Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
reading, and set himself to work to defeat it without the necessity
of ordering the captain's man out of the engine-room. To this end he
made a cap of sheet lead which covered the face of the dial, leaving
only about two inches in the centre, showing the pivot and a small
portion of the pointer. This balked the colored messenger completely,
as he could not see the figures, and he was not well enough
acquainted with the instrument to read it from the centre. On his
last visit to the engine-room, Hamilton saw him coming. Pretending
that he was going forward to try the water, but keeping his eye
on the messenger, he saw him reach up and take off the cap. In an
instant Hamilton turned and threw his shaping hammer, which he had
in his hand, with such true aim that it struck the poor darky in the
head and knocked him senseless. As he dropped to the deck Hamilton
called one of his firemen, telling him to give his compliments to
Captain Faucette and tell him to send some men and take away his
(profanely described) nigger, as he had no use for him. The darky
pulled through all right, I think. He was put ashore at the first
landing and placed under the care of a doctor, and Hamilton paid his
bills. His successor never came into the engine-room, and the cap on
the steam gauge was laid aside as unnecessary.
Whenever the mate had a "shindy" with the crew, which was composed
of forty Irishmen, all the other officers of the boat were bound to
"stand by" for trouble. Hamilton was always ready, if not anxious,
for such occasions, and he and Billy Wilson, the mate, always
supported each other so effectively that many an incipient mutiny
was quickly quelled, the two jumping into a crowd and hitting every
head in sight with whatever weapon happened to be at hand until order
was restored. Usually, however, it was with bare hands, and the show
which authority always makes in face of insubordination.
At times, Billy's vagaries were of a grisly and gruesome character.
I recall that at Point Douglass, on one of our trips, we found a
"floater" (body of a drowned man) that had been in the water until it
was impossible to handle it. To get it on shore it was necessary to
slide a board beneath, and draw out board and body together. It was
a malodorous and ghastly undertaking. Something said to this effect,
Hamilton laughed at as being altogether too finicky for steamboatmen.
To demonstrate that it need not affect either one's sensibilities
or stomach, he stepped into the cook's galley for a sandwich, and
sitting down on the end of the board, alongside the corpse, ate his
lunch without a qualm.
Another and rather more amusing incident took place while the "Fanny
Harris" was in winter quarters at Prescott. The night before St.
Patrick's day, Billy made up an effigy, which he hung between the
smokestacks. As the manikin had a clay pipe in its mouth and a string
of potatoes about its neck, it might have reference to the patron
saint of the Old Sod. The loyal Irishmen of the town so interpreted
it at least, and Billy had to stand off the crowd for several hours
with a shot gun, and finally get the town marshal to guard the boat
while he climbed up and removed the obnoxious image.
He had a little iron cannon which he fired on all holidays, and
sometimes when there was no holiday; in the latter case, at about
three o'clock in the morning, just to remind people living in the
vicinity of the levee that he was still "on watch". In retaliation
for the effigy affair, his Irish friends slipped aboard the boat one
evening while he was away and spiked his cannon by driving a rat-tail
file into the vent; this was after he had carefully loaded it for a
demonstration intended to come off the next morning. He discovered
the trick when he attempted to fire the gun, and offered pertinent
and forcible remarks, but unprintable in this narration. He lost no
time in vain regrets, however. Lighting up his forge he made a screw
and drew out the load. Then with the help of several chums he moved
his forge to the bow of the boat (the foc'sle), rigged a crane so
that he could swing his little cannon in a chain sling, from the
capstan to the forge, and back again. When the time came for firing
the salute he had his gun heated red-hot on the forge; it was then
swung back on to the capstan-head, where it was lashed with a chain.
A bucket of water was then thrown into the gun, and instantly a
hardwood plug, made to fit, was driven home with his heavy striking
hammer. In a minute the steam generated by this process caused an
explosion that threw the plug almost across the river, fully a
quarter of a mile, with a reasonably fair result in the way of noise.
It was a risky piece of work, but "Billy" was in his element when
there was a spice of risk mixed with his sports.
Billy's humor was broad, but never malicious. He never missed an
opportunity to play a practical joke on any one, save, perhaps, the
captain himself. The deck hands who "soldiered" by sitting on the
side of their bunks when they ought to be at work toting freight,
were sometimes lifted several feet in the air by the insertion of two
inches of a darning needle ingeniously attached to the under side of
the board bench upon which they took their seat. It was operated from
the engine-room by a fine wire and a stiff spring, the whole boxed
in so securely by the carpenter that there was no possibility of its
discovery by the enraged victim.
