ON BOARD THE "INDIAN CHIEF," CHARLESTON, SC

November 28, 1864 Issue Fayetteville Observer - Letter to the Editor
Myrtle Bridges    September 28, 2009

Dear Sir:--After leaving the goodly county of Moore, going to Camp Holmes, and there undergoing a certain 
state of pupilage, we were started for this place, which we reached on Sunday the 6th of Nov., and were 
immediately marched on board this ship, which is not a war vessel but a receiving ship. Here we are to stay 
until we are drilled and uniformed, after which we will be put on a board of some of the Iron Clads, now in 
this Harbor. 

There were 36 of us, who left the camp together, mostly from Moore and Chatham Counties. We were selected there, 
or picked out, on account of soundness, size and appearance. The following are here from Moore; Wm. McLeod, 
E. Waddill, E. Watson, E. Garner, J.C. Davis, A.H. Cameron, M.A. McDonald, Wm. Kennedy, T. Siler, J.S. Mashburn, 
W.K. Dawkins, Wm. Clap(?), S. Morrison and N. Leach. The thirty-six of us who left the camp together, were on last 
Saturday divided into two squads, 18 men each; one of the squads, including the Moore County men, except E. Waddill, 
go on board the Iron Clad Chicora; the other, including the Chatham men with Waddill, go on the Palmetto State. 

We belong to what is called the Marine Corps, not the Navy proper, but connected with it. For soldiers we fare very 
well, receiving plenty to eat, good quarters to sleep in, and among other things plenty of old coffee and sugar. 

Day before yesterday (the 15th instant) our batteries on James and Sullivan's Islands had a fierce engagement with 
the Yankees batteries on Morris Island. We have not heard the result. There are fourteen Yankee war ships in sight, 
and several Iron Clads. They shell Charleston more or less every day; but this has become quite common, as they have 
been pegging away for the last 495 days. The defenses of this Harbor are very formidable, and should the enemy ever 
attack us by water, they must come in overwhelming force, in order to be anything like successful.

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