Mobile Advertiser & Register

June 16, 1861

Page 2

                                                            Letter from Pensacola

            [From Our Own Correspondent]

                                                            Pensacola, Friday night, June 14

            Thursday, as recommended by President Davis was pretty generally observed in camp and city as a holiday.  The fashionable drinking saloons, however, kept their back doors open during the day.

            After a six weeks’ drought, we this morning had a sloshing rain.  Its benefits, however, have been somewhat neutralized from the fact that our enemies shared alike this blessing, by having their cisterns, tanks, etc. replenished with fresh, wholesome water.

            The news from Virginia is in skeletal doses, and quite unsatisfactory.  Our soldiers have been so often outraged by telegraphic rumors, that but little reliance is now placed in the wires.  An account of a big, rousing victory would do more to rid our camp of ennui and diarrhea than all the physic and nostrums in Christendom.

There have been no departures or arrivals among our friends on the Gulf for the last two days.  The winds of last night and to-day have made their quarters quite uncomfortable, but they grin and hold onto the bottom.

            W. E. Holt, Esq., of your city, arrived yesterday, accompanied by the lady of Lieut. George Holt of the regular Confederate army, now acting in the Commissary Department.

            I received this morning the following note, in telegraphic style, giving an account of a fight last week, or this week before, between a snake and a Continental:

            Pensacola, Continental Camp, foot of Indigestion Street-

A Continental, while dipping water from a spring near camp this morning, was twice assaulted by a big, he snake.  Snake repulsed every time by well-directed buckets of cold water.- Continental all right.  Bully for continental.

            Maj. Thos. Watts, of Montgomery, is here.  He looks every inch a Governor.

            A boat has arrived from the Navy Yard and brings us some items of news.  Last evening about 8 o’clock, a man was picked up on the beach near Barrancas, perfectly naked, who gave an account of himself thus:  He, as usual, went in a bathing near Fort Pickens, and venturing too far, was forced by the current and winds into the sheet of deep water that separates the two forts, and driven against his will to our shore.  This is all he acknowledges of himself and is probably correct.  He refuses to give any information in regard to Pickens, its defences, the number of troops, or anything else connected with the Island or its peoples.  He is in durance and will be kept so.  He says he is a Massachusetts man and his cause is right.  He looks like a fellow that has been hard worked.

            The flags of the squadron, as well as that in Fort Pickens, have been at half-mast all day.  At noon a salute was fired from Fort Pickens.  The cause we know not.  It created some excitement among the troops stationed at Pensacola.

            Within the last few days, nearly all the sandbags which caused so much apparent labor to mount, have been taken to the parapet at Fort Pickens.  The addition of this sandbag story probably rendered the fort too hot, as it cut off the breeze entirely, and hence its removal.

            A spy was taken at the yard last night.  He was on the beach signaling with a lantern to the opposite shore, which was answered.  What the signals meant, cannot be ascertained as he obstinately refuses to give any account of himself.  He is now in irons, and awaits the fate of a spy, if such should be proved his true character.  It is not likely he has any connection with the fellow picked up on the beach.