Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/123

 Rh thing at that time for the wives of officers to follow their husbands so as to be near the battle-fields. Unfortunately for me, my pleasure at being with my favorite brother and his wife was of short duration, as in a few hours after arrival in Gordonsville, Jackson's "foot cavalry" moved on, and I returned to Richmond.

On my arrival in Richmond I saw several thousand Union guarded by Confederates, seated on the ground. Few if any of them could speak English and the most accomplished linguists among them could only say, "I fights mit Sigel."

At Drewry's Bluff we lived in tents and were very comfortable. Parties composed of ladies and gentlemen would frequently visit the Bluff and they made it quite gay; besides, by this time, quite a large number of midshipmen were stationed there and they made it lively for their superior officers as well as for themselves. I had while there an interesting experience in steering the boat from which Commander Matthew F. Maury buoyed the places in the river where he afterwards had placed what were probably the first floating mines used in war. We called them "spar torpedoes" as the mines were attached to an anchored and floating spar.

I shall never forget a very unpleasant hour in connection with these mines. Colonel Page, a former officer of the navy, who looked to be about seven feet high, wanted to go from Drewry's Bluff to Chapin's Bluff, a fortification that he commanded, on the opposite side of the river and about a mile below. I was ordered to take charge of the boat that was to take him to his post because it was supposed I knew where the mines were. It was a dark night, but we got on all right for some distance. Suddenly the side of the boat grated against something and the boat slightly careened. Colonel Page, whose sobriquet in the navy was "Ramrod" on account of his erect bearing, and who was well known in the service as a very strict