Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

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MEMOIiRS OF JOHN ADAMS DIX.

day (Friday), at 10 A.M., the body, after its dread passage from
coast to coast, and its temporary loss in the sea, was at length
laid reverently in the family vault in Trinity Church-yard.
Few persons were present besides the General and myself.
The weather was inexpressibly dreary — gloomy, and dark,
with a heavy wind from the raw north-east, and a dull, steady
rain. Others, alas! had reason to remember that day. The
wind shifted in the afternoon and came out from the northwest, blowing with fury, as a gale from that quarter always
does when it begins. At sunset a long line of clear sky appeared under the rapidly lifting curtains of the previous storm.
It betokened trouble on the deep. Among the ill-fated vessels
out that awful night was the steamship San Francisco. She
sailed from New York, December 21, for San Francisco, vic
the Straits of Magellan, having on board the Third Regiment
U. S. Artillery, Colonel Gates commanding; Major Merchant,
Lieutenant-colonel Washington, and other officers, with their
wives and children. She was struck by the storm off the
North Carolina coast, and foundered a day or two afterward. Rarely has a disaster of that kind produced a more
painful sensation; the city was filled with consternation at
the accounts of the horrible scenes attending the destruction
of so many brave men and helpless women and children, and
for years that awful night was remembered with a shudder.
The winter of 1853-'54 was spent by my father in New
York. I was in Philadelphia at that time, connected with St.
Mark's Church, as one of the assistant ministers, under the
Rev. Joseph P. B. Wilmer, D.D., afterward Bishop of Louisiana. My father came occasionally to Philadelphia, where he
was welcomed by old friends. Among these was Mrs. Elizabeth Biddle, at whose house he sometimes stayed: a very
charming and accomplished woman, the daughter of Mr. Joseph Hopkinson, and a descendant of one of the signers of
the Declaration of Independence.
Always busy, and devoted to his home circle, the General
spent some time that winter in preparing a series of papers