ns. A white man, in woman's clothes, has been seen to enter a
certain house,--undoubtedly a spy. Further evidence discloses the Roman
Catholic priest, a peaceful little Frenchman, in his professional
apparel.--Anxious female enters. Some sentinel has shot her cow by
mistake for a Rebel. The United States cannot think of paying the
desired thirty dollars. Let her go to the Post-Quartermaster and select
a cow from his herd. If there is none to suit her, (and, indeed, not one
of them gave a drop of milk,--neither did hers,) let her wait till the
next lot comes in,--that is all.--Yesterday's operations gave the
following total yield:--Thirty 'contrabands,' eighteen horses, eleven
cattle, ten saddles and bridles, and one new army wagon. At this rate,
we shall soon be self-supporting _cavalry_.

"Where complaints are made of the soldiers, it almost always turns out
that the women have insulted them most grossly, swearing at them, and
the like. One unpleasant old Dutch woman came in, bursting with wrath,
and told the whole narrative of her blameless life, diversified with
sobs:--

"'Last January I ran off two of my black people from St.
Mary's to Fernandina, (sob,)--'then I moved down there
myself, and at Lake City I lost six women and a boy,'
(sob,)--'then I stopped at Baldwin for one of the wenches to
be confined,'(sob,)--'then I brought them all here to live
in a Christian country' (sob, sob). 'Then the blockheads'
[blockades, that is, gunboats] 'came, and they all ran off
with the blockheads,' (sob, sob, sob,) 'and left me, an old
lady of forty-six, obliged to work for a living.' (Chaos of
sobs, without cessation.)

"But when I found what the old sinner had said to the soldiers, I rather
wondered at their self-control in not throttling her."

* * * * *

Meanwhile skirmishing went on daily in the outskirts of the town. There
was a fight on the very first day, when our men killed, as before
hinted, a Rebel surgeon, which was oddly metamorphosed in the Southern
newspapers into their killing one of ours, which certainly never
happened. Every day, after this, they appeared in small mounted squads
in the neighborhood, and exchanged shots with our pickets, to which the
gunboats would contribute their louder share, their aim being rather
embarrassed by the woods and hills. We made reconnoisances, too, to
learn the country in different directions