wanderings through swamps and thorny thickets, hopes
and despairs of flight; all were at an end, and now only
friends surrounded them, only congratulating and
commiserating voices met their ears. It was a feast of joy
never to be forgotten.

A few words will finish. One hundred and nine men had
escaped. Of these, fifty-five reached the Union lines.
Fifty-four were captured and taken back to prison. Some of
the escaped officers, more swift in motion or fortunate in
route than the others, reached the Union lines on their
third day from Richmond. Their report that others were on
the road bore good fruit. General Butler, then in command
at Fortress Monroe, sent out, on alternate days, the
Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry and the First New York Rifles
to patrol the country in search of the escaping prisoners,
with tall guidons to attract their attention if they should
be in concealment. Many of the fugitives were thus rescued.
The adventures of two, as above given, must serve for
example of them all.

THE SINKING OF THE ALBEMARLE.

Naval operations in the American Civil War were particularly
distinguished by the active building of iron-clads. The
North built and employed them with marked success; the
South, with marked failure. With praiseworthy energy and at
great cost the Confederates produced iron-clad vessels of
war in Norfolk Harbor, on Roanoke River, in the Mississippi,
and elsewhere, yet, with the exception of the one day's raid
of ruin of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, their labor was
almost in vain, their expensive war-vessels went down in the
engulfing waters or went up in flame and smoke. Their
efforts in this direction were simply conspicuous examples
of non-success. We propose here to tell the tale of disaster
of the Albemarle, one of these iron-clads, and the great
deed of heroism which brought her career to an untimely end.

The Albemarle was built on the Roanoke River in 1863. She
was of light draught, but of considerable length and width,
her hull above the water-line being covered with four inches
of iron bars. Such an armor would be like paper against the
great guns of to-day; then it served its purpose well. The
competition for effectiveness between rifled cannon and
armor plates had not yet begun.

April, 1864, had arrived before this formidable opponent of
the Union blockading fleet was ready for service. Then, one
misty morning, down the river she went, on her mission of
death and dest