to fail. For a year after our raid the Upper St. Mary's remained
unvisited, till in 1864 the large force with which we held Florida
secured peace upon its banks; then Mrs. A. took the oath of allegiance,
the Government bought her remaining lumber, and the John Adams again
ascended with a detachment of my men under Lieutenant Parker, and
brought a portion of it to Fernandina. By a strange turn of fortune,
Corporal Sutton (now Sergeant) was at this time in jail at Hilton Head,
under sentence of court-martial for an alleged act of mutiny,--an affair
in which the general voice of our officers sustained him and condemned
his accusers, so that he soon received a full pardon, and was restored
in honor to his place in the regiment, which he has ever since held.

Nothing can ever exaggerate the fascinations of war, whether on the
largest or smallest scale. When we settled down into camp-life again, it
seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the chrysalis.
None of us could listen to the crack of a gun without recalling
instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs of the St.
Mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night without
recalling the sounds which startled us on the Field of the Hundred
Pines. The memory of our raid was preserved in the camp by many legends
of adventure, growing vaster and more incredible as time wore on,--and
by the morning appeals to the surgeon of some veteran invalids, who
could now cut off all reproofs and suspicions with "Doctor, I's been a
sickly pusson eber since de _expeditions_." But to me the most vivid
remembrancer was the flock of sheep which we had "lifted." The Post
Quartermaster discreetly gave us the charge of them, and they filled a
gap in the landscape and in the larder,--which last had before presented
one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, when he
decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of
Thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed
contentment than I upon that fleecy family. I had been familiar, in
Kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were
credited to his property, and had heard of a pro-slavery colt and an
anti-slavery cow. The fact that these sheep were but recently converted
from "Secesh" sentiments was their crowning charm. Methought they
frisked and fattened in the joy of their deliverance from the shadow of
Mrs. A.'s slave-jail, and gladly co