He was one of the most open-handed and liberal of men in his givings,
and in spite of his escapades a valuable officer. In 1862 he left the
boat, as did all the crew, to enlist under the call for three hundred
thousand troops, made in July of that year. In all discussions of the
war he had asserted his determination to keep away from any place
where there was shooting, as he was afraid of bullets of any size
from an ounce up. As he was a Southern man, son of a slaveholder,
we thought that this badinage was to cover his determination not
to take any part in the war on the Union side; we never questioned
his courage. He went into the navy as an acting assistant engineer,
and was assigned to one of the "tin-clads" that Commodore Porter
had improvised for service on the Mississippi and tributaries, and
that did such heroic service in opening and keeping open the great
river. Within a few months after his entry into the service, his old
friends saw with pleasure, but not surprise, his name mentioned in
general orders for gallantry in action. He had stood by his engine on
the gunboat after a pipe had been cut by a shell from a Confederate
shore battery, a number of men being killed and wounded, and the
engine-room filled with escaping steam. Binding his coat over his
face and mouth to prevent inhalation of the steam he handled his
engines at the risk of his life, in response to the pilot's bells,
until his boat was withdrawn from danger. It was in keeping with his
known character; and his talk of being "afraid of guns" was only a
part of the levity with which he treated all situations, grave or gay.
I do not know Billy's ultimate fate. When he left the "Fanny Harris"
for gunboat service, I also left to enlist in the infantry. After
three years in the army I was mustered out in Washington, and
soon went to New York where I remained for ten years or more. In
the interim between 1862 and 1876, when I returned to the West,
I completely lost sight of all my old river acquaintances. When,
later, I made inquiries of those whom I did find, they either did not
enlighten me as to his fate, or, if they did, I made so little note
of it that it has escaped my memory.
Chapter VI
_The "Mud" Clerk_[B]--_Comparative Honors_
[B] "Mud" Clerk: Second clerk, whose duty it was to go out in
all weathers, upon the unpaved levees and deliver or receive
freight. As the levees were usually muddy in rainy weather, the
name became descriptive of the work and condition of the second
clerk.
The transition from the "main deck" to the "boiler deck" marked an
era in my experience. It opened a new chapter in my river life, and
one from which I have greatly profited. When I went upon the river
I was about as bashful a boy as could be found; that had been my
failing from infancy. As pantry boy I had little intercourse with the
passengers, the duties of that department of river industry requiring
only the washing, wiping, and general care of dishes and silverware.
A "cub" engineer slipped up to his stateroom, and donned presentable
clothing in which to eat his meals in the forward cabin, at the
officers' table, where all save the captain and chief clerk took
their meals. After that, his principal business was to keep out of
sight as much as possible until it was time to "turn in". He was not
an officer, and passengers were not striving for his acquaintance.
As second clerk all these conditions were changed. In the absence
of the chief clerk, his assistant took charge of the office,
answered all questions of passengers, issued tickets for passage
and staterooms, showed people about the boat, and in a hundred ways
made himself agreeable, and so far as possible ministered to their
comfort and happiness while on board. The reputation of a passenger
boat depended greatly upon the esteem in which the captain, clerks,
and pilots were held by the travelling public. The fame of such a
crew was passed along from one tourist to another, until the gentle
accomplishments of a boat's _personnel_ were as well known as their
official qualifications.
Captain William Faucette was, as I have said, of French Creole
stock, from New Orleans. In addition to being a good and capable
officer on the roof, he was also highly endowed with the graces
that commended him to the ladies and gentlemen who took passage
with him. Polite in his address, a fine dancer, a good story-teller
and conversationist, his personality went far toward attracting the
public who travelled for pleasure--and that was the best-paying
traffic, for which every first-class packet was bidding.
Charles Hargus, chief clerk, was not far behind his chief in winning
qualities. An educated man, he was also possessed of the address and
the other personal qualities which were necessary to equip one for
becoming a successful officer on a Mississippi passenger steamer.
Such was the atmosphere into which the oily "cub" from the
engine-room was ushered, when drafted into this service because of
the serious illness of the second clerk. It was too late to get a man
from the city, and the necessities of the case required an immediate
filling of the vacancy. I was invited, or rather commanded, to go
into the office for the trip, and do what I could to help out with
the work until the return to Galena, where a man or boy could be
found to fill the office until the sick officer returned.
The boat was guard-deep with freight, and at night the cabin was
carpeted with passengers sleeping on mattresses spread on the floor.
The chief clerk simply had to have somebody to help out. On my part,
it was the chance of my life. Without much prior business experience,
what little I had was right in line. I had checked freight on the
levee for the firm of L. H. Merrick & Co., was a good penman, fairly
good at figures, and had made out freight bills in the transfer of
freight at Prescott, which fact was known to the chief clerk. It is
needless to add that I required no second order. While second clerks
were not likely to get any shore leave at either end of the route,
nor at any intermediate ports, it required no brilliancy of intellect
to see that checking freight was comparatively cleaner than, and
superlatively preferable to, boiler-scaling.
Regarding my success in this new field, suffice it to say that the