the hand of God, like the Jews of old. In theory it may seem all right to some, but when it comes to being made the instrument of the Lord’s vengeance, I myself don’t like it. Then he says, “We are outlawed, and therefore not bound by the rules of regular warfare” but that makes it none the less revolting to wreak our vengeance on the innocent and defenceless.

By the time we had finished this dirty piece of business, it was too dark to go far down the narrow river, where our boat sometimes touched both banks at once; so we lay at anchor until daylight, occasionally dropping a shell at a stray house. The “Paul Jones” fired a few guns as well as we.

I reached camp  at about 2 P.M. to-day, after as abominable a job as I ever had a share in.

Russell Duncan, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1992), pp. 341-345.

from wikipedia:

Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a prominent Boston abolitionist family, he accepted command of the first all-black regiment (the 54th Massachusetts) in the Northeast. Supporting the promised equal treatment for his troops, he encouraged the men to refuse their pay until it was equal to that of white troops’ wage.

He led his regiment at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in July 1863. They attacked a beachhead near Charleston, South Carolina, and Shaw was shot and killed while leading his men to the parapet of the Confederate-held fort. Although the regiment was overwhelmed by firing from the defenses and driven back, suffering many casualties, Shaw’s leadership and the regiment became legendary. They inspired  thousands more African Americans to enlist for the Union helping to turn the tide of the war to its ultimate victory…

…..Two sons of Frederick Douglass, Lewis and Charles Douglass, were with the 54th regiment at the time of the attack. Lewis was wounded shortly after Shaw fell, and retreated with the rest when the force withdrew.[38]

Following the battle, commanding Confederate General Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of the other Union officers who had died, but left Shaw’s where it was, for burial in a mass grave with the black soldiers. Hagood told a captured Union surgeon that “Had he [Shaw] been in command of white troops …” he would have returned Shaw’s body, as was customary for officers, instead of burying it with the fallen black soldiers.[39]

Although the gesture was intended as an insult by Hagood, Shaw’s friends and family believed it was an honor for him to be buried with his soldiers. Efforts had been made to recover Shaw’s body (which had been stripped and robbed prior to burial). His father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son had been buried with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a crusader for emancipation.[40]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gould_Shaw

And All I Ask is a Merry Yarn…

What a stroke of fortune to have such an outstanding roster this season! It has been a real privilege to spend some time with these guys, and it is such a good feeling to know without worry that the helm is always in good hands!

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Dave “Crazy Pirate”. Relief mate. A catamaran owner, cruiser and part time resident here at Morningstar. He is a retired Submariner, with thousands of sea miles behind him.

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Dave Bill! Relief Mate. Dockmaster, sailboat live aboard, retired professor of Nautical Science. A Sailor’s Sailor.

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Zary Manning. Relief Mate. Morningstar live aboard sailor and Sonar expert at Kings Bay Naval Base.

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Benjamin Shelton. Mate. Sailor, Chef, Father, Builder, Gardener, Retired Merchant Mariner and Lord knows what else. Ben has pulled me out of more than one jam since I met him three years ago!

I cant thank these guys enough!

Back on Track

We have been trying to solve a recent recurring problem. The sail is not sliding up and down the mast as easily as it did when it was new. It doesnt hang up every time, and sometimes it is worse than others. We have always been able to get it up at least to the second reef point. Usually it just takes a little fiddling, letting it down a bit and re hoisting till it goes on up. It doesnt hang up coming down. The mast is about 45 feet long at the luff. It has a male track with a small amount of bend, and a joint in the track just below the Tangs, which is about 3/4 of the way up.The joint is kept in column by a spline that is screwed in with very short, small, metric, fine threaded, flathead screws. The question up to now has been whether the problem is with the track, the cars, the sail batten tension, the bearings, or something else.

This is the suspect car. If you move it from side to side with your hand, it moves a bit more than the others. This is the car that seems to be hanging up. We pulled the car and replaced the bearings. it still wiggles and it still hangs uo.

This is another view of the car in question. Note how it is out of alignment with the others. This was done by pulling it over by hand.

OK this is the track. This photo was taken aloft, right about where the thing seems to be hanging up. There is a scored place, a scratch on it, not in the side grooves, but on the face, The screws are in tight, and don’t seem to be protruding enough to catch on the car. The track is otherwise in alignment.

What we have done so far: gone up the mast and checked the joint in the track. It seems to be OK. It happens to be at the deepest point in the mast bend (It is bent fore and aft by tightening the diamond shrouds, which are swept back)

So, today we eased the diamonds about one thread on the turnbuckles.

This car is at the first batten which is a fiberglass rod, which is tensioned from the leech end with a big flathead screw. So today we backed off the tension on the batten till there was none.

The car bearings are torlon 1/4 inch. We removed the car, and replaced the bearings. I couldn’t tell any difference in the appearance. They all seem to be round without any flat spots or scoring.

To be continued.

