CHAPTER XV.

FORCED INTO THE SERVICE.

Marcy Gray thought he had watched the movements of his native State
pretty closely since the result of the presidential election became
known, and perhaps he had; but there were some things connected with her
recent history that must have slipped his mind, or he would have seen at
once that the government at Washington was justified in closing her
ports to the world. The State had been in armed rebellion ever since the
month of January, when her local authorities committed treason by
seizing the forts along her coast. It is true that her Governor
disavowed the action, offered to restore the forts on condition that
they should not be garrisoned by United States troops, and that the
proposition was accepted; and it is also true that the State forces very
soon took possession of the forts again, this time acting under the
Governor's authority. The latter's refusal to send troops to the aid of
the national government proved him to be as much of a rebel as the
Governor of South Carolina was.

"So North Carolina is no whit better than the States that have joined
the Confederacy, is she?" said Marcy, when his mother had reminded him
of all these things. "But there's a great difference between talking and
doing," he added, wisely. "Three thousand miles make a pretty long
coast, the first thing you know, and I don't believe Uncle Sam has ships
enough to guard it. I'll bet you that when the blockade is established,
I can take the Fairy Belle and slip out and in as often as I feel like
it. It will be nothing but a paper blockade; but if it could be made
effectual, it would send the price of things up so that you couldn't
reach them with a ten-foot pole, would it not?"

Blockading more than three thousand miles of sea-coast, some portions of
which were noted for sudden and violent storms, was a gigantic
undertaking, and Marcy Gray was not the only one who did not think the
attempt would prove successful. To begin with, there were only ninety
vessels of all classes in the United States navy, and of the forty-two
in commission all except twelve had been sent to foreign stations on
purpose to have them out of the way when they were wanted. Of the
vessels comprising the home squadron, all except four were in the Gulf
of Mexico, where they stood a fine chance of falling into the hands of
the secessionists. The officers, who had been educated at the expen