There was at the time a poor, weakly soldier of our company whose wife cooked for our mess.  She was somewhat of a flirt, and rather fond of admiration.  Sergeant Broderick was attracted to her, and hung around the mess-house more than the husband fancied; so he reported the matter to Lieutenant Taylor, who reproved Broderick for his behavior.  A few days afterward the husband again appealed to his commanding officer (Taylor), who exclaimed:  “Haven’t you got a musket?  Can’t you defend your own family?” Very soon after a shot was heard down by the mess-house, and it transpired that the husband had actually shot Broderick, inflicting a wound which proved mortal.  The law and army regulations required that the man should be sent to the nearest civil court, which was at St. Augustine; accordingly, the prisoner and necessary witnesses were sent up by the next monthly steamer.  Among the latter were lieutenant Taylor and the pilot Ashlock.

After they had been gone about a month, the sentinel on the roof-top of our quarters reported the smoke of a steamer approaching the bar, and, as I was acting quartermaster, I took a boat and pulled down to get the mail.  I reached the log-but in which the pilots lived, and saw them start with their boat across the bar, board the steamer, and then return.  Ashlock was at his old post at the steering-oar, with two ladies, who soon came to the landing, having passed through a very heavy surf, and I was presented to one as Mrs. Ashlock, and the other as her sister, a very pretty little Minorcan girl of about fourteen years of age.  Mrs. Ashlock herself was probably eighteen or twenty years old, and a very handsome woman.  I was hurriedly informed that the murder trial was in progress at St. Augustine; that Ashlock had given his testimony, and had availed himself of the chance to take a wife to share with him the solitude of his desolate hut on the beach at Indian River.  He had brought ashore his wife, her sister, and their chests, with the mail, and had orders to return immediately to the steamer (Gaston or Harney) to bring ashore some soldiers belonging to another company, E (Braggs), which had been ordered from St. Augustine to Fort Pierce.  Ashlock left his wife and her sister standing on the beach near the pilot-hut, and started back with his whale-boat across the bar.  I also took the mail and started up to the fort, and had hardly reached the wharf when I observed another boat following me.  As soon as this reached the wharf the men reported that Ashlock and all his crew, with the exception of one man, had been drowned a few minutes after I had left the beach.  They said his surf-boat had reached the steamer, had taken on board a load of soldiers, some eight or ten, and had started back through the surf, when on the bar a heavy breaker upset the boat, and all were lost except the boy who pulled the bow-oar, who clung to the rope or painter, hauled himself to the upset boat, held on, drifted with it outside the breakers, and was finally beached near a mile down the coast.  They reported also that the steamer had got up anchor, run in as close to the bar as she could, paused awhile, and then had started down the coast.