George Martin
PONTOON TRAIN, DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE,
Camp near Atlanta, Ga., September 10, 1864.
CAPTAIN: According to order, I have the honor to submit to you herewith, very respectfully, my report of the operations of the pontoon train of the Army of the Tennessee, during the late Georgia campaign.
The train under my charge consisted of thirty canvas pontoons and the necessary outfit, and a pioneer detachment of 3 commissioned officers and 105 enlisted men, besides the teamsters. On the 30th of June I took the command of the train, and started on the march the next day. The time up to the 12th of July was spent in marching, and when in camp drilling the detachment and preparing them for pontoon duty. The train arrived on the bank of the Chattahoochee River at Powers' Ferry on the 13th of July, and a bridge, consisting of twenty-two pontoons, was thrown across the river. The bridge remained here on the water till the 21st of July. During this time it was subjected to a very heavy travel and a HURRICANE, which took place on the evening of the 14th, without suffering any injury. The bridge was dismantled, everything dried, and loaded on the 21st of July, by order of Major-General Thomas, and on the 23d I marched with the train, under orders of the same general, to the railroad bridge across the Chattahoochee River. Very respectfully, your obedient servant . . .
WM. KOSSAK,
Captain, Aide-de-Camp, on Engineer Duty.
Capt. C. B. REESE,
Chief Engineer, Dept. and Army of the Tennessee.
ORI, V 38 Pt 3, pp. 68-70
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BRITISH CONSULATE, New York, September 20, 1861.
[Right Hon. Lord LYONS.]
MY LORD: Referring to my dispatch of the 13th instant and your 1ordship's reply of the 16th instant I have the honor to acquaint your lordship that I yesterday visited the British sailors imprisoned at Fort Lafayette, and beg leave to report that there are four seamen who formed part of the crew of the schooner H. Middleton, bound from Charleston, S.C., to Liverpool, which was captured on the 21st ultimo shortly after leaving Charleston by the U.S. ship Vandalia. These men who were imprisoned at Fort Lafayette on the 7th instant are respectively William Simms, aged forty-nine, a native of Chichester, a married man having a wife and children at Portsmouth; William Williams, aged twenty-two, a native of Liverpool; Joseph Clifton, aged nineteen, a native of Montreal, and Richard Revel, aged twenty-five, a native of Wexford.
Simms and Williams arrived at Charleston from Liverpool on board the American bark Susan G. Owen about the end of April and were paid off there. They remained unemployed and unable to leave Charleston until the 6th of August when in order to reach England they shipped in the H. Middleton, being the first vessel which left Charleston for Liverpool after the blockade. Clifton arrived at Charleston in the American ship Amelia from Havre about the end of January and was paid off there and remained there unemployed with the exception of a few days' labor until the 9th of August when he shipped in the H. Middleton also in order to reach England. Revel arrived at Charleston from Havana on the 10th of June in the schooner Victoria and was discharged there. He also remained unemployed until the 9th of August when he shipped in the H. Middleton with the view of returning to England.
In addition to these four seamen Bernard Coogan, aged twenty-six, a native of Galway, was a passenger from Charleston to Liverpool. He had gone out to Charleston by the Columbia, arriving there on the 12th of March and intending to remain with a brother who is settled there. Finding no encouragement to remain and being unable to bear the expense of a journey northward he took advantage of the H. Middleton, the first vessel by which he could return home, and in which the captain gave him a passage. The master of the H. Middleton, a very intelligent man, corroborated the statement of the seamen and Coogan. Having closely examined them myself I see no reason whatever to doubt the truth of these statements.
Besides these men of the H. Middleton I found in the same room with them four other British seamen named William Smith, aged seventeen, a native of Henley-on-Thames; John Angus, aged twenty-four, a native of Shetland; Charles McClenahan, aged twenty-two, a native of Belfast and William Perry, aged forty-four, a native of Manchester, married and having a wife and three children at Manchester, who were taken by the U.S. ship Jamestown on board a small coasting craft called the Colonel Long near Charleston about the 4th instant, and were imprisoned at Fort Lafayette on the 13th instant.
Smith, Angus and McClenahan were part of the crew of the British bark Prima Donna bound from Havana to New York, which was wrecked on the Florida coast during the HURRICANE of the 16th of August. Having after much labor and many privations reached a small settlement called Miami where they remained some days a small coasting craft or fishing smack called the Colonel Long above mentioned put into that place, and the master in consideration of their assisting him to gather a quantity of limes agreed to carry them to Charleston. They accordingly left Miami in this vessel taking with them a letter from the mate of the Prima Donna to Her Majesty's consul at Charleston, now in my possession. . .
I have the honor to request that your lordship will be so good as to bring the foregoing facts under the notice of the United States Government.
I feel satisfied that a knowledge of the circumstances which I Dave above detailed cannot but be followed by an order for the discharge of these poor men, some of whom have survived the perils of shipwreck only to be made prisoners while attempting to reach an asylum, and all of whom have been actuated by no more criminal motive than that of a desire to return to their native country.
I have, &c.,
E. M. ARCHIBALD.
ORII, V2, pp. 546-547