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A group of idle gazers was collected to watch the arrival. The little vessel furled her sails and drifted slowly landward, and as she was of very light draft, she came close to the shelving shore. A long plank was put out from her side, and the debarkation commenced. My grandfather Titbottom stood looking on to see the passengers descend.
The debarkation took place inside of the little island of Sacrificios, some three miles south of Vera Cruz. The vessels could not get anywhere near shore, so that everything had to be landed in lighters or surf-boats; General Scott had provided these before leaving the North. The breakers were sometimes high, so that the landing was tedious.
Pemberton got back to Vicksburg before Sherman got there. The rebel positions were on a bluff on the Yazoo River, some miles above its mouth. The waters were high so that the bottoms were generally overflowed, leaving only narrow causeways of dry land between points of debarkation and the high bluffs. These were fortified and defended at all points.
From Athlone he directed his march towards Drogheda, where he arrived with "20 cohorts," about the same time that the Lord Deputy Butler came up with "30 cohorts." Bruce, unprepared to meet so vast a force taken together some 25,000 or 30,000 men retreated slowly towards his point of debarkation.
They had liked leaving Plymouth and being at sea again; they wished that they need not be reminded of another debarkation by the energy of the crane in hoisting the Cherbourg baggage from the hold. They approved of the picturesqueness of three French vessels of war that passed, dragging their kraken shapes low through the level water.
He has been severely censured by some Irish writers for landing in the extreme South, within fourteen miles of the English arsenal and head-quarters at Cork, and for his general conduct as a commander. However vulnerable he may be on the general charge, he does not seem fairly to blame for the choice of the point of debarkation.
On June 1st I received verbal instruction to assist Lieut. On June 6th I took my men and guns aboard the transport Cherokee, and on June 11th, per special orders No. 16 of that date, my detail was increased to thirty-seven men, all told, of whom one was left sick in hospital at Tampa. About twelve of these did not join me, however, until after debarkation at Baiquiri, Cuba.
All the boats were then carefully lowered, and manned by crews belonging to the ship; a piece of the gangway, on the leeward side, was cut away, and all the women, and a few of the worst-scared men, were lowered into the boats, which pulled for shore. In a comparatively short time the boats returned, took new loads, and the debarkation was afterward carried on quietly and systematically.
But here Hummel's wires became crossed with Jerome's, and unfortunately for the little lawyer, the persons from whom the tug had been leased turned out to be closely allied with the prosecution's interests, with the result that the captain of the tug was instructed by his superiors under no consideration to put into any Mexican port, but on the contrary, to delay his departure from the harbor of Galveston for a period of two days and then to proceed only as far as Brownsville, Texas, where he should compel the debarkation of the fugitive.
The order for debarkation came while General Sherman was absent with three brigades, and no men are left to move the effects of these brigades. The landing, too, is small, with scarcely any chance to increase it; therefore there is a great accumulation of boats. Colonel McArthur has arrived, and is now cutting a landing for himself. General Sherman will return this evening.
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