ord," I heard one
woman say, "I spec' I get salt victual now,--notin' but fresh victual
dese six months, but Ise get salt victual now,"--thus reversing, under
pressure of the salt-embargo, the usual anticipations of voyagers.

Trowbridge told me, long after, that, on seeking a fan for my benefit,
he could find but one on board. That was in the hands of a fat old
"aunty," who had just embarked, and sat on an enormous bundle of her
goods, in everybody's way, fanning herself vehemently, and ejaculating,
as her gasping breath would permit, "Oh! Do, Jesus! Oh! Do, Jesus!" When
the captain abruptly disarmed her of the fan, and left her continuing
her pious exercises.

Thus we glided down the river in the waning light. Once more we
encountered a battery, making five in all; I could hear the guns of the
assailants, and could not distinguish the explosion of their shells from
the answering throb of our own guns. The kind Quartermaster kept
bringing me news of what occurred, like Rebecca in Front-de-Boeuf's
castle, but discreetly withholding any actual casualties. Then all faded
into safety and sleep; and we reached Beaufort in the morning, after
thirty-six hours of absence. A kind friend, who acted in South Carolina
a nobler part amid tragedies than in any of her early stage triumphs,
met us with an ambulance at the wharf, and the prisoners, the wounded,
and the dead were duly attended.

The reader will not care for any personal record of convalescence;
though, among the general military laudations of whiskey, it is worth
while to say that one life was saved, in the opinion of my surgeons, by
an habitual abstinence from it, leaving no food for peritoneal
inflammation to feed upon. The able-bodied men who had joined us were
sent to aid General Gillmore in the trenches, while their families were
established in huts and tents on St. Helena Island. A year after,
greatly to the delight of the regiment, in taking possession of a
battery which they had helped to capture on James Island, they found in
their hands the selfsame guns which they had seen thrown overboard from
the "Governor Milton." They then felt that their account with the enemy
was squared, and could proceed to further operations.

Before the war, how great a thing seemed the rescue of even one man from
slavery; and since the war has emancipated all, how little seems the
liberation of two hundred! But no one then knew how the contest might
end; and when I think of tha