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[Description: 564EAF. Page 025. In-line image drawn in characture style of a soldier sitting at a table. He holds a quill and a roll of paper, and his ankles are chained to balls. ]

2. CHAPTER II.
THE ARREST OF PRIVATE MILES.

My Dear Hudson: A most ridiculous incident has
occurred here, which nevertheless threatened,
but for the prompt measures adopted by Lieutenant-Colonel
J. F. Hall, Provost Marshal General, to have
resulted, perhaps, in a weakening of the strong regard
which has heretofore subsisted between our land
and naval forces. The facts are as follows:—

There is in one of the New York regiments an odd
character named Miles O'Reilly, who has frequently
relieved the monotony of camp life by scribbling
songs on all sorts of subjects, and writing librettos for
the various “minstrel companies,” got up in imitation
of George Christy's, at different posts of the
Department during periods of repose.

His last effort was a song, advising Admiral Dahlgren
to go home, and warmly espousing the interests
of Admiral Du Pont and the former commanders of
the iron-clads, in whose behalf his affections seem
warmly enlisted, he having served for some months
as a volunteer marine on board the Pawnee, Wabash,
Ironsides, Paul Jones, and other vessels of the South
Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

These verses he managed in some mysterious manner
to have printed in regular street ballad form,
either on the press of Mr. J. H. Sears, at Hilton
Head; or, more probably, in the office of General
Saxton's Free South, at Beaufort. At any rate he got
them printed, and they soon were in the hands of
nearly every soldier—the men singing them with intense
and uproarious relish to an old Irish air, slightly
altered — the Shan Van Voght, which Private
O'Reilly taught them.

At last the song attracted the attention of some naval
officers who were ashore on a visit to Col. J. W.
Turner, “a corn-fed boy from Illinoy,” and Col. J. J.
Elwell, Chief Quartermaster of the Department; and
they, having mentioned the matter to some army
associates, Col. J. F. Hall was very quickly on the
track of the author, and had no difficulty in tracing
the squib to O'Reilly, who was at once placed in
confinement, with a sixty-four pound shot at each
heel, to aid, perhaps, in preventing any further
Pegasinian or Olympian flights. He takes his punishment
good-humoredly; compares himself to Galileo,
“an ould cock that was tortured for telling the
thruth;” and is at present busily writing an appeal
in verse to Secretary Stanton. In order that you
may be able to judge of the enormity of the breach
of discipline of which O'Reilly has been guilty, I
transmit herewith a printed copy of his song:—

THE ARMY TO THE IRON-CLADS.

(With an accompaniment of bombshells, Greek fire, and two hundred
pounder rifled shots.)

What disposition will eventually be make of private
Miles O'Reilly, who has twice risen to sergeant

and twice been “sot back” for eccentric breaches of
discipline, it would be hard to guess. Lieutenant
Colonel E. W. Smith, General Gillmore's Assistant
Adjutant General, is at a loss to know under what
article of war the crime of song-writing can be punished.
Officers of a naturally severe cast of countenance
will also be required to avoid unseemly
laughter during the sessions of the court. Besides,
there is a strong feeling, I regret to say, among all
the men and many of the subordinate officers in
O'Reilly's favor: and while many, wearing the
double rows of buttons, declare he should be severely
dealt with, very nearly all the single-breasted
coats, with or without shoulder-straps, think it would
do no injury to postpone his trial until after an article
of war against song writing shall have been
added to those now in force by the next Congress.

It is rumored that copies of the song in question
have permeated the navy, and that nearly all the
wardroom messes have under discussion the propriety
of signing a petition for O'Reilly's release. Meantime
it is difficult, even for Colonel Hall, to enforce
that rigorous treatment of the prisoner which he is
thought to deserve, as the soldiers, to a man, believe
he is unfairly punished; and the provost guard have

twice been found smuggling in dainties to him—his
prescribed and proper daily diet being eighteen
ounces of bread with two quarts of cold water.
General A. H. Terry, we hear, offers to release the
prisoner if he will disclose the name of the printer
of his incendiary song. This offer O'Reilly indignantly
spurns, saying he “never sould the pass in
his life, nor never will;” and winds up by asking
do they take him for a “soup kitchen convert,” or
one of “Lord Clarendon's Jimmy O'Briens.” These
phrases are all Greek to us down here, even in this
region of Greek fire; but mayhap “Irish Tom,”
opposite the Custom House, may be able to translate
them into English.

