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 rcëmbarked, 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. Haver, 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 Govern ment 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

the intelligence, patriotism and spirit of self-sacrifice of the masses of the people. In the dwellings of energetic industry, throughout the free North, are found strong-minded, reflective men, who read the journals, who are acquainted with what is going on in the world, who form independent opinions, who sit in legislative, senatorial and gubernatorial chairs. It is not necessary to withhold bad news from such men. They are the State. They can appreciate its wants. They are able and willing to answer all its claims. It is often necessary to keep back information, which might aid the enemy. The people understand that as well as the rulers. But the people need not be told that defeats are victories; that military folly is strategy; that no man, who has not a military title, has a right to pronounce judgment upon the ordinary common-sense movements of war; that it is good generalship to hold an army exceeding 200,000 men, for seven months, doing nothing, while the Capital is besieged, and raw rebels, inferior to them in number, are flaunting the flag of defiance in their faces.

Perfect frankness a republican people demand of their rulers. These rulers are men of their own choice. The people will "coin their blood for drachms," in support of measures of whose wisdom they are satisfied. But they must be convinced that measures are wise, before they can be willing to lavish treasure and blood in their support. They must be frankly told of disasters, and not treated as children from whom disasters are to be concealed. The impression became universal throughout the country, that the crisis demanded a far more vigorous prosecution of hostilities. The nation had a militia of 4,000,000. Of these 500,000 could be called immediately into the field; 500,000 more could be organized and drilled as a reserve. And this would leave 3,000,000 from which to fill up all gaps. And there were 4,000,000 of slaves, eager to abandon the slaveholders, and with heart and hand to serve the patriots in every way in which their services could be rendered available. Such was our power, if we were only willing to exert it. The rebellion could have been trampled out, as a strong man tramples a reptile beneath his feet, if the Government had only so willed. The armies of the North and West, could have swept over Richmond, as the swollen Mississippi floods a sandbar, if the Government had only been roused to open the flood gates. With the control of the sea, and with foundries in full blast, arms could have been purchased and manufactured to meet every want. We could have had three soldiers to one of the rebels upon every field of battle; and thus have ended the conflict speedily and almost without bloodshed.

But we were a slumbering giant. For a long time we persisted in compelling our young men to use the spade instead of the musket. We wished to overawe by the show of power rather than by the exercise of power. We were very anxious not to exasperate our foes by wounding their pride, or impoverishing them, or striking them any blows, which they would keenly feel. And above all, in the commencement of the conflict, was there the desire, with a strong party in the nation, to convince the rebels that the Government had no disposition to strike the fetters from the limbs of the bondmen. It was this spirit which robbed us of the sympathies of the lovers of freedom, the world over; which made the hearts

of Christians sink within them, almost in despair; and which filled our hospitals with thousand-fold more of the victims of war than the bloodiest battle-fields could have furnished.

It would offend the rebels to employ slaves in the trenches, and therefore they were ordered out of our lines. And our young men, unaccustomed to such toil, were forced to dig knee-deep in the mud, after toilsome marches and sleepless watchings, while all around them were lusty negroes, lolling upon the grass, whose masters had run away from them, and who were almost irrepressibly eager, even for the most moderate wages, to handle the spade. And strange as it may seem-as part and parcel of this same insane absurdity-those who urged that our sons and brothers should be spared this toil, and that negroes should be employed in their stead, were stigmatized as fanatics, who loved the negro better than the white man. This crime, dooming our young men needlessly to the most exhausting toil, consigned thousands to the grave. Those who insisted upon this policy were more cruel than the rebels themselves. Thousands of fathers and mothers will read this page with tearful eye and anguish-stricken heart and say, "It was this inhuman policy, which has robbed us of our noble boy." Those very men, who, amidst the luxuries. of home, could not groom their horse or black their boots, but must have a servant to do this service for them, would not allow our soldiers, periling life for country, to have any such aid.

"Your musket," said an inspecting officer to a soldier, "does not look quite so bright as it ought." "I know it," replied the young soldier. "I know it, Colonel, but I have got a spade out there behind my tent that is as bright as a mirror.”

It was very slowly and reluctantly that the Government advanced towards the position, that the war was to be conducted on war principles. It was impossible for those of our generals who were in sympathy with slavery, who felt that the rebels were more than half right, and who wished to conduct the war in such a way that the North would be induced to make such concessions to the South, as the South would accept it was impossible that such generals, like the rebels who were thoroughly in earnest, should strike blows with all their possible strength. And hence it was, that for weary months we have the record of the measures and movements of a government but half aroused; contending forbearingly and timidly against a foe, as furious and envenomed as ever rushed to a field of battle. Never before did a people press forward with such enthusiasm to the banner of freedom; but in the earlier periods of the conflict their enthusiasm met with but a feeble response on the part of most of their leaders.

John C. Breckinridge, the radical pro-slavery candidate for the Presi dency, who had retained his situation in the Senate of the United States until this time, that he might, as far as possible, obstruct every measure of the Administration to quell the rebellion, now resigned his senatorial chair, and went directly to his own place, in the rebel army. In his manifesto, dated October 8, he says:

"I exchange, with proud satisfaction, a term of six years in the United