Headquarters District Of South Alabama,
Fort Gaines, Ala., May 26, 1865.
You had received my
recountal of our narrow escape from perishing at sea. The varied experience
of the past few years has showed me the uncertainty of human life. “We are such
stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” I
often wish you were with me here, that you might have leisure for reflection,
and opportunity to study the wonders of the deep, the great sea, fitting emblem
of eternity. To watch with me the changes on its surface, now dimpled and
glittering in the sunlight, then glassy as a mirror, reflecting the bright
moon, or by starlight lambent with phosphorescent glare; and again maddened by
the wind, tossing and roaring and foaming with rage. To see the sun rise from
the ocean in the morning and set beneath its waters at eve; to see the sweet
sight of “sunset sailing ships,” to wander by the shore and watch the graceful
seabirds dip their wings. Nothing that poet has written or traveller described,
can give to the mind an idea of the heart emotions awakened by the ocean,
whether in repose or agitated by storm. I am never weary of it, or the southern
gales that sweep its bosom. You remember old Governor Duval's description of
the breeze at Pensacola. How its influence made one dream of “bathing in a sea
of peacock's plumes.” Here you can realize how graphic was his description. The
weather is perfectly delicious; you never saw so blue a sky. In the early
morning it is hot, but about ten o'clock the sea breeze springs up and sitting
in the shade you have nothing in the way of atmosphere to desire. My house is
favorably situated close to the beach, or rather on the beach, close to the
water's edge, so close that the spray of the waves sometimes falls in light
mist on my brow, as I sit on the long and wide piazza, facing due east. Here I
linger far into the night, sometimes till the early morning, watching the stars
and chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, with nothing to break the
silence but the tread of the sentry and the splash of the waves, drinking in
deep draughts of night air that give no cold. They tell me the coming months
are hot, and the mosquitoes troublesome. I know not how that may be; the
present is the perfection of climate, and I wish you could enjoy it with me. My
health is improving. I am taking iron and quinine, and within a few days my
disease seems brought under subjection.
It is strange that as I have been writing and endeavoring to
moralize upon the uncertainty of human life and the futility of human plans,
another and terrible lesson has been read to me. Yesterday, while writing to
Walter my house was shaken by a tremendous explosion, that I supposed to be a
clap of thunder, though the sky was clear. I called to “J. L.” to know if any
of the guns at the fort had been discharged; he said no, but thought one of the
“men-of-war” in the offing had fired a gun. I thought it rather strange, it
being about two o'clock in the afternoon. At night, I discovered a bright light
in the north and feared for a while that a steamboat was on fire; but just at
this moment the mystery has been solved by the intelligence brought me that the
magazines at Mobile have been blown up, half the city destroyed, thousands of
lives lost, and a scene of misery and destruction terrible to imagine. I shall
cease writing now and close my letter by giving you full particulars, as they
will be brought me by the next boat. Truly in life we are in death. Thousands
of soldiers and refugees, women and children, have been hurried to eternity
without warning, and many hundreds of mangled and wounded are craving death to
relieve them from misery.
SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of
Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 401-3
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