for heavy guns; a large quantity of shot and shell; one brig, with a cargo of fifty bales of cotton; two schooners, with assorted cargoes; and an immense amount of provisions.

On Thursday morning, August 27th, the prisoners were removed from the Adelaide to the flag-ship Minnesota. Nearly all the men were lean, pallid and sickly-the general appearance of the poor and uneducated of the North Carolinians, who spend their lives gathering turpentine, beneath the vast pine forests of their State. The prisoners were taken to Fort Lafayette and Governor's Island, in the harbor of New York, there to remain until exchanged, or until the close of the war.

Gen. Butler immediately embarked on board the Adelaide, to report the victory at Washington. The two forts, well garrisoned, and with the Stars and Stripes waving over them, were left under the charge of Col. Max Weber and Col. Hawkins. A few ships were also left as a coast guard. The monotony of life at the Cape was enlivened by occasional chases after schooners and other Confederate vessels, which, not knowing that the forts had changed masters, ventured to approach the Inlet.

The Indiana troops, who were left at Hatteras, were quite well pleased with their quarters. Game and fresh fish were abundant, and the people of the Inlet were found to be full of strong Union feeling, and they welcomed the United States troops with the utmost cordiality. The Harriet Lane, which was grounded at the time of the surrender, was at one time given up for lost, and all her armament was taken off. Thus lightened, at high tide she floated, and was saved.

Reënforcements were received early in September, and the 20th Indiana regiment, under Col. Brown, left Fort Hatteras, and marching up the narrow tongue of land about thirty miles, selected a favorable spot for encampment, midway between Fort Hatteras and the head of the Island. Here they threw up intrenchments, reaching across the island, about a mile wide, from the sea to the sound. They thus formed for themselves a stronghold, which they deemed impregnable against any assaults the enemy could bring against them. The people dwelling upon this long, slender sand bar, were deplorably ignorant of all that was going on in the world. Many of them had never been to the main shore, about twenty miles distant, across the sound. They, however, hailed the arrival of the Indianians with joy, for they had suffered much under the iron rule of the

rebels.

On the first of October, the Fanny, which played so conspicuous a part in the capture of Hatteras, was sent to the Island, though, very improvidently, almost unarmed and without convoy, to convey ammunition and clothing to the Indianians, who were in great need of both. She had entered the Inlet, and was steaming up the Sound, when she was pursued by two rebel steamers from the main land. The captain, seeing that resistance would be useless, ran the Fanny on shore, and, with a part of the crew, escaped. The rebels captured the abandoned steamer, with all the stores on board, and about thirty of the crew. The next day the armed steamers Ceres and Putnam were sent up the Sound, and landed supplies for the suffering troops. They saw, however, nothing of the enemy.

About daylight, on the morning of the fourth, the lookouts of Col. Brown's regiment reported six rebel steamers, with several schooners and flat-boats in tow, steering directly for their encampment. Col. Brown had but eight hundred men; he was over thirty miles from the forts; the island was not more than a mile wide. The rebels had four thousand men to land. They could land half in front to assail the Indianians, and then run along the shore a dozen miles, and land two thousand more to cut off the retreat. They could then, with the guns of their steamers, mow down the helpless Union troops at their pleasure. Never was a regiment in a more perilous and apparently hopeless condition.

A courier was instantly despatched to inform Col. Hawkins, at the forts, of their peril, and tha: Col. Brown would retreat to the light-house on the Cape, and there endeavor to make a stand. Without a moment's delay, they commenced their retreat. The rebels landed fifteen hundred men three miles above them. This required, with their inexperience, more time than they had anticipated. They then passed rapidly down the coast some miles, and commenced landing more troops, having no doubt that the Indianians were thus completely bagged. But Col. Brown had moved with such wonderful celerity, as to frustrate their plan. At nine o'clock in the evening, he successfully reached the light-house, his soldiers not having eaten any thing since morning, and still not having a mouthful with which to refresh themselves, after their painful march through the sand. In the mean time, the courier had reached the forts, and the two steam frigates, Susquehanna and Monticello, were dispatched on the ocean side of the island for their relief. Col. Hawkins also started, with six companies of his Zouaves, on the double quick, to reënforce the retreating troops.

