292 



EXPEDITIONS. 



all the efforts of his command, whether di- 

 rected against the interference of governments 

 abroad or rebellious combinations at home, 

 should be for free labor ; that their motto and 

 their standard should be there, and everywhere, 

 and on all occasions, " Free labor and working- 

 men's rights." The proclamation was not cir- 

 culated upon the mainland to any considerable 

 extent ; but it created much dissatisfaction 

 among Gen. Phelps' own command. The Con- 

 stitution left Ship Island on the 7th of Dec. on 

 her return to the North, and arrived at For- 

 tress Monroe on the 15th ; in Jan. 1862, she 

 returned with another considerable body of 

 troops. During the month of December the 

 gunboats Montgomery and New London had 

 two engagements with Confederate gunboats in 

 Mississippi Sound, but without decisive result. 

 4. The Burnside Expedition. The prepara- 

 tions for this expedition were commenced early 

 in September, and in October about 1 1,000 troops 

 had been concentrated at Annapolis, to prepare 

 for the enterprise, and to be perfected in drill. 

 Just before the departure of the expedition, an 

 addition of several regiments was made to this 

 force. At the commencement it was resolved 

 to place it in charge of Brig.-Gen. Ambrose E. 

 Burnside, a native of Indiana, born May 23, 1824, 

 who graduated at West Point in 1847, distin- 

 guished himself as a lieutenant in the Mexican 

 war, and in 1849, and several succeeding years, 

 was engaged in frontier service in New Mexico, 

 during which he manifested great bravery in an 

 engagement with the Apache Indians. He was 

 quartermaster of the boundary commission with 

 Mexico; and in 1851, with an escort of three 

 men, he travelled 1,200 miles through the Indian 

 Territory in seventeen days. He was next sta- 

 tioned at Fort Adams, Newport, but soon re- 

 signed, to enter upon the manufacture of a 

 breech-loading rifle. This proving unprofit- 

 able, he entered the service of the Illinois Cen- 

 tral Kailroad Company as cashier and subse- 

 quently as treasurer. Gov. Sprague, of Ehode 

 Island, tendered him an appointment as colonel 

 of one of the Rhode Island regiments, in April, 

 and he immediately accepted and took a promi- 

 nent and honorable part in the battle of Bull 

 Eun, where he was acting brigadier-general. 

 On the 6th of Aug. he was appointed brigadier- 

 general, and soon after detailed for this expe- 

 dition. The naval commander was Flag-officer 

 L. M. Goldsborough, of the Atlantic Squadron, 

 and Commander Samuel F. Hazard of the U. S. 

 Navy had charge of the transport fleet. The 

 army corps consisted of three brigades : the 

 first under command of Brig.-Gen. John G. 

 Foster, (the Capt. Foster of Fort Sumter,) and 

 consisting of the Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, 

 Twenty-fifth, and Twenty-seventh Massachu- 

 setts, and the Tenth Connecticut regiments ; 

 the second under command of Brig.-Gen. Jesse 

 L. Reno, comprising the Fifty-first New York, 

 the Fifty-first Pennsylvania, the Twenty-first 

 Massachusetts, the Sixth New Hampshire, and 

 the Ninth New Jersey ; the third under the 



command of Brig.-Gen. John G. Parke, and 

 consisting of the Eighth and Eleventh Connec- 

 ticut, the Fifty-third and Eighty-ninth New 

 York, and a battalion of the Fifth Rhode Island 

 Regiment, together with Battery F. of the 

 Rhode Island artillery. These three brigades 

 numbered about 16,000 men, and required not 

 far from 30 transports to take them to their 

 destination, 5 vessels to transport the horses, 8 

 or 10 to carry the supplies, a siege train, and 2 

 pontoon-bridge schooners, a division hospital, 

 and one for the signal corps ; and the naval por- 

 tion of the expedition, when it left Annapolis, 

 consisted of 9 gunboats, and 5 floating batteries. 

 The expedition did not sail from Fortress Mon- 

 roe till the middle of January, 1862, and its 

 movements, therefore, belong to the record of 

 that year rather than 1861. 



5. The Mortar Fleet of Com. Porter. This 

 fleet, of which not more than, perhaps, two or 

 three of the vessels composing it sailed until 

 January, was fitted out at the Brooklyn Navy 

 Yard, and was for some months in preparation. 

 It consisted of one gunboat, the Octorara, 

 mounting 18 guns, and serving as Com. Porter's 

 flag-ship, but subsequently diverted from the ex- 

 pedition to Fortress Monroe, and 20 schooners, 

 of from 200 to 300 tons each, of great strength 

 and solidity, and carrying each a mortar, weigh- 

 ing 8^- tons, of thirty-nine inches length of bore, 

 forty -three inches external and fifteen inches in- 

 ternal diameter, and intended to throw a 15-inch 

 shell, weighing, when unfilled, 212 Ibs. They 

 are elevated or depressed by means of projections 

 on the bree'ch. Each vessel also carried two 32- 

 pounders, rifled. 



This class of vessels has been selected be- 

 cause they are stronger in proportion to their 

 size than larger ones, at the same time that their 

 light draft enables them to go into shallow wa- 

 ter; and from their small tonnage they can be 

 handled by a small number of men. 



To fit them to receive the mortars, a bed has 

 been prepared, which is supported by an al- 

 most solid mass of wood, built from the keel to 

 the deck. This consists of timbers over one 

 foot square and twelve feet in length, interlaced 

 and firmly fastened. The bed rises two or 

 three inches above the deck, and consists of a 

 solid horizontal surface, circular in form, with 

 a truck near its edge, upon which run rollers 

 bearing a revolving platform. The bed itself 

 is carefully braced and supported by the entire 

 strength of the vessel, so as to sustain the re- 

 coil of the mortar. 



The circular platform surmounting the bed 

 and bearing the mortar carriage, is constructed 

 of heavy timbers, and is one foot in depth, and 

 nearly twelve feet in diameter. When in po- 

 sition for a discharge, it lies flat and firmly on 

 the bed, but by ingenious mechanism it may be 

 made to revolve t in order to aim the mortar in 

 any direction, or to re-sight it if the vessel shifts 

 its position. The change of direction is easily 

 and quickly accomplished. By means of four 

 eccentric axles in the platform, to which levers 



