Mary Ellen Appleton Arnold (Lyman)

Heroines Of Dixie Confederate Women Tell Their Story Of The War (1955)

Author: Katharine M. Jones Publisher: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. Language: English Call number: 27490 Book contributor: Universal Digital Library Collection: universallibrary

Page 351

4. MARY ELLEN ARNOLD RUNNING THE BLOCKADE

Mary Ellen Lyman of Massachusetts married Amory Appleton of the same state. They had one son : George Lyman Appleton the George of her diary. After Amory Appleton's death in the early 1850's she married Charles S. Arnold of Savannah. He died in 1856.

George while serving in the Confederate Army was taken seriously ill with measles and incapacitated for further duty. When Sherman laid siege to Savannah early in December 1864 Mrs. Appleton and George escaped to Wilmington, North Carolina. They got passage on the blockade-running steamer Hansa bound for the Bahamas. From Nassau they went on to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and from there got a ship to Europe, where they remained till November 1869.

Mrs. Appleton's journal is barely legible. It is written in short, clipped notations, evidencing the excitement she was under. A sense of danger emerges dramatically from the pages of the dilapidated little book.

St. Thomas West Indies Feb. 16th 1865

Left Wilmington, N. Carolina, Thursday, Dec. 31 at noon pouring rain on the Hansa blockade running steamer anchored at mouth of Cape Fear River, until Sunday evening Jan. 3, 1865. Everything being ready lights put out etc. start at midnight, papers, money & valuables in small packages, ready to be saved or destroyed should the blockading vessels overtake us or drive us ashore pass safely through however, the small steamer heavily laden with cotton in the hands of a daring crew resolved to lose all rather than be caught goes on safely till Wednesday morning at daylight when a sail is discovered. A Yankee cruiser the Vanderbilt sees us, & starts in pursuit. All steam is crowded on, over the safety valve, a heavy weight placed, and on we rushed. Shot after shot is fired at us but we keep our distance the coral reefs appear in sight under the green water. Our Bahama pilot sits like a statue on the wheel house first raising one hand, then the other to guide the helmsman at the wheel. Bale after bale of cotton, worth nearly its weight in gold is thrown into the sea to lighten us, accompanied by the sighs of the men at such a sacrifice about 80 bales are over. The water becomes too shallow for our pursuers and we are safe. The 20th shot is fired and falls harmless behind us. The crew of the Hansa give cheer after cheer and dip their flag, Confederate, three times to the discomfited foe.

Our names had been written down before leaving the Cape Fear River, in the order in which we were to have taken to the boats in ease of need. Mine was in the Starboard Life boat with George and 22 others, under the charge of Cannop 1st mate, a man calm re- solved, kind and gentlemanly. Captain Atkinson, English; first mate Cannop, English; 2nd mate McLeod, Scotch. Crew and passengers in all nearly one hundred souls and I the only woman on board. 3rd mate Dickson Doveton, Chief Engineer, and Wells, Bahama pilot. At 11 o'clock A.M. on Wed. Jan. 6th 1865, reach Nassau, New Providence.

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In the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (#25). The collection includes correspondence, chiefly 1864-1870, of George Lyman Appleton while in Europe during the Civil War, and of his wife, Louisa; papers pertaining to the Lyman, Appleton, and Arnold families; diary, probably kept by Mrs. George W. Lyman during a trip to England in 1822; diary (1864-1869) kept by Mrs. Mary Ellen (Lyman) Appleton Arnold, telling of running the blockade from Wilmington, N.C., to Nassau, and life in Europe; personal diary (1864-1869) of Louisa Arnold; record (1842) of ships and cargoes of William Appleton and Company, Boston; and other miscellaneous family items. See also Arnold and Screven family papers, 1779-1901 Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, N.C., 27599. Lyman and Appleton families of Waltham, Mass., and Savannah, Ga., and the Arnold family of Providence, R.I., and White Hall plantation, Bryan County, Ga. Central figures include Mary Ellen Lyman who married first J. Amory Appleton and second Charles S. Arnold; George Lyman Appleton (b. 1841); and George's wife, Louisa Caroline Arnold, daughter of Samuel Green and Louisa Arnold.

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