with her master, or mate. On one occasion a discussion
arose between them as to some result, and Balch in the course of the
argument said, "Figures won't lie." "Yes, that's all right," rejoined
the other, "figures won't lie, if you work them right; but you must
work them right, Mr. Balch." I was too young then to have noted a
somewhat similar remark about statistics; and I think now, after a
pretty long observation of mankind, its records and its statements,
that I should be inclined to extend that old seaman's comments to
facts also. Facts won't lie, if you work them right; but if you work
them wrong, a little disproportion in the emphasis, a slight
exaggeration of color, a little more or less limelight on this or that
part of the grouping, and the result is not truth, even though each
individual fact be as unimpeachable as the multiplication table.

After the capture of Port Royal, and the establishment there of the
naval base, and until the arrival of monitors a year later, operations
of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, as it was styled, were
confined to blockading. This took two principal forms. The
fortifications of Charleston and Savannah being still in the hands of
the enemy, and intact, these two chief seaports of that coast were
unassailable by our fleet. Even after Fort Sumter had been battered to
a shapeless heap of masonry, and Fort Pulaski had surrendered,
neither city fell until Sherman's march took it in the rear. But the
numerous inlets were substantially undefended against naval attack;
and for them the blockade, that tremendously potent instrument of the
national pressure, the work of which has been too little commemorated,
was instituted almost universally within. Even Fort Pulaski, before
its fall, though it sealed the highway to Savannah, could not prevent
the Union vessels from occupying the inside anchorage off Tybee
Island, completely closing the usual access from the sea to the town.
During the ensuing ten months there were very few of these entrances,
from Georgetown, the northernmost in South Carolina, down to
Fernandina, in Florida, into which the _Pocahontas_ did not penetrate,
alone or in company. I do not know whether people in other parts of
the country realize that these various inlets are connected by an
inside navigation, behind the sea islands, as they are called, the
whole making a system of sheltered intercommunication. The usefulness
of this was reinforced by the numerous na