fter the
fight had lasted about four hours the Galena withdrew much crippled, and
has never, I believe, been known to fame since. The result of the
contest goes to confirm the opinion expressed to me by General
Beauregard--viz., that ironclads cannot resist the plunging fire of
forts, even though that latter can only boast of the old smooth-bore
guns.

A Captain Maury took me on board the Richmond ironclad, in which vessel
I saw a 7-inch treble-banded Brook gun, weighing, they told me, 21,000
lb., and capable of standing a charge of 25 lb. of powder. Amongst my
fellow-passengers from Richmond I had observed a very Hibernian-looking
prisoner in charge of one soldier. Captain Maury informed me that this
individual was being taken to Chaffin's Bluff, where he is to be shot at
12 noon to-morrow for desertion.

Major Norris and I bathed in James river at 7 P.M. from a rocky and very
pretty island in the centre of the stream.

I spent another very agreeable evening at Mrs S----'s, and met General
Randolph, Mr Butler King, and Mr Conrad there; also Colonel Johnston,
aide-de-camp to the President, who told me that they had been forced, in
order to stop Burnside's executions in Kentucky, to select two Federal
captains, and put them under orders for death. General Randolph looks in
weak health. He had for some time filled the post of Secretary of War;
but it is supposed that he and the President did not quite hit it off
together. Mr Conrad as well as Mr King is a member of Congress, and he
explained to me that, at the beginning of the war, each State was most
desirous of being put (without the slightest necessity) under military
law, which they thought was quite the correct remedy for all evil; but
so sick did they soon become of this _regime_ that at the last session
Congress had refused the President the power of putting any place under
military law, which is just as absurd in the other direction.

I hear every one complaining dreadfully of General Johnston's inactivity
in Mississippi, and all now despair of saving Vicksburg. They deplore
its loss, more on account of the effect its conquest may have in
prolonging the war, than for any other reason. No one seems to fear that
its possession, together with Port Hudson, will really enable the
Yankees to navigate the Mississippi; nor do they fear that the latter
will be able to prevent communication with the trans-Mississippi
country.

Many of the Richmond papers seem to me sc