The San Francisco call., 1898-06-19

teries. besides the heavy guns at Fort Bateman, were belchins and laundering at us. Cushing yelled an order to us but we could not hear him. The jaws of hell opened to receive us. Frames seemed to leap from cannon mouths. The air shook and the water seethed and boiled with the leaden hail. For tunately our craft set low in the water and we were below the range or the guns. One young fellow named Becker two feet from me, fell dead as we passed the log raft, and we never Knew where he was hit.
 Things happened so fast that thelr narration seems tame ana SLOW. we saw everything. I remember that l even saw in that awful moment tall !, man in a red shirt on the Albemarle training howitZer- at us.
 In a trice we were over the logs and within thirty or forty feet of the ram amidships. Each of us had duty to do. held the out haul of the torpedo chain and another man was at the trip ping line.
 Cushing was now at the bow in his shirt sleeves, with a revolver in one hand and the firing line of the torpedo in the other We all trembled with un- speakable excitement. In few sec- onds more we were close under the sides of the Albemarle. Some one called from the ram:
 Surrender Surrender"
 "Go to hell! screamed one of our crew.
 At that moment Gushing called to Mate Jim Daniels:
 Down with the pole,"
 The torpedo boom Ca thing that look ed like the tongue of wagon) went down into a horizontal position foot below the water. Then there came an unearthly explosion. It seemed as If everything terrific, monstrous and hor- rible had broken out upon us that mo ment. It was like a roaring earth quake. The great hulk of the ram raised and slowly rolled over. The fir ing on the Albemarle ceased, but the batteries on the sho"- and the guns at the fort belched and roared.
 Cushing had told US each to save himself as best he could when the tor pedo had done it's work, but some of us expected to be annihilated by the tor pedo itself. So. for one, l was sur prised to realize I was still living after the explosion. We had divested our selves of extra clothing as we came past Plymouth.
 At the moment the torpedo struck the ram we leaped to the water. The bea- con lights along the shore revealed what we were doing. For a minute, which seemed an age to us in the water, the Confederates were evidently amazed at the explosion of the Abe marie before their eyes. Then the firing began even more furious than before.
 Meanwhile what remained of the lit tie crew was swimming for the, oppo site shore. Each had to look out for himself alone. AS nearly as ever could be ascertained there were ten of our crew killed in the water that night. Cushing and two others got to land and by a series of extraordinary luck got back to the fleet in Albemarle Sound and aided In Porter's operations in support of General Sherman. Cush- ing, you know, served in the navy until 1873, and died of brain fever in Decem- ber 1874.
 AS for my own escape, happened to leap into the water in the shadow of the ram. Two others leaped with me, but they swan into the blaze of lights and both were shot in the water Their bodies were probably never recovered. Swimming about the ram as it settled in the water, I reached a coal wharf. It was dark under it, and resting there a minute or so I swam noiSelessly down stream below the wharf. I eX- pected any moment to be shot, and I did not exert myself to swim when the cannonading continued and heavy musketry began. The Confederates meant to let no Yankees get away after the fearful loss the Confederacy had just had. Tons of ammunition must have been wasted in a few hours.
 I crept along the river bank with reeds and marsh for over half mile. I could hear the Confederates talking excitedly about the Yankee attack, and 1 knew they were watching the water as best they could for men swim ming there. Fortunately the bank was twenty feet high there, and I crawled like a lizard along at the foot of the bank. The firing continued all night I could see that the enemy believed that the Yankees who might have escaped from the water alive had made for the swampy forest opposite, and rounds of grape and canister were fired there.
 When morning came I was six miles below Plymouth. I was as nasty a sight as man ever presented. I crept out into some brush, almost sick from exposure, excitement and the cold wa ter I believed l was the sole survivor of Cushing's crew, and I actually felt sorry that I had alone been left to live like that with my brave mates at the bottom of the Roanoke.
 I was sitting under a tree, clad only in woolen shirt and tattered trous- CTS, when the fort across the river opened up as if to shoot down any pos sible Tank who happened to be over there. The gunners must have seen the brush move. A broadside of grape went whistling among the trees over my head. Leaves and twigs fell into my lap. but the broad sycamore tree trunk saved my skin that time. To- ward noon I saw a colored man out in a cornield He looked amiable. I found that he supposed I was escaping from the Confederate service, and he gladly helped me. He gave me some vile ham and corn and kindly present ed me with greasy and tattered over coat. While I was drying my shirt and trousers before the negro's fire the old man said:
 ''Marse, dem soljers dey done gone come down lookin' fur ye." He sup posed they were my Confederate com rades. l slid into a ramShackle out building and had the negro cover me over with several bushels of corn. In 5. 8: s. ss s2 $ S 8 s S g s 8 :s s. ssss
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