A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A.

Two steamboats were each making their weekly trips to Tuscaloosa and back. Parents and friends came and went. The least expression of a need, to the folks at home brought the wished for articles. Nothing was too good for the boys at the front and fish and oysters were abundant in season. The latter were in those days only considered eatable in the R. months, as the saying was: i.e., during the months whose names contained the letter R. So that from May to August, the poor things could enjoy life without the fear of man. Ice was not then available to preserve them during the summer months. At Fort Gaines, Lt. Cribbs was given charge of the Ordnance Department. In the early spring, the company received as recruits from Tuscaloosa many good men. Feb. 24, 1862 there arrived with Lt. Tarrant, James T. Searcy, John Chancellor, James Manly, Ed. King, Jno. Molette, T. Alex Dearing and ten or twelve others, E. R. Prince, Jas. F. Prince. It is from a personal diary kept by James T. Searcy that much of this first and second year’s experience of the command has been culled and all of the dates. On the trip down the boat “scraped the woods” considerably, butted out one tree by the roots, butted another that staggered the boat without injuring the tree, but left about twenty feet of the guards in the water as the tree’s trophy in the encounter. Such incidents were in those days quite common in steamboat travel in low water.