Before quitting this subject, let me say that the
attempts made in certain quarters to exalt the present
achievements of the South Atlantic Blockading
Squadron, at the expense of its late commander,
Admiral Du Pont, will have an effect rather the
reverse of that intended by those who are engaged
in this paltry business. No one whose authority in
such matters is of any weight, thinks of blaming
Admiral Dahlgren for the extreme caution he has
thus far displayed in exposing his iron-clads to fire.
He ranks second to no officer in the navy as a commander

of gallantry and nerve. But the tools in his
hands are utterly inadequate to the work they are
expected to accomplish; and, in taking him out of
the Ordnance Bureau of the Navy, in which his services
have been invaluable for the last fifteen or
twenty years, and placing him suddenly, and with
but little actual sea-experience, in command of so
vast an undertaking as this of Charleston,—it is felt
that Secretary Welles has committed his favorite
error of placing the right man in the wrong place,
and imposing upon Dahlgren a task under which he
must most certainly break down.

It is well understood by all here that, with the
destruction of Fort Sumter and the capture of Forts
Wagner and Gregg, the main business of the land
forces under General Gillmore will have been accomplished.
Indeed, this is all General Gillmore bargained
to do when making those representations
which resulted in his appointment to the command.
Nothing will then remain for him but to shell
Charleston, at long range, from Cumming's Point;
and here, en parenthèse, let me remark that the accident
to the three hundred pounder Parrott gun does
not, as was at first supposed, at all disable that gun.
The injury was received from the untimely bursting

of a shell, just as it was passing out of the bore.
This accident blew off the muzzleband; but the
remainder of the piece is uninjured, and in as good
condition as ever for practical work.

And now to return to the iron-clad matter, of
which I set out to speak. It is not generally known,
but is nevertheless true, that Admiral Dahlgren is, and
has been for the last ten days, confined to his bed by
sickness, or has only been able to crawl on deck or
into the pilot-house on critical occasions. The
abominable atmosphere of the iron-clads has taken
hold of his system, and nothing but his high resolution,
and the necessity he is under of vindicating the
action of the Navy Department, which placed him
in command, can long sustain him under his present
debility. So fixed is his determination to go through
with his work, however, that he has not in any of his
dispatches to the Department even referred to his ill-health;
and it is only by private letters from sympathizing
friends that the North can hear of his condition.
He doubtless feels that, under the peculiar circumstances
attending Du Pont's removal, a more than
common anxiety must be felt by the Navy Department
for the exertions to the uttermost of the
officer who has succeeded the victor of Port

Royal, and the thrice gallant first assailer of Fort
Sumter.

In Du Pont's attack, it must be remembered,
all the iron-clads ran up to within eight hundred
yards of the then uninjured fort,—Captain Rhind,
in the ill-fated Keokuk, running in to within four
hundred yards, and fighting desperately for thirty
minutes at that distance, only withdrawing under
orders, and at a moment when his vessel was a sinking
ruin;—while in the present operations, assisted
by Gillmore's powerful land batteries, Admiral Dahlgren,
reserving his vessels for work farther up the
roadstead, has wisely held them not closer than two
thousand yards to Fort Sumter, while that work was
still in a condition to reply effectively to his fire—
two thousand yards being very nearly the extreme
effective range of his fifteen-inch smooth bores.

Under these circumstances, Du Pont may possibly
be condemned for rashness, or Dahlgren commended
for prudence; but it is obviously worse than
absurd to indulge in any sneers or indirect innuendoes
or cavils against Du Pont's attack as if it had
lacked in gallantry. The Old Viking of the South
Atlantic blockading squadron is the last man in the
world among his peers—men personally acquainted

with him and professionally competent to judge him
—to whom such a charge will stick. No braver or
more intelligent officers ever lived than his subordinate
iron-clad commanders—John Rodgers, Rhind,
Drayton, Fairfax, Ammen, Downs, Worden, Turner,
and the lamented George W. Rodgers, who lost his
life, as you are aware, while running his vessel in
to within one hundred and fifty yards of Fort
Wagner.

