river.

Presently, while we stood at ease, people began to arrive,--some with
smallish fruit to sell, some with smaller news to give. Nobody knew
whether Washington was taken. Nobody knew whether Jeff. Davis was now
spitting in the Presidential spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with
the nib of the Presidential goose-quill. We were absolutely in doubt
whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of rustics, on a mound without
the inclosure, might not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant
columbiads, and belch blazes at us, raking our line.

Nothing so entertaining happened. It was a parade, not a battle. At
sunset our band played strains sweet enough to pacify all Secession, if
Secession had music in its soul. Coffee, hot from the coppers of the
Naval School, and biscuit were served out to us; and while we supped, we
talked with our visitors, such as were allowed to approach.

First the boys of the School--fine little blue-jackets--had their story
to tell.

"Do you see that white farm-house, across the river?" says a brave pigmy
of a chap in navy uniform. "That is head-quarters for Secession. They
were going to take the School from us, Sir, and the frigate; but
we've got ahead of 'em, now you and the Massachusetts boys have come
down,"--and he twinkled all over with delight. "We can't study any more.
We are on guard all the time. We've got howitzers, too, and we'd like
you to see, to-morrow, on drill, how we can handle 'em. One of their
boats came by our sentry last night," (a sentry probably five feet
high,) "and he blazed away, Sir. So they thought they wouldn't try us
that time."

It was plain that these young souls had been well tried by the treachery
about them. They, too, had felt the pang of the disloyalty of comrades.
Nearly a hundred of the boys had been spoilt by the base example of
their elders in the repudiating States, and had resigned.

After the middies, came anxious citizens from the town. Scared, all of
them. Now that we were come and assured them that persons and property
were to be protected, they ventured to speak of the disgusting tyranny
to which they, American citizens, had been subjected. We came into
contact here with utter social anarchy. No man, unless he was ready
to risk assault, loss of property, exile, dared to act or talk like a
freeman. "This great wrong must be righted," think the Seventh Regiment,
as one man. So we tried to reassure the Annapolitans that we meant to do
our dut