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POPE'S HOUSE OLD HEADQUARTERS.NEW HEADQUARTERS AND STORES.
FROM A WAR-TIME SKETCH.
AFTER the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln as Presi--Ox- dent of the United States , in March, 1861, apainful lethargy seemed to pervade every branch ofthe Administration, while the South was arming andorganizing with extraordinary activity for the avowedpurpose of destroying the Government, which appar-ently supinely awaited that event. The attack onFort Sumter broke the spell, after which an almost frantic energy mani-fested itself at the North in raising troops and in the purchase and arma-ment of vessels to blockade the thousands of miles of Southern coasts.Naturally, the Navy Department sought the advice of Professor AlexanderD. Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and it was at his suggestionthat the department secured a board of conference composed of Captain S. F.Du Pont, of the Navy , as President, and Major J. (>. Barnard, U. S. Engi-neers, Professor Bache,and Commander Charles H. Davis, U. S. Navy , asmembers.
In a private letter Captain Du Pont wrote, on the 1st of June: “ It may bethat I shall be ordered to Washington on some temporary duty, on a boardto arrange a programme of blockade—first suggested by Professor Bache .”The first memoir of the conference in the confidential letter-book of the NavyDepartment is written in pencil, has many erasures and interlineations, andis evidently the original draft of a paper, probably referred and neverreturned. It closes as follows:
“ Finally, we will repeat the remark made in the beginning of this report, that we think theexpedition to Fernandina should he undertaken simultaneously with a similar expedition havinga purely military character. We are preparing a brief report on the latter, which we shall havethe honor to submit in a few days.”
j Recently, the private correspondence of Ad- most of the ships engaged, and other documentarymiral Du Pont has been kindly put within the evidence. No labor has been spared in verifyingscope of my researches, and his very clear and the events narrated, notwithstanding that myprecise reports of the Port Royal expedition have presence throughout our operations, in command ofbeen carefully examined, together with the reports the gun-boat Seneca, gave me an intelligent per-of officers commanding vessels, the log-books of sonal view of the whole subject.— D. A.
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