Land of Mist and Snow
Chapter OneThe narrative of Lieutenant John Nevis, USN.
In the late January of 1863 I was an idler, Assigned to the War Department office at 88 Whitehall Street in the city of New York after my ship, USS Tisdale, burned when the Rebels took Norfolk.
Time weighed heavily upon me. The war, which some had at first expected to be over in a matter of weeks—or a few months at most—would soon be entering its third year, and I could not fail to perceive that matters stood at a most perilous juncture. In the west, the free movement of our forces up and down the Mississippi still broke upon the rock that was Confederate-held Vicksburg; to the east and south, in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, Rebel commerce raiders and blockade runners ranged freely. Everywhere, my brother officers were gaining rank and experiencing sea-time, whether in gunboats on the inland waterways or in warships on the open seas, maintaining the blockade and chasing Confederate raiders.
Meanwhile, I sat filing papers in an obscure office. President Lincoln had freed all the slaves in Rebel territory. My daily hop ... read full excerpt from Land of Mist and Snow ebook
