There was loading with lumber at the pier at Pensacola a large three-masted English sailing vessel to put to sea, some arrangement having been made with the authorities on both sides to permit her to go out. I had been figuring on a plan to get a letter over to the Fort secretly. It did not at first occur to me that it would be possible to cross myself with safety, and knowing that in passing out, this ship would have to run in close by Fort Pickens, I set about to mature a plan to make use of this opportunity, and with this object in view I spent some time aboard the ship trying to make the acquaintance of someone.
But I found this to be too uncertain, and too slow besides. The infernal Englishmen were openly hostile to the government. It was my daily custom to sit on a sandbank right in the rear of my Rebel officers' camp, and, while not otherwise occupied, I would gaze by the hour toward that little band in the grim-looking old prison of a fort, and wish and plan and pray that I could in some way have but one minute's talk with Lieutenant Slemmer.
I felt that I must get word to him at any cost. I could not risk swimming, on account of the numerous sharks in the water, which were more to be feared than the harbor boats that patrolled up and down between the two forces.
There were at Pensacola, as at all such places, small boats for hire to fishing and pleasure parties. I concluded that by hiring one of these boats for a few days' fishing, with a colored boatman to accompany me, while ostensibly spending the day in sight of the guard-boats fishing--innocently fishing for suckers--to disarm any suspicion, I might have an opportunity, when it became dark, to crowd toward the opposite shore of Santa Rosa Island, some distance from Fort Pickens; and once on the island I could, under cover of night, steal down the shore to the Fort, and communicate with the officers, and, still under cover of the darkness, return to the mainland and make tracks through the swamps towards Mobile or New Orleans.
In carrying out this plan, it was essential that I should find a colored boatman to pilot and row me out on the bay, on whom I might safely trust my return and escape from the place. By way of reconnoitering, or practice, I hired such a boat for a couple of hours' pleasure, taking a companion with me, and in this way I looked over the ground--or, rather, water--and concluded that the scheme was feasible, and determined to put it into execution as soon as possible.