ntry 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 inse