This morning, at 8 o’clock, the sloop-of-war Pawnee, which has been lying at the Washington Navy Yard since the 1st of March, left for Norfolk. Her officers are confident that they are to go further, but none of them knew last evening to what place they were bound, or how long a cruise they should make. Through the courtesy of one of her officers, we were, yesterday, invited on board, and took a hasty glance at the busy preparations going on. For several days carpenters have been at work upon her, raising her hatchway and removing apartments from below, while others were closing up with pitch the seams in her deck. The men, numbering 180, all told, were lounging about the vessel, or at their messes between decks, while here and there sat the sad-hearted wives of officers, who had come down to say good-bye, a farewell more bitter because of the uncertainty of their future. Everything about the vessel, save the decks then littered with the chips of the carpenters, was trim and in its place. The furnaces were charged ready for the match, cutlasses and boarding pikes ornamented the bulwarks, while her long black guns peeped out like watchdogs from her port holes. The Pawnee carries eight nine inch Paixhan guns, two twelve-pound howitzers, and seven boats, one of which, (the launch,) will take one-half the crew. This vessel is one of those so troublesome, on account of their rolling propensities, and is just the place to initiate a green-horn into the realities of sea life, as those who get accustomed to such vessels will never have any trouble with others.— Washington Star of Saturday Evening.
The Daily Exchange, Baltimore, MD, April 8, 1861