The 3rd Mass Regiment left Boston on Steamer "S. R. Spaulding" for Fortress Monroe, Va., April 17, 1861. They arrived April 20, and were ordered on board United States Sloop of War "Pawnee" and were immediately moved to Norfolk April 20, to help in the destruction of the Gosport navy yard April 20. Years later, Erastus wrote this desciption of the episode for a Philadelphia newspaper.
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Just after twilight, the “Pawnee” cast loose from the pier at Fortress Monroe and soon thereafter left Sewell’s Point behind as she steamed up the Elizabeth River. The nature of the expedition was still kept a secret from the men, who lay upon the deck almost as closely packed together as sardines in a box, and listened to the peculiar singing and ringing announcement of the sailors who were taking frequent soundings. Occasional rockets could be seen far above the angle of the eye with the bulwarks, which were sent up inland on either side by the secessionists to inform their friends that something unusual was on the tapls.
The “Pawnee” being made fast in the navy yard no time was lost in arranging the details for the work of destruction. Squads of men were assigned each to a particular duty, and for the more dangerous portions of the work, volunteers were asked for and quickly obtained. Where powder trains were to be laid, an officer of the navy accompanied the detail. It was arranged that a rocket from the “Pawnee” to be sent up at about 3 o’clock in the morning, should be the signal for all hands to go on board with the greatest possible dispatch, and men were stationed at convenient points to warn those engaged in the spoliation of the approach of the specified time. Sentinals were also posted at the boundaries of the yard to watch the movements, so far as they could, of the secessionists, and it was understood that everything should be in readiness for the torch, which could not be otherwise ruined, when the signal to go on board should be given. The details were many, and scattered over a wide area. In less time than it takes to write it, the navy yard, from one end to the other, presented a terribly earnest and busy scene. The marines, whose duty it was to spike and otherwise render useless the long rows of guns, were playing a reveille thereon with hammers and spikes, the noise of which could have drowned that made by a dozen Gilmore’s bands as it reverberated among the ship-houses, wherein men were engaged in the work of destruction. Lines of men, like busy ants, were running to and from the river, dumping therein thousands of shot and shell, looking more like gnomes at some infernal pastime than anything else. Powder trains were laid and the magnificent steam frigate Merrimac, which was lying at the mall not half a stones throw from the Pawnee, was being prepared for sacrifice, as also the Pennsylvania – the line-of-battle ship – the sloops of war Germantown and Plymouth, the brig Dolphin and some other smaller craft. The detail to which the writer belonged was under the charge of two naval officers, and sent farthest from the Pawnee for the purpose of preparing the powder train intended to blow to pieces the great dry dock. There the work was vigorously prosecuted until the last moment allotted for remaining at the place had arrived. It was a fruitless undertaking, however, for the fuse which was cut to burn three-quarters of an hour and carefully arranged beneath a basin so as not to attract immediate attention after we had left, never ignited the tram at all. Why it failed may always be a mystery, but the inference among the officers at the time was that the watchful enemy had rushed in and removed the fuse as soon as the Pawnee started down the river on her return trip. If they really did that, with about 1000 pounds of powder at the end of that train, and surrounded by fire and other explosives, it was one of the most daring deeds of the war, and a butternut coat should not prevent my giving them due credit for the pluck the act required.
That sharp work was expected on the Pawnee on the return trip from the Navy-yard was plain to be seen. After all the detail had got on board a moment was not wasted in getting under way. The 3rd Massachusetts was ordered below, and it was given out among the men that if the Pawnee was fired upon, hot shot would have been sent into Norfolk. The shot were ready for such an emergency. The desire to witness the grand scene that was to follow when the fire and powder train at the navy-yard begun to do their devastating work was irresistible. Therefore, while the regiment was filing down the hatchway, I crept beneath a boat and consequently mixed among the marines forward, where a fine view of the progress of the work of destruction could be had. And it was terrifically grand. A thousand tongues of flame leaped from spar to spar and from rope to rope upon the valuable was vessels that were being licked out of existence by the devouring element; the explosions in the yard; the reflection and dancing red light upon thousands of windows – ah! It was a picture never to be forgotten, and it is proper to hope, may never be repeated.
It is an exceptional campaign or expedition, that has not somewhere sandwiched in among it’s serious features some incident of an amusing character, and this expedition has many such clinging to it’s history. One of these incidents illustrates as forcibly as Cetewayno, the Zulu King, has done since his capture, the tendency of the untutored – as well as the educated mind – to run to dress, especially when a sudden or unexpected opportunity presents. As has been stated herein that upon the upward journey of the Pawnee, the cumbersome militia hats of the 3rd Massachusetts Regiment were stowed away like nests of boxes, after the regiment had been ordered below on the return trip, every one of those hats was pitched into the Elizabeth River. As our fair friends would say, “they were too awful for anything” and their uncouthness was all the more apparent when they were compared with the neat trim hats worn by the regulars. After being thrown into the river they floated off on the eddying tide like ducks, and subsequent inquiries for them were not pressing enough to be annoying. After General Butler assumed command at Fortress Monroe and had applied the term (which some say he invented in this respect) “contraband” to the negro escapes who arrived within our lines, the negroes were “corralled” outside the fortress, and utilized as much as possible in doing the rougher kind of work. The General puzzled his brain considerably in endeavoring to fathom the mystery why these not half-clad, escaped slaves were able to come into camp with Massachusetts militia hats pulled down to their ears, while the blazing metal sun with it’s large figure “3” glistened in unison with the gleam of their eyes and teeth. The sight of them was sufficient to excite merriment in the most sedate of canal mules. The fact was that the darkies had seized upon these hats as they were deposited by the tide along the shores for miles around, and doubtless viewed them as the harbingers of liberty, and themselves, when arrayed in them, as the “glass of fashion and the mold of form.”
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