Farragut, all occurred during the stay of the
_Pocahontas_ upon the blockade in 1862. Our news was apt to be ten
days old, but to us it was as good as new; indeed, somewhat better,
for we heard of the first reverses at Shiloh, and by the hands of the
_Merrimac_, by the same mail which brought word of the final decided
victory. Thus we were spared the anxiety of suspense. Even the
disasters about Richmond were not by us fairly appreciated until the
ship returned North, when the mortification of defeat was somewhat
solaced, and the tendency to despondency lessened, by the happiness of
being again at home; in my case after a continuous absence of more
than three years, in the _Congress_ and _Pocahontas_.

Talking of despondency, I had an odd experience of the ease with which
people forget their frames of mind. While Burnside was engaged in the
movements preceding Fredericksburg, I was in conversation with a
veteran naval officer at his own house. Speaking of the probable
outcome of the operations in progress, which then engrossed all
thoughts, he said to me, "I think, Mr. Mahan, that if we fail this
time, we may as well strike"; the naval phrase "strike the colors"
being the equivalent of surrender--give up. I dissented heartily; not
from any really reasoned appreciation of conditions, but on general
principles, as understood by a man still very young. More than two
years later, when the war had just drawn to its triumphant close, I
again met the same gentleman. Amid our felicitations, he said to me,
"There is one thing, Mr. Mahan, which I have never allowed myself to
doubt--the ultimate success of our just cause."

After all, it was very natural. When you are cold, you're cold, and
when you're hot, you're hot; and if you are indiscreet enough to say
so to some one who feels differently, he remembers it against you.
What business have you to feel other than he? If, with the thermometer
at zero, I chance to say that I wish it were warmer, I am sure of some
one, a lady usually, bursting in upon me when it is ninety-five, with
the jeer, "Well! I hope, now, _you_ are satisfied." I recall
distinctly the long faces we pulled when we reached Philadelphia on
our return, and realized, by the withdrawal of McClellan's army to
Washington, the full extent of our disasters on the Peninsula; my old
commodore might then have found some to say, Amen. But this did not
keep our hats any lower when we chucked them aloft over Vicksburg and