give up the search, a
noise was heard that seemed to come from a bureau in the ladies'
cabin. Search was made, and there, coiled up in a narrow
bureau-drawer, lay the leader of the band. He had been there two
hours, and was helpless from cramp and exhaustion. He was placed in a
cell at Fort Lafayette; but later, having been given the privilege of
walking about the fort, managed to escape by making floats of empty
tomato-cans, and with their aid swimming almost two miles. He was
afterwards recaptured, and remained a prisoner until released by
reason of an exchange of prisoners between the North and South. Soon
after his capture, the Federal authorities at Baltimore learned that
plans had been made to capture other passenger steamers in the same
way; but the ringleader being locked up, there was no difficulty in
defeating the plans of the band.

During the first few weeks of the war, before active hostilities had
fairly commenced, events of this nature were of almost daily
occurrence. On the Potomac particularly, small cruisers were in
continual danger of being captured, and put into commission under the
Confederate flag. A trading schooner loaded with garden-produce,
dropping lazily down the river to the bay, would suddenly be boarded
by four or five armed men, her crew driven below, and the vessel run
into some convenient port on the Virginia shore, to re-appear in a day
or two with a small rifled cannon mounted on the forecastle, and a
crew thirsting to capture more vessels for the Confederacy. On one
occasion a party of congressmen from Washington started down the
Potomac for an excursion to Hampton Roads. Their vessel was a small
tug, which carried a bow-gun carefully screened from observation by
tarpaulin. A short distance down the river, a boat with a howitzer was
seen putting out into the stream, and shaping its course directly
across the bows of the tug. As the two boats drew nearer together, a
demand came from the smaller that the tug should be surrendered "to
the State of Virginia." Apparently yielding, the captain of the tug
slowed up his vessel, and waited for his assailants to come alongside,
which they did until suddenly confronted with the muzzle of a cannon,
trained directly on their boat, and a loud voice demanding that they
surrender at once, which they accordingly did, and were taken to
Washington by their triumphant captors. Many such trivial events are
chronicled by the newspapers of the time. The