The Susquehanna rapidly proceeded to the light-house cove, and anchored there, within gun-shot of the light. The ship under Capt. Lardner arrived in the night, and when the day broke, food was sent to the starving troops on shore. Remaining there for their protection, he ordered the Monticello to proceed closely along the shore, to search out the enemy. The frigate had proceeded but a short distance when the rebels were seen, within half gun-shot, full of confidence and exultation, crowding down for the destruction of their victims. Never were songs of triumph more suddenly turned into the wailings of despair.

The Monticello instantly opened upon them with the most deadly fire of shells, which fell plump into their crowded ranks, and exploded with the most awful destruction. The rebels, in the utmost terror, turned and fled. But there was no place of safety. The storm fell upon them like the bolts of an avenging God. The steamer slowly moved along the coast, emitting an incessant burst of lightning and of thunder, every volley strewing the sand with the dying and the dead. Shells were thrown entirely across the land, and fell into the midst of the revel fleet, driving them back from the shore, so that the soldiers could not reëmbark. No protection, no shelter, could any where be found. Two hundred and eighteen shells, every one doing efficient service, were thus thrown upon them. The terror-stricken fugitives, scattered as widely as possible over

the sands, and hundreds were seen to wade out into the sound, up to their necks, and when they heard the shriek of an approaching shell, would duck their heads under the water, and thus remain as long as they could hold their breath. Thus the firing was continued until night set in. In the darkness, the rebels reëmbarked, and in the morning no traces of their presence could be discovered. The amount of their loss has never been ascertained. As we have before mentioned, not the slightest reliance can be placed in the statements of the rebels. Here were nearly four thousand men, without any shelter, exposed for five hours to the fire of a frigate at half gun-shot range. And yet the Norfolk Day Book, in its report of the conflict, says, "The Federal steamer Monticello took up a position about half a mile from the shore, and opened fire on them by broadsides, with 11-inch shell, and continued to shell them for five hours, without injury to any one, except a slight bruise on one man's leg, who fell down in endeavoring to dodge a ball, which rolled over his leg, and a slight scratch on another's face, from the explosion of a shell."

A correspondent on board the Monticello writes, "We slaughtered them like sheep, sinking their boats as they attempted to get on board their vessels on the Sound side, blowing them to pieces as they waded out into the water. They threw away their arms, and ran wildly up and down the beach."

In the midst of the bombardment, the crew of the Monticello saw two men on the beach, making signals to them. They sent a boat ashore, under the cover of the guns. The men plunged into the surf to swim out to their friends. One, Charles White, unfortunately, was drowned. The other, Warren O. IIaver, was saved. They were both Indianians, who had been captured, with another young man of the name of Bennet, by the rebels. They remained in the encampment, to destroy what they could, a little too long, and were seized. They were treated with the grossest insults, and with their hands tied behind them, and without being allowed any food, were left, not very strongly guarded, for the night. Bennet, at the time of the capture, in the endeavor to escape, was shot dead. Near the morning Haver succeeded in getting his hands clear, and then secretly unbound White. With a small revolver which he had secreted, he shot the guard, and they both plunged into a bog, where there was a very dense growth of rushes. The pursuit of the enemy was interrupted by the opening bombardment of the Monticello. As the rebels in their terror fled, the two young men ran to the beach and hailed their comrades. It seems, indeed, a sad fate for poor White, thus to perish in the surf, after so heroic an escape from the foe.

The rebels with their fleet of steamers and their land force of four thousand men, had planned to cut off the 20th Indiana regiment, and then to march for the capture of Fort Hatteras. The providential presence of two frigates at Hatteras thwarted their designs. Again and again during this conflict, our navy has proved our salvation. The rebels bleeding, exhausted, humiliated, retired to the main land, and the Stars and Stripes continued to float over the Hatteras forts, proclaiming that they still remained in the possession of their lawful owners, the United States of America.

CHAPTER VIII.

BALL'S BLUFF AND HILTON HEAD.