There is one point, however, in Admiral Dahlgren's
course which excites a good deal of laughing commentary
among our army officers. It is this:—On
the 23d inst. Colonel John W. Turner, the “corn fed
boy from Illinoy,” who is General Gillmore's chief
of staff and of artillery, ceases fire against Fort Sumter,
on the ground that it is an inoffensive ruin,
which could be still more completely made a pile of
broken brick and powdered mortar by further fire;
but which could not, by any amount of fire, be rendered
more completely harmless as against the iron-clads
than in its then condition. The day after this,
on the 24th inst., the iron-clads, idle or only firing at
long range during the previous ten days against this
particular fort, announced their intention of making
“an attack in force on the work,” and our army

friends are jocosely anticipating that the New
York papers will some day tell you of the “Surrender
of Fort Sumter to the iron-clads” in startling
capitals,—the announcement adding that on such a
day so many hundred marines and seamen “landed
on the ruined ramparts, and, gallantly climbing
over the shattered arches and parades, hoisted the
Stars and Stripes and took possession of the work in
the name of the navy—another glorious victory to
the—marines!” The western officers in particular
are strong in this belief. They say they saw the
same thing done at Island No. Ten; and on this
point, but in connexion with the siege of Vicksburg,
they tell a story which is rather hard upon the “bummers,”
or mortar schooners and gunboats, employed
in the reduction of that place.

They say that Lieutenant-General Pemberton once
asked Grant for a truce to bury his dead outside the
works. This was while Grant was attacking from the
land circumvallation, while the naval forces were
throwing shells high up in the air to fall down over
the bluffs into the devoted city. Grant answered
that he had no objection, but would require some
hours to consult with Admiral Porter, in order to
have the navy cease firing as well as the land forces.

“O, if that be your only cause for wishing delay,
never mind it,” was the prompt answer of the rebel
negotiator. “If your land batteries on a level with
us will only stop, the bummers and gunboats may
keep firing at the moon until the day of Judgment.”
The same Western officers further allege that the
same principle which would justify the navy in claiming
Fort Sumter as their prize, was amply illustrated
in the flaming bulletins which announced the capture
of the Haines Bluff batteries, after they had been evacuated
under the stress put upon them through General
Sherman's corps, by the Mississippi flotilla.

These remarks, I am fully aware, are extremely ill-natured,
and may even appear frivolous to men who
cannot understand that honor is the highest prize for
which our soldiers and sailors are contending. But
beyond doubt there cannot be so much smoke without
fire; and it is for the best interests of both branches
of the service that each should know the alleged
points of grievance between them. The navy has
such an abundance of laurels, that none of its true
friends—and I claim to be one of its truest—could
wish to deprive the army of a single twig or leaf that
is justly due to it.

As for other matters, the wisest here think that

Admiral Dahlgren's caution in the opening of the
Charleston conflict will be abundantly justified when
the nature of the work yet to be accomplished is
understood by the public. Fort Sumter—weakest
for defence, most powerful for the offensive—is now
happily eliminated from the problem which the iron-clads
have yet to solve. But Forts Moultrie and
Johnson, Battery Bee, Battery Beauregard, Castle
Pinckney and Fort Ripley, still remain to be settled
with; and in the attack upon these General Gillmore
can give but little assistance. Against Fort Moultrie,
the strongest defensive work in the harbor, he
can do almost nothing. Fort Johnson is on the
extreme left of Beauregard's line of defences, stretching
across James Island from the harbor line to Secessionville.
To attack this line in general would require
a force more than treble that now at Gen. Gillmore's
disposal; and his only means of advancing
under cover against the fort, would be to start
trenches, zigzags and parallels from where the Swamp
Angel Battery is now located, along the narrow strip
of hard sand-shore which lies between the swamps
and the harbor-line. This strip of hard sand would
offer very nearly the same obstacle to trenching that
would be offered by the pavements and sub-soil of
Broadway; and, exhausted as his men are by the
labors they have already performed, and the malarial
cachexia which has reduced their systems, it is
doubtful if his whole force, applied to the spade and
pick for the next three months, would suffice to advance
a mine under the walls of Fort Johnson. Most
probably—indeed almost certainly—Gen. Gillmore,
on obtaining possession of Cummings' Point, will
open at long range with his three, two, and one hundred
pounder Parrots against Charleston city, keeping
his troops in a state of tranquil amusement, while
watching the effects of Greek fire amongst the buildings
of Meeting and King streets; and generously
admiring the splendid exertions of courage, labor, and
science by which his confrères of the navy propose
to remove the various lines of torpedo-armed obstructions
now blocking up Charleston harbor.