U.S. Steamer Florida
St Simons Island Ga April 21st, 1862

My Dearest Wife:
We left Port Royal early on the morning of the 17th and arrived off the entrance of St Simons
Sound about 4 P.M. same day not having a pilot and not being sufficiently acquainted with the passage over the bar. I did not venture in until the morning of the 18th when I steamed in and anchored in one of the most delightful places on the whole coast of Georgia in mid channel halfway between Jekyl Island on the South, and the beautiful lovely and productive island of St Simons on the North, and about half a mile from each. I found the Alabama Commander Lanier at anchor here and the Potomska Watmough further up on the inland passage, commanding the approaches to Darien, Doboy and Northern end of St Simons island. My anchorage /2/ commands the approaches to Brunswick, which is between thirteen & fourteen miles off. Capt. Lanier has been ordered to take my place off Charleston and the gun-boat Wamsutta. Lieut. Comm. [Alexander Alderman] Semmes has been ordered to this division. Now I have given you all our Naval information, and have so much to say & write about my new location that I find some difficulty in knowing how or where to begin. In the first place I must tell you that this sound is less then a mile wide, and the Rebels had built one of the most formidable and substantial bomb proof casematis fort on Jekyl island covered with rail road iron to mount five guns, I ever heard of. It had complete command of the entrance to the Harbour, and could have sunk any number of our vessels without receiving any injury itself. Their men, guns and ammunition were completely and entirely protected and the man who built that Fort certainly deserved to have his talent applied to a better /3/ purpose and in a much better cause. I learn his name was Hazlehurst. I am employed in breaking out and piling up the rail road iron having now from 150 to 200 tons ready for transhipment, and in a day or two when all prepared shall blow the fort up. I have an officer and thirty men on shore there now making all the arrangements. Jekyl island I take it is more a grazing then a producing island. I have over 150 head of cattle and some ten or fifteen horses. I kill three of the former every Wednesday to supply our own and colonys wants, and the horses I intend to remove over to St. Simons island for the purpose of establishing a small company of cavalry as pickets to scour the island…

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