November 7th. It is just two months and eighteen days since we first cast our anchor in Pensacola Bay. Up to the present time nothing has occurred worthy of note. It was the general impression on our arrival here that we came to Pensacola for the purpose of making every necessary preparation for an attack [...]
August 27th. At six P. M., called all hands to muster, when Lieutenant Commander James S. Thornton transferred the command of this ship to Captain James S. Palmer, late of the Iroquois, which was the occasion of a few remarks from Capt. Palmer to the ship’s company. At nine P. M. Lieutenant Com. Thornton left [...]
We sailed August 13th from New Orleans, and reached Forts Jackson and St. Philip, where we remained over night, and received a salute for the Admiral. We got under way on the following morning, and proceeded to Pilot Town. We found several fine U. S. ships here, among them the U. S. ship Pampero, with [...]
On the 10th August, Commander Wainwright died, after an illness of two weeks. His remains were placed in a metallic coffin and sent on board the U. S. steamer Miami, which steamer carried them to Washington, D. C.
We had a pleasant passage to New Orleans, where we arrived July 28th, and found the U. S. transport Connecticut awaiting us with a large mail. On this evening we had a heavy shower of rain, accompanied by heavy thunder and sharp lightning, purifying the air to a very pleasant degree. We now proceeded to [...]
We had now reached the 24th of July, and the climate had become deleterious to the health of our sailors, mostly in the shape of a malarious fever, which was prostrating a dozen a day. We had a sick list of about one hundred men, and we now most gladly started down the river, leaving [...]
We lay here two or three days taking in coal, &c., and it was finally arranged that the iron-clad Essex should run down by the batteries, with a prospect of destroying the ram, and of relieving the wooden ships which had already been ordered down the river. Accordingly, on the morning of the 22d we [...]
July 15th. Has changed the affairs of the fleet materially. Before daylight a firing of cannon had been heard up the river, and a gunboat had been dispatched to reconnoitre. As time passed, the firing neared us, and soon cannon balls could be seen dropping into the river below a-bend which hid objects from our [...]
We arrived at Vicksburg on the 25th, where we found the Brooklyn and Richmond, the gunboats, and mortar fleet; and, soon after arriving, an officer came on board from Commodore Davis’s fleet, and communicated with Commodore Farragut. Davis, in our absence, had moved down the river, and now occupied a position just above Vicksburg. Preparations [...]
On the 8th of June, the Flag Officer having received the proper authority, once more turned the Hartford towards Vicksburg, followed by the Richmond–the Brooklyn being detained, but soon followed. We anchored near sunset, alongside the U. S. steam transport Tennessee, which had got aground. During the night the Brooklyn arrived, in company with several [...]
May 29th. Early this morning the Brooklyn, with her attendants, arrived from up the river, when the Flag Officer ordered the troops, fifteen hundred in number, ashore to watch the city, while we broke out of our ship’s hold nearly all of our provisions for their use. At ten o’clock the Brooklyn got under way [...]
May 28th. During the night the levee broke opposite to our ship, and the water is running through at a fearful rate, threatening to flood the surrounding plantations. We weighed early, and arrived at Baton Rouge at ten o’clock, A. M. Everything looked quiet, and the dingey was sent ashore with Chief Engineer Kimball, manned [...]
May 27th. Got under way, and taking a coal schooner alongside, proceeded on our way. Passed Natchez at eleven thirty, A. M., without stoppage, and ran all day without any occurrence of note, anchoring by a plantation, and sending ashore for fresh provisions at sunset.
May 26th. Another reconnoissance took place yesterday, but although the gunboats went very near the rebel batteries no firing took place. This morning all hands were surprised with the intelligence that no attack was to be made on the city at present, and that our large ships would again drop down the river. This is [...]
May 24th. We left Grand Gulf on the 23d, at which time the Flag Officer joined us, and arrived four miles below Vicksburg at four o’clock, P. M., where we found several gunboats awaiting our arrival. We swelled the number here to eleven vessels of war. The city is situated on a bluff perhaps sixty [...]
May 21st. We got under way early, leaving the Iroquois aground, and ran up to Grand Gulf, where we are to wait for orders from the Flag Officer who has gone to Vicksburg. We saw much cotton afloat to-day, and the country nearly all overflowed by the turbid waters of the Mississippi.
May 20th. The quartermaster was buried ashore this morning, after which we got under way and proceeded up some thirty miles, where we found the river again divided by an island, and the Brooklyn, Richmond and Iroquois having preceded us and taken the wrong channel, the two former ones had run aground. We lay by [...]
May 19th. We left Natchez this morning and went up some fifteen miles, followed by the other ships, and stopped in the woods. In the afternoon the steamer Laurel Hill arrived and passed from below with troops, and the gunboat Kennebec came down from Vicksburg with news. At eight P. M., William Preston, signal-quartermaster, died [...]
May 18th. Found us under way early, expecting to reach Natchez in the course of the day. About noon the order was given to get the anchor ready for letting go, and we looked ahead for an anchorage. In one of the everlasting bends of the river, on a bluff forty or fifty feet high, [...]
May 16th. After discharging through the night a line was attached to a kedge off our quarter, and a gunboat hauling at the same time, started her from the sand, and at ten o’clock the Hartford was again a thing of life. The day was spent in reloading.
May 15th. Was spent in exertions to get our ship afloat. A gunboat was dispatched for a lighter, and we commenced discharging our battery on board a gunboat, and shell on board a steamer, also coal into a lighter.
May 14th. We weighed anchor early for Vicksburg; at noon we came upon an island which divided the river into two channels. We took the right and pushed along within three rods of the trees, and could hear the birds singing in them. Nothing of note occurred until two o’clock P. M., when in making [...]
May 13th. We have been lying here several days coaling ship, &c., while our officers have been going ashore both on business and pleasure. This afternoon two steamers arrived from New Orleans loaded with troops for this place; they landed, and after parading the streets for a couple of hours returned to their boats for [...]
May 9th. Arrived at Baton Rouge in the afternoon, where we found the Brooklyn and Iroquois. This city is the capital of Louisiana, and a very pleasant place, with some four or five thousand inhabitants. The capitol is a beautiful building; also an asylum for the insane. There are also here the state prison and [...]
May 8th. Weighed anchor early and proceeded up the river. The same succession of beauties met the eye at every turn. In the afternoon met a gunboat from Vicksburg with news from our vessels at that place.