Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/44

 blowing with unabated fury since, I should probably have been able to announce definitely the day on which the army and navy are to commence their long-delayed offensive operations. Still, I can assure your readers with the utmost positiveness, that the rough weather is now the only obstacle to the immediate consummation of the aggressive plans of General Hunter and Admiral Dupont." At last I was right in my predictions. As soon as the elements of high winds and heavy seas had quieted down, the combined campaign by land and water really opened. I was thoroughly tired of my long-enforced idleness, and heartily welcomed the prospect of active work. I naturally assumed that the extensive and protracted preparations for vigorous, telling strokes against the enemy would bring me steady and stirring occupation for some time to come. But the god of war ordained it otherwise. In little more than one week our offensive energy was to be exhausted, the carefully planned attack on arch-rebellious Charleston to prove an utter failure, even in the very first stage of its execution, and my task in South Carolina to be suddenly brought to an end. How all this came about is told in the following batch of reports to the Tribune, printed in its issue of April 14:

, April 4, 1863.

Preliminary movements and reconnoissances, embarkations and landings, have been making for some time, both by the navy and army; but it was only on Wednesday last that there was a general readiness for the commencement of the main operations. High wind and heavy sea caused another delay of twenty-four hours, but on the day before yesterday morning the four ironclads still remaining in Port Royal Harbor started at last for this general rendezvous; the Admiral's blue flag was transferred from the Wabash to the James Adger, which left soon after the monitors; and a large number of the army transports also followed in their wake. I availed myself of a kind invitation of General Ferry, commanding one of the divisions of the expedition, and made my way across the bay to St. Helena landing and aboard his flagship, the steamer New