HIGH SEAS AND YANKEE GUNBOATS

Roger Durham

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1570035725/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the fascinating story of a blockade run aboard the Canadian  S/V “Standard”.  Her 1862 voyage was from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Sapelo Sound, Georgia, and up the inland passage to the North Newport River, where her cargo of clothes, medicine and ammunition were off-loaded near Colonel’s Island at Melon Bluff. The much needed goods were then transported to, and eventually sold in Savannah.  The Brigantine was then scuttled in the river by her crew, as their escape was made impossible by the pursuit of the Union blockade steamers “Wamsutta” and the “Potomska”.  Author Roger Durham pieces the story together from different sources , most notably the very descriptive diary of James Dickson with his  accounts of the offshore perils, and observations of the wartime coastal conditons at Blackbeard and St Catherines Islands. The local home guard fired on the “Potomska” and  “Wamsutta”, as they descended the river at half moon bluff, mortally wounding two Union seamen. They were buried on Doboy Island. 

lesson 5. MORE On Tacking

Stolen from another blog, but good stuff.

>. When you begin the tack, throw
> the helm gently over. Don’t throw hard over. Sail thru the tack, as it were, make
> a big U-turn; as you begin the turn, sheet harder as you are essentially sailing
> closer to the wind. As you reach head-to-wind, let out the main, LEAVE THE JIB IN.
> The jib will help put you on the new tack. As the bows cross the eye of the wind,
> let the jib backwind and blow the bows on over to the new tack. Once across the

> wind, then cut the jib and sheet it first, on the new tack, then harden the main.

1,how fast you ‘throw’ your helm over, depends very much on wind & the boats
speed and the waves. The magic word is slow and as said before sail
your boat to the new tack.
2,Once on the new tack, don’t push hard upwind in the beginning,
get speed an then sheet in.
3,If you have missed (e.g. wind change during manouvere), do it like the old square riggers, reverse
tiller, sail backward to your new tack
4, In case you have a traveller rigged for you main sheet, you can
even sheet the main to windward and skip the jib backwinding job.

Spanish Florida Mission Period: A Reading List

Picking up where  the Fort Caroline Narratives  left off.

An archaeologists account of the discovery of the mission site Santa Catalina de Guale, its excavation and the artifacts they found there. Including several interesting photos.

AN EARLY FLORIDA ADVENTURE STORY

This one is a hair raising account of a 1595 shipwreck written by a Spaniard, Fray Andres de San Miguel.  He was bound for Spain aboard the ship “Our Lady of Mercy”, out of Havana. It foundered in the Gulf Stream with a broken rudder.  The remaining crew fashioned a makeshift lifeboat and drifted for several days until washing  ashore on probably either Little St Simons Island or Wolf Island. They were rescued by some local Guale Indians, who gave them maize cakes, acorn cakes and some water and a smoldering log. Then they were taken to Asao  (an indian settlement located on or very near the Fort King George site in modern- day Darien) , then  later on to San Pedro ( on Cumberland Island ) and eventually on  to St Augustine, Havana and Spain. There is a lot of original material here about the indians he encountered on the way back home , and on life in early St Augustine.  An eyebrow raising note:  Frey Andres mentions that he was shown the ruins of Ft .Caroline, then called Mateo, from the river, (probably  the St Marys or Cumberland river) as they were leaving San Pedro . San Pedro must have been very close to what is now the Dungeness ruins.

Father Ore’ was born in Peru but visited St Augustine and surrounding mission territory a few years after the Guale rebellion of 1597 (Juanillo’s revolt) His account was published in Spain around 1617. It is a brief  history of Spanish, English and the Catholic Church’s involvement in Spanish Florida up to that point. He recounts early explorations before the arrival of Pedro Menendez , the founder  of St Augustine, and subsequent explorations, settlements and missions along the coast as far north as the Chesapeake (Jacan ), as well as rebellions by the indians and the martyrdom of some of the religious.

A more in depth study of the  Spanish colonial support system Mainly concerned with Spanish Florida, From translated documents,  the author examines the relationships between the various native groups with St Augustine, and with the Catholic church.

Murder and Martyrdom is the story the deaths of five  Franciscan friars and the capture and ransom of another in Guale territory. The  Friars were clubbed to death  at the Guale Mission on  St .Catherines ‘Island,  and  at Tolomato,  located up around  Harris   Neck,   at  Tupiqui,  farther  inland  near Pine Harbor,  and  at  Asao,  near  modern-day  Darien.  The  book  is  full  of  information,  supported  with  maps  charts,  and translated  Spanish  documents.   

The Struggle for the Georgia Coast  is  the fruit of a long effort  by  Archaeologist  John Worth.  During  the  dispute  between  the English and Spanish  over  the  territory  between  Santa Elena (Parris  Island)  and  St  Augustine,  the  Englishman  James Edward Oglethorpe began colonizing and fortifying the coast,. The Spanish  King  Philip  V  ordered  governor Montiano,  in St  Augustine,  to gather  documentary  proof of  Spain’s  rightful  claim to  the  territory.  The  result  was a large  package  of  documents that  were   pulled  from  the  archives  at  St Augustine,  and  sent  to  Spain,  where  it all  languished  for a couple  of  centuries.  This is a  trove  of  information ,   which  included  royal  cedulas ,   maps,  tables,  census, registrys  and  correspondence.  John  Worth  translated  it  and puts  it all into  perspective. A more general introduction to the Spanish mission system within the ambit of St Augustine, along with descriptions of some of the  archaeologist’s and history scholar’s projects and  techniques. Many illustrations included.  According to Milanich, “Wally’s Leg”,  a creek that branches off the Macay river near the Frederica  river junction, is simply an English spelling of “Guale”.