His recovery from the injury was slow and painful. The leg was improperly set, and at a time when the use of anesthetics was unknown it had to be reset with great pain to the unfortunate officer. During the three months of his confinement at the Hotel Phoenix in Somerset he managed to keep up his spirits in spite of the suffering and loneliness, and to break the tedium of the dull days he commenced the study of French without the aid of either grammar or dictionary. At last, in January, 1840, he thought himself strong enough to proceed to New York; but it was in the midst of winter and he had to be driven in a sleigh over the Alleghany Mountains. This occasioned considerable delay, and when he at length arrived at his destination he found that his ship had already sailed. He then made his way to his home in Virginia to recuperate his health and strength under the apprehension that his injury might be so serious as to incapacitate him for further active service in the navy. During the long weeks in Ohio he had been greatly troubled with these fears and had considered gravely what he might do in the future. He had begun then to think seriously of resorting to the pen, and after his return home this notion “to take to books and be learned” began to take more definite shape in his mind, though he was greatly discouraged at his ignorance and confused by the wilderness of subjects from which to choose. He did not, however, wish to give the impression that he was shirking active service; so he made application on March 14, 1840 to Secretary of the Navy Paulding for any duty which he could perform in his present condition, “service on crutches” as he expressed it. This, of course, was not granted him, and thus relieved temporarily from active service, he began the writing of his “Scraps from the Lucky Bag”, a series of magazine articles which were soon to make his name very widely known.