REPOSE OF THE ARMY ON THE POTOMAC.-UNEASINESS AT THE NORTH.-MISTAKE OF THE GOVERNMENT.-PERPLEXITIES OF THE EXECUTIVE.-BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF.-DEATH OF COL. BAKER.-SKIRMISH AT ROMNEY.-SECRET NAVAL EXPEDITION.-CAPTURE OF FORTS AT HILTON HEAD.-INCIDENTS.-MISTAKEN POLICY OF THE UNIONISTS.-REBEL PLANS FOR THE SUBVERSION OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE army of the Potomac soon assumed the most formidable proportions in numbers and in all the materiel of war. Still for nearly nine months it was held in repose, organizing and drilling, without any forward movement. The disaster at Bull Run had been generally, but very erroneously, attributed to the advance of the army before it was in condition for action. And this advance was attributed to the clamor of the people, goading our generals to movements for which they were unprepared. The impatient public were not disposed to expose themselves to the repetition of this charge, and for a long time, remained silent, yet waiting anxiously for the inert masses to be led beyond their ramparts. But as month after month rolled on, and more than two hundred thousand troops stood unemployed in their trenches, at an expense, as it was estimated, of more than a million of dollars a day, with the flag of the enemy flaunted within view of their bastions, with Washington besieged, while insult and defiance were borne to the patriots from every southern breeze, the public again became too impatient to withhold their murmurs. Though they were assured that this repose was strategic, and that civilians were incompetent to form an opinion upon military matters, the daily telegram, month after month, "All quiet upon the Potomac," became at last unendurable.

There were, however, during this long period of inaction, the reasons for which have never yet been satisfactorily explained, many individual acts of heroism displayed, in the bold adventures and skirmishes to which chivalrous spirits were invited, all along the lines of the armies. Many of these incidents, though having but little bearing upon the great issues of the war, are invested with much romantic interest. The army skilfully reorganized and invigorated by the genius of its new commander, preëminent in this. department of military science, attained a magnitude hitherto quite unprecedented in this New World, and rarely equaled beyond the Atlantic. Great confidence was reposed in the young general, for though he was unknown to the community, the voice of the army officers was

almost unanimously, and very warmly, in his favor. Major Roland, at a public festival in New Hampshire, said, that during a recent visit to Russia, Gen. Todtleben, the renowned Engineer of the Crimean war, had remarked that there were two great soldiers in the United States; one was Gen. Scott, well known to fame by his warlike deeds; the other was Gen. McClellan, known through his military writings. Gen. Todtleben predicted for him a brilliant career. Such testimony inspired the community with great confidence, or rather greatly relieved the anxiety, with which the inexplicable repose of the army of the Potomac was regarded.

But this petty warfare did, by no means, satisfy the public mind. Washington was besieged-the nation dishonored and insulted in the eyes of Christendom; two hundred thousand patriot troops were leaning listlessly upon their muskets, behind their intrenchments. There was almost an universal feeling throughout the North, that the crisis demanded a far more vigorous prosecution of hostilities. Though many, sympathizing with the Government in its embarrassments, restrained their impatience and kept silence, others could not refrain from urging importunately that the nation should strike with all its strength. They felt that the Union must go to ruin if the rebels, who had roused maniacal energies for the fight, were to be met with a spirit so mild and tardy.

The people were ready to contribute any number of men, and any amount of money which might be asked for. Volunteers crowded to the camps in such numbers, that they could not be accepted. Drafting was entirely unnecessary; and yet the community, without a murmur, would have submitted to a draft of fifteen hundred thousand men, one half to take the field, and the rest to be held as a reserve. All they asked was, that this miserable rebellion of a few thousand slaveholders, compelling four millions of slaves, and half as many "poor whites," more degraded than the slaves, to follow in their train, should be speedily and effectually put down.

Many of our generals were far from being hostile to slavery, and had cherished the feeling that the country should have yielded to the demands of the slaveholders. Violently they denounced those, in the North, who had opposed such concession. This state of mind weakened their energies in the prosecution of the war. Blow after blow was struck by the rebels with the most envenomed hate. There was but little of that vigor in the blows returned. Never before did a government so unwillingly come to the conviction that there was no alternative, but regular, old-fashioned, death-dealing, bloody, dreadful war. At first but seventy-five thousand men were called for. After the disaster at Bull Run, it began to be realized that a much larger force would be required. And yet, just at the time. when the rebels had passed a law of conscription, forcing into their army every man between seventeen and thirty-five, the United States Government declared that they had soldiers enough, and stopped recruiting. It soon became evident that wherever we met upon the battle-field, the rebels outnumbered us two to one. Thus the war languished, and twenty millions of people allowed themselves to be humiliated and held at bay by five millions.

Another mistake was made. Not sufficient confidence was reposed in