ed equally hard.

Besides these divertisements, we had more laborious vocations,--a good
deal of fatigue, and genuine though small alarms. The men went on duty
every third day at furthest, and the officers nearly as often,--most
of the tours of duty lasting twenty-four hours, though the stream was
considered to watch itself tolerably well by daylight. This kind of
responsibility suited the men; and we had already found, as the whole
army afterwards acknowledged, that the constitutional watchfulness and
distrustfulness of the colored race made them admirable sentinels. Soon
after we went on picket, the commanding general sent an aid, with a
cavalry escort, to visit all the stations, without my knowledge. They
spent the whole night, and the officer reported that he could not get
within thirty yards of any post without a challenge. This was a pleasant
assurance for me; since our position seemed so secure, compared with
Jacksonville, that I had feared some relaxation of vigilance, while yet
the safety of all depended on our thorough discharge of duty.

Jacksonville had also seasoned the men so well that they were no longer
nervous, and did not waste much powder on false alarms. The Rebels made
no formal attacks, and rarely attempted to capture pickets. Sometimes
they came stealing through the creeks in "dugouts," as we did on their
side of the water, and occasionally an officer of ours was fired upon
while making his rounds by night. Often some boat or scow would go
adrift, and sometimes a mere dark mass of river-weed would be floated by
the tide past the successive stations, eliciting a challenge and perhaps
a shot from each. I remember the vivid way in which one of the men
stated to his officer the manner in which a faithful picket should do
his duty, after challenging, in case a boat came in sight. "Fus' ting I
shoot, and den I shoot, and den I shoot again. Den I creep-creep up near
de boat, and see who dey in 'em; and s'pose anybody pop up he head, den
I shoot again. S'pose I fire my forty rounds. I tink he hear at de
camp and send more mans,"--which seemed a reasonable presumption. This
soldier's name was Paul Jones, a daring fellow, quite worthy of his
namesake.

In time, however, they learned quieter methods, and would wade far out
in the water, there standing motionless at last, hoping to surround and
capture these floating boats, though, to their great disappointment,
the prize usually proved empty. On one occasi