to other quarters.

The monotonous service at the batteries had tried the patience of all who were attached to them; and we rejoiced at the prospect of more active duty. The reverses sustained by the Confederate arms were not to be disguised, nor were our convictions of great danger to the country to be removed by the politic proclamation issued by the Confederate Government, to the effect that a contraction of the lines could exercise no material influence upon the issue of the war. But as it was deemed necessary by the military authorities to abandon the situation, we were not at all sorry to depart; for although we had seen no active service, insatiate war had claimed many victims, who had perished ingloriously by the malarial fevers of that marshy district. The naval officers were especially elated at the change. Their duties and their authority being alike undefined, there resulted a deplorable want of harmony between them and the military. This was, indeed, the inevitable consequence of the anomalous position held by the former; and this want of concert of action subsequently contributed, in some measure at least, to the disastrous issue of the conflict below New Orleans.

We having been trained in the strict discipline of a man of war, wanted "savoir faire" in dealing with the fastidious young captains, and the equally sensitive "high privates"; while they no doubt looked upon us as a domineering, tyrannical set of exclusives and wished that we were on board the Federal gunboats in the river, or farther. My personal intercourse, however, was always very pleasant with them. Capt. Brown, commanding the company of North Carolinians at the battery, had graduated at the U. S. Naval School a year or two previous to the war, and was a strict disciplinarian. Two years after our separation, I fell in with him accidentally; and he then gave me a sad account of the changes wrought by death and disease in his fine company. He had risen to the rank of Colonel, and was then on his return to duty in the army of Northern Virginia after recovery from wounds received in battle. The graphic account given by him of the manner in which he was wounded and his narrow escape from death, may interest others as much as it did me. His regiment formed part of Gen. Ed. Johnson's division, which held the salient angle in Gen. Lee's line at Spottsylvania C. H. when it was forced by the Federal troops. The attack was made at early dawn and in the additional obscurity of a Scotch mist; and so complete was the surprise according to B.'s account, that he was only made aware of the close proximity of the enemy by dimly discerning, a few paces distant, a Federal soldier with his musket levelled at him. The soldier fired, and B. fell insensible, shot through one of the lungs. Upon recovering consciousness, he found himself on a litter borne by Federal soldiers. An officer leaned over him, and offered him some liquor from his canteen, which revived him so far that he was able to speak. His humane captor then volunteered to transmit any message to B.'s friends and relatives. While B. was rallying his failing senses to deliver what he believed to be his dying messages to the loved ones at home, a rattling fire of musketry opened upon them, the litter bearers and the officer were shot down; the latter falling across Brown, who relapsed into insensibility. When he again recovered consciousness, he found himself borne in the same litter, now carried by Confederate soldiers. The position had been retaken. His good friend had been shot dead.

Our mess at Acquia Creek was abundantly supplied with food from land and water. Every member of it, no doubt, frequently longed afterwards for the "flesh pots of Egypt." We discovered, by chance, a large bulk of coal, which had been stored on the long wharf where the Acquia Creek steam-boats used to make their landings. When the Point was shelled about the commencement of the war by the gunboats, the wharf was destroyed, the coal falling uninjured ten or twelve feet to the bottom of the river. We fished up our supplies with oyster tongs as they were needed, and our snug quarters were kept warm during the winter. Towards the end of the season, one of the mess servants lately arrived from the rural districts, was sent in the boat for a supply from the coal mine. He had made many a fire of soft coal in the drawing room at home; but although an accomplished servant, his education had been so far neglected that he was ignorant of all the "'ologies." He was very much astonished at our process of coal mining, and asked me with great gravity, on his return with the load, "if coal grew like that all over the Potomac." Of course I replied in the affirmative. It was anthracite hard coal, a specimen of which he had never seen; so he was further informed that it was hard or soft according to the season when it was fished up, being soft in the summer and hard in the winter. He was much pleased to have acquired all this information, and probably took the earliest opportunity, on his return home, to enlighten his circle of friends and acquaintances upon the subject of coal mining on the Potomac.

CHAPTER II.

Ordered to New Orleans.—The Naval Fleet there.—The "River Defence" Squadron.—The iron clad "Louisiana."—Difficulty in managing the Fleet.—Going down the River.—Want of