Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1169

Rh obtain the protection of the British flag, but found that impossible. Before reaching New York it had been intimated that he was destined for Fort Warren, but he was handsomely treated by the Northern officers, was given all the money due him and granted leave of absence. He then started for Virginia with a Marylander who had been running the blockade with hospital stores, and two others, and reaching the Virginia river at a point where it was six miles wide, they started across in a small boat. Unfortunately the attention of a patrol boat was soon attracted, and the party was captured before they could return to the Maryland shore, with the exception of Lieutenant Parker, who jumped overboard and made the shore in safety. It was a winter night, February, 1862, and the discomfort which he experienced on landing was heightened by the necessity of making his way, in order to escape, through a marsh covered with thin ice, in which he waded till the water reached his neck. Finally, more dead than alive, he found shelter with hospitable Marylanders, and after an exciting experience eluding Federal patrols, he was permitted by one of his new found friends, on the Wicomico, to "steal" his dug-out for a twenty-two mile trip down that river and across the Potomac. After being compelled to pay his crew $100 he reached Virginia soil without detection, and there at once encountered a guard of sharpshooters, who indicated their willingness to forcibly resent his nocturnal invasion of the State. But he soon found friends and proceeding to Richmond, having resigned his Federal commission he was commissioned first lieutenant in the Confederate navy. He was first employed in obstructing the James river at Drewry's bluff, was afterward attached to the naval rendezvous at Richmond, and later established and had charge of a navy yard on the Pamunkey river. This the evacuation of the Norfolk region compelled him to abandon and destroy, including the hull of a gunboat which he had under way. Then being ordered to the department of equipment, repairs, etc., of the navy, with Captain Farrand, the successor of Captain Maury, he was soon left in charge of that department, including care of one of the navy yards, and a naval storehouse, from which he furnished building material to Selma and other points. In the discharge of numerous duties of this sort, he remained at Richmond until the evacuation, when he was deputed by Secretary Mallory to vacate the naval office, destroy the Patrick Henry, all vessels on the stocks and naval stores. Having performed this duty he proceeded to Danville, and was ordered to follow the presidential party to Charlotte, N. C. At the North Carolina line he met the sons of General Lee returning with the intelligence that Johnston had surrendered, and that Mr. Davis had advised them to go home. The lieutenant then turned over the mules and wagons accompanying him to the wounded Confederate soldiers acting as drivers, and went to the home of his sisters in the mountains. Subsequently he went to Richmond and was duly paroled, although he had heard that a naval officer, anxious for prize money, had signified a desire to hang him for burning the vessels at Richmond. Since the close of hostilities he has been living in peace and comfort upon a farm in Chesterfield county. His career well illustrates the loyalty of Virginians to their native State, and the hardships many of them experienced for the sake of standing under her banner.