ach with Lieutenant Ord,
and we found that one or two bodies had been washed ashore, torn
all to pieces by the sharks, which literally swarmed the inlet at
every new tide. In a few days the weather moderated, and the
steamer returned from the south, but the surf was so high that she
anchored a mile off. I went out myself, in the whale or surf boat,
over that terrible bar with a crew of soldiers, boarded the
steamer, and learned that none other of Ashlock's crew except the
one before mentioned had been saved; but, on the contrary, the
captain of the steamer had sent one of his own boats to their
rescue, which was likewise upset in the surf, and, out of the three
men in her, one had drifted back outside the breakers, clinging to
the upturned boat, and was picked up. This sad and fatal
catastrophe made us all afraid of that bar, and in returning to the
shore I adopted the more prudent course of beaching the boat below
the inlet, which insured us a good ducking, but was attended with
less risk to life.

I had to return to the fort and bear to Mrs. Ashlock the absolute
truth, that her husband was lost forever.

Meantime her sister had entirely recovered her equilibrium, and
being the guest of the officers, who were extremely courteous to
her, she did not lament so loudly the calamity that saved them a
long life of banishment on the beach of Indian River. By the first
opportunity they were sent back to St. Augustine, the possessors of
all of Ashlock's worldly goods and effects, consisting of a good
rifle, several cast-nets, hand-lines, etc., etc., besides some
three hundred dollars in money, which was due him by the
quartermaster for his services as pilot. I afterward saw these
ladies at St. Augustine, and years afterward the younger one came
to Charleston, South Carolina, the wife of the somewhat famous
Captain Thistle, agent for the United States for live-oak in
Florida, who was noted as the first of the troublesome class of
inventors of modern artillery. He was the inventor of a gun that
"did not recoil at all," or "if anything it recoiled a little
forward."

One day, in the summer of 1841, the sentinel on the housetop at
Fort Pierce called out, "Indians! Indians!" Everybody sprang to
his gun, the companies formed promptly on the parade-ground, and
soon were reported as approaching the post, from the pine-woods in
rear, four Indians on horseback. They rode straight up to the
gateway, dismounted, and came in.