and twice that distance above the Potomac, with very precipitous banks. But here we had to stop and cover the retreat of our forces, who, by means of two scows and a rope stretched from the island to our side, were constantly crossing. It was decided that the Pennsylvania and New York regiments should take post next below the crossing on the canal, and between it and the river, while the Indiana and Second Massachusetts regiments should occupy a similar position on the right of the line above the crossing place. Best's battery was put in position to cover and protect the landing place on the island, and masked; and all were cautioned to keep quiet and out of sight, and watch the enemy. I rode back up the canal and through the culvert again to give these orders. Found all the regiments had got up. The general had previously slung a canal-boat across the channel to save the soldiers the annoyance of wading through the deep waters and unutterable darkness of the abominable culvert. The regiments then began to wind their slow lengths across the canal. The horses and baggage were left, or sent through the culvert. Seeing everything fairly started and one or two regiments over, I started to find the general, but one of Captain Best's artillery pieces blocked the pass. The horses had dragged the gun in and balked, refusing to pull through or draw out; and the blockade was most decidedly effectual. I went back and dismounted to meditate. Most opportunely, I found in a little ravine close by a little squad of soldiers around a fire. On approaching them I found a full camp-kettle of soup, thin indeed, but hot. They gave me some, and oh, how good it was! Becoming satisfied that I could not get my horse through the canal, or under or over it, I hunted up Colonel Harrison, whose regiment had not crossed as yet, and we put his horses and mine in charge of a couple of his boys, with directions to take care of them somehow until the passage was clear, and then hunt us up and return them. Then we scrambled over the canal on the slippery boat, and he turned up the canal to take charge of four companies of his regiment which were detailed as pickets, and I turned down to find the general, with my heavy wet blankets on my back. After trudging down through the mud and water and slush for nearly a mile, I met the general coming up on foot and alone, in sorry plight for a brigadier.

It was nearly morning; the regiments were placed, the batteries in position, the pickets posted, and we hunted for some place for a snooze. I found a little hut, built, I judged, by the pickets, with a leaky roof and one side entirely open. There on a pile of wet straw we lay down, and with the rain beating in our faces we went to sleep. Shortly after daylight on the 22d the general roused me. He had been up for some time, it seemed, and let me sleep till he had pressing need of me. I worked myself out of the straw, wrung the rain out of my blankets, slung them across my back, and went out on the towpath of the canal

and took observations. I found out, in the first place, that it was a raw, cold, rainy day,-one of those disagreeable autumn days in which it rains in little spiteful spits for an hour or two and then stops. I saw Ball's Bluff opposite Harrison's Island, a steep precipice, seventy feet high, and covered with trees to the water's edge. I saw our troops strung along the bank of the river, among the trees and brush, for a mile on either hand. I saw the huts of the pickets, little things like dog kennels, and near the crossing-place and crowded together like hog-pens I saw the scows crossing from and to the island loaded to the water's edge. I saw the shivering crowd around the crossing, standing in gloomy groups in the deep mud. I saw the wounded and dead brought up and sent forward to Poolsville.

