Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1080

1014 master, and assigned to the navy yard at Selma, Ala., and subsequently attached to the ironclad Tuscaloosa, in Mobile bay. Thence he was sent by Admiral Buchanan to Jackson Miss., to receive some guns which had been captured by Gen. Wirt Adams on the Big Black river. Though cut off by the first Mississippi raid of Sherman's troops, he managed later to bring the guns in safety. He was then sent with orders from the secretary of war to select men for the Mobile fleet from the commands of Generals Loring and Pope, at Demopolis, Ala. During his visit a Texas and a Mississippi command engaged in a mock battle with pine burrs, in emulation of their Virginia comrades who fought with snowballs, and some of his best men were selected from the scarred heroes of this novel encounter. During the naval operations in Mobile bay he was on the steamer Baltic in charge of the forward division, at the outset of Admiral Buchanan's movement, and was subsequently ordered to the flagship Tennessee, but being taken sick was sent on shore to hospital just in time to escape the capture of the Tennessee by Farragut. After his recovery he served upon the gunboat Macon, guarding the ferries of the Savannah river against Sherman's advance. In this service he participated in several encounters with troops and light batteries. The Macon finally attempted to run down to Savannah, to support the right of General Hardee's army, but was driven back by Federal batteries at Oak Grove, the Resolute, one of the tenders, being disabled and left behind. To rescue this vessel McCarrick with a small party started back in an open boat but were compelled by firing from the Georgia side to land on the Carolina shore driving off a number of foragers of "bummers." McCarrick's party found it necessary to seek shelter behind the dykes of a rice field, when they were astounded to see one of the Resolute's boats coming up the river manned by Federals. To prevent their being cut off, McCarrick's little party bravely opened fire on the boat, with success, and when nightfall arrived the Confederates made their way back in safety, taking with them three "bummer" prisoners they had captured. About this time an unprecedented freshet filled the river, and the news arriving of the fall of Savannah, the Macon was run up the river to Augusta, where it was then possible to navigate the streets in boats. Here the ship remained until the end of war. Mr. McCarrick was detailed to command of a battery at Shell bluff, forty miles below Augusta, where he remained until the close of hostilities. Then, on receiving advices of the general surrender he and Lieutenant Comstock, chief engineer George W. City, and Major Brewer, of the quartermaster's department, with two of the crew, went down the river in a boat, reaching Savannah after an adventurous trip, whence they proceeded to Macon for parole. He then returned to Norfolk, and soon became agent of the Old Dominion steamship company at Portsmouth, and afterward general claim agent of the Atlantic coast line and Seaboard air line and their water connections, which positions he resigned in 1875 to assume the position he now occupies. He is a member of the Pickett-Buchanan camp, and a faithful friend of the survivors of the Confederate armies and navy.

Lieutenant Daniel S. McCarthy, of Richmond, one of the gallant veterans of the Richmond Howitzers, was born in that city in