A temporary naval recruiting station was established in the historic village of Swedesboro amidst great pageantry and fanfare on September 27, 1864. While the local businessmen and town folk held their annual street festival last Saturday with many food vendors and hucksters of all sorts selling their wares, naval officer, Bruce Tucker, Boatswain's Mate, Dan Cashin, and sailors, George McDowell and William Myers, all of the USS Lehigh, attempted to enlist men and boys for duty with the Navy. The Seamen pitched their tent in the dusty street in front of the stately home of Doctor Charles Garrison, a prominent and well-respected physician of this town. It was something of a homecoming for the shipmates of the Lehigh, their vessel having been constructed in 1863 in the shipyard at Chester, Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware from this place.
Despite the lure of potential prize money from captured blockade runners and the guarantee of immunity from conscription into the Army, few stepped forward to sign on, although many young boys, apparently eager for an adventurous life at sea, tried to enlist as cabin boys without their parents' consent. Gone for good, apparently, are the days of the press gangs scouring the waterfront for unwary recruits. Boatswain's Mate Cashin attributed the lack of recruiting success to the area's pacifism, thought to be engendered from a strong Quaker influence within the County of Gloucester. The community is not, however, bereft of noble military heroes: Lieutenant Commander William N. Jeffers, formerly the skipper of the famed Monitor and now assigned to duty with the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, was born here, as was Brigadier General Charles G. Harker, recently killed heroically leading a charge at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, July 27, 1864. These men are just two among the many who have volunteered from Swedesboro and Gloucester County to serve in their country's hour of need. In fact, Mr James Plummer, the proprietor of the well-appointed Plummer's Hotel (the best accommodations in Swedesboro), where this journalist had recently taken a room, has not seen his son since the Battle of Chancellorsville, where the young man was reported missing from the ranks of the 12th New Jersey Volunteers, a regiment made up largely of men from this region. It must also be said that a draft was just held in Camden on September 23, and that the Township's complement of soldiers is made up. Uncertain rumors of distant peace are being bandied about, as well, making service in any branch of the service less attractive at this late date in the war. Still the US Navy is always in need of able-bodied men.
Van Amburg's Traveling Menagerie was also on hand to draw in the crowds from the surrounding communities. Upwards of twenty large circus wagons were parked up and down Main Street as white circus tents had sprouted up over the previous night like giant mushrooms. Several lions and two large elephants were on display. The largest pachyderm, "Hannibal," weighs 15,000 pounds and was at times during the day very ferocious. (Perhaps, some of the local men, having already seen the elephant, no longer desired to "see the elephant," as the expression goes.) In addition to the wild beasts there were acrobats, jugglers, sword-swallowers, and a human giant, purportedly eight feet, two inches tall in his stocking feet, plus a dwarf and his normal-sized wife among other singular curiosities, all for the paying customers' viewing pleasure. One of those curious exhibits was a seemingly normal, down-to-earth Negro from Mississippi, who had once been a slave, laboring in the tenches during the famous siege of Vicksburg. The fortunate fellow, whose name is Abraham, was literally blown over to freedom with the explosion of one ton of black powder placed underneath a salient in the rebel line by General Grant's soldiers, who had been endeavoring for weeks to blast their way into the Confederate stronghold. The resulting battle in the huge crater that was caused by the detonation of the mine was a flat failure, but Abraham was blown sky high over to General John A. Logan's part of the federal line, about 250 yards distant, where he landed among the astonished Yankees. The former slave certainly took an unusual route to emancipation, but was otherwise unhurt, and only a little shaken. When a certain Times' reporter asked Abraham if he remembered about how high he had flown, the sable young man replied with all candor, "I's a blown up about t'ree mile, I was, suh!"
This particular story was enlivened and perhaps given added credibility by the purchase of hard apple cider, known locally as "Red Stingo," a town staple, and according to Dr. Garrison, of great medicinal value. Despite the apple harvest being some weeks away, there was plenty of the home-brewed concoction available for purchase, much to the delight of townsmen and visiting sailors, alike. A near brawl that followed a baseball game played on the fairgrounds just outside of Swedesboro was probably fueled by the imbibing of too much Red Stingo.
- H. J. W.
 |
| Captain Tucker, a tall circus performer, and a N-Y Times' reporter at Swedesboro Day. Photo courtesy of William Myers. |
[Editor's note: The phrase, "Seeing the elephant," is old soldier slang for green troops who have witnessed their first battle and lived to tell about it. For further information, see: Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S. Grant; The Diary of Charles Garrison, M.D. - Swedesboro and the Civil War (1861 - 1865)]
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