With the first return boat we crossed to the island. The men pulled the boat over by means of the rope I mentioned above, and we landed at the foot of the steep bank. I can't tell how we got up it, 'twas so slippery and with such a slush of mud at the bottom of it. But we accomplished it and found the top level enough to be a Wisconsin prairie. We struck a barn-yard. Long ricks of straw and hay were on our right, under which men, horses, cannon, and provisions were crowded for shelter, and as we got on a little farther, an extraordinarily high hedge, around a queer barn, commenced in grand style of hewn stone but never completed, being a central octagon of fifty feet diameter, and two wings, one from the south face and one from the east, and full of soldiers eating raw pork and hard bread, and belonging to Hincks's regiment (Nineteenth Massachusetts). They had not participated in the action, and were covering the retreat. Passing them, we went through the hedge and came in sight of a farm-house with its usual cluster of buildings. Failing to find Colonel Hincks, the general ordered me to the Virginia side of the island to treat with the enemy about obtaining our dead and wounded. I passed the house and went down to the river, passing on my way some twenty rifle-pits which Colonel Hincks had made the previous night to defend the island. At the river bank I found Colonel Hincks and perhaps twenty of his men in conversation with the pickets on the other side of the narrow channel. I saw some ten or twelve of the rebels and an officer who had them in charge. They kept crying out for us to send over for our dead and wounded. I could see, perhaps, some twenty of our men lying on the bank, in the woods, either dead, wounded, or asleep. We answered that we had no boat, and if they would send us the boat which we saw on their side we would use it for that purpose. They then picked up one of the bodies and two of them brought it to the boat. Stopping, however, by the way, with prudent afterthought, to lay the poor boy down and search his pockets, the scoundrels took out his white handkerchief,-I could see that it was stained with blood; they took his pocket-book or testament, and cut off his buttons, and then

picked him up again and carried him to the boat. This was aggravating enough, but we had to endure it, for we were wholly at their mercy. A corporal paddled over and we found that the man was wounded only, and not dead. I went back presently to report to the general. Finding him in conversation with Colonel Hincks, near the house, I had time to look about me a little. The farm-house had been used by the surgeons, and the larger room upon the lower floor I found completely covered with blood, and in one corner, feet, hands, and arms were piled like pig's feet in a butcher's shop, while in an old shabby building adjoining (the inevitable "old house" which the people here never tear down or burn up but leave to use for a wood-shed, or granary, or tobacco-house, or nigger-quarters, until it passes fitness for any earthly use, and then suffer it to lie and rot in its place) lay the bodies of the men who had been operated on and died on the island. Out in the rain, close by, were also several dead bodies, and all-ex necessitatenaked. The men were digging a trench to bury them in one corner of the yard, under a large chestnut tree, as we came away. It was about nine o'clock when we crossed back. Between the house and the river we passed a couple of men carrying the dead body of an officer between two rails, his clothes and hands and face begrimed with mud and blood, and his head swaying from side to side with every motion of his rough coffin-bearers. It was doleful and ghastly and horrible beyond description.

It seems strange to me, as I write these lines afterwards in security and peace, that not one thought of disgust of war, or fear of its results in my own case, crossed my mind. It only seemed to beget in me an indifference to the whole thing. Indeed, after my first hour of daylight on that day, I lost my curiosity, and I remember that I never thought to inquire who this dead officer was whom the men carried.

On crossing the river the first business was to see if the regiments were settled in their places and orderly and the pickets understanding and doing their duty. This done, the general and I proceeded to forage for our breakfast. He had some tea in a canteen, I some whisky in a bottle, and both of us had hard bread and cheese. So we had quite a meal of it, though eaten in the rain and with the mud four inches deep, but it was a good deal more than many of our poor fellows had. The next thing was to hunt up a head-quarters, and after a considerable search I picked out the dryest of the little huts, and had to turn a fellow of the Ninth New York out of it, too. It was about six feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high, with a hole in one end to crawl in. So ended my first night and sight of battle.

WILLIAM R. HAMILTON,

First Lieutenant, Fifth United States Artillery.

REAR-ADMIRAL JAMES EDWARD JOUETT, UNITED STATES NAVY (RETIRED).

(Concluded from Volume XVI., page 533.)

THE monitor "Tecumseh" preceded the "Brooklyn," which was next in front of the "Hartford." Pilot John Collins was attached to Jouett's ship, but as Commander Craven, of the "Tecumseh," wanted to engage the Confederate ram "Tennessee," Jouett loaned Collins to Craven, as he hoped to see the two ironclads meet on equal terms. At 7.37 the "Tecumseh," trying to pass the line of submarine torpedoes, was blown up by them, sinking at once, carrying down almost her entire crew.

Farragut, who, from his elevated position on the "Hartford,” had seen the disaster, immediately hailed Jouett, still on the starboard wheelhouse of the "Metacomet," and asked him if he could spare a boat to pick up the survivors struggling in the water. Jouett had anticipated the admiral's wish, for his report says, "I immediately sent a boat to her assistance, in charge of Acting Ensign Henry C. Nields, who pulled to the spot where she sank, and succeeded in saving one acting ensign, eight men, and a pilot. It is unnecessary for me to comment on what he did; you know the situation under which he gallantly performed his duty; he delivered the men to the 'Winnebago,' and then joined the Oneida' and asked for some duty."

This fearful calamity threw the fleet into some considerable confusion, as naturally might have been expected, but Farragut was not alarmed, and ordered the "Hartford" to take the lead, the "Brooklyn" seeming to be dismayed by the fear of torpedoes. It is asserted that Jouett said that Farragut shouted, "Damn the torpedoes! Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead, Captain Daryton. Four bells." Afterwards Jouett remarked, it was "the only approach to an oath I ever heard him utter."

The "Metacomet" then backed at full power astern until the "Hartford" was twisted clear of the "Brooklyn," which lay in front of her, when Jouett asked if she should "go ahead." The pilot of the "Hartford" answered by holding up four fingers, which meant "four bells," the signal for full speed, for the roar of battle rendered speaking at that distance difficult to be heard.

The "Hartford" steamed at full speed ahead, taking the lead of the fleet, thus extricating them from a serious entanglement that had followed the hesitancy of the "Brooklyn."

The larger part of the readers of naval history are landsmen, to whom history is usually the record of events on land. Hence the view of the deeds of naval heroes is from the same point as that of deeds of the army, not allowing for the vast contrasts between the two elements on which the deeds have been done.

The sea is never still. Should there be no wind, there is the regular rise and fall of the waves, not violent, perhaps, or crested with foam, but moving. The vessel even at anchor moves about; it yields to the action of the water, wind, and currents, therefore is not motionless. If there is a combat on the sea, the vessel is in motion, and its antagonist, if a fort, has very great advantage in aiming, as it has only to calculate the movements of the vessel, and not its own also.

These inseparable concomitants of battle enter into every combat on the sea, and readers, as well as writers, should allow for them in criticising the great apparent differences between results of battles on sea and on land. When a general orders a halt, there the command remains, perhaps in perfect order; but when an admiral directs the fleet to halt, it must anchor, or be thrown into some disorder. There was no halt ordered by Farragut at the moment after the "Tecumseh" had been sunk by the deadly torpedo. The momentary loss of headway by the ironclads or other vessels threw the van into some disorder, and it was to extricate the "Hartford" from this, setting an example of what was to be done, that Farragut put the "Hartford" and "Metacomet" in advance, and thrust them ahead of every ship and over the line of torpedoes.

While the "Hartford" and "Metacomet," lashed together, were boldly passing the torpedoes, the Confederate gunboats "Selma," "Morgan," and "Gaines" seized the opportunity to deliver a terrible raking fire upon the two ships. A shell from the "Selma" struck the "Metacomet's" hawse-pipe, knocked a piece off, and killed a man, exploding in a store-room, among paints, oils, and such inflammables, setting fire to the ship. An officer, Ensign Wing, and the powder division fought the flames with wet blankets and hammocks, extinguishing them, but the heroic men came out with scorched clothing and singed hair and eyebrows.

These gunboats occasioned serious damage to other vessels, and Farragut, seeing that all his fleet had passed Fort Morgan, at 8.02 A.M. gave the signal, "Gunboats chase enemy's gunboats."

Jouett had repeatedly asked for this order, and at once had his men, with broadaxes, cut the heavy hawsers which bound him to the "Hartford," and, as he says in his official report, "at five minutes past eight steamed for the three rebel gunboats, who were annoying the