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balls to pass through the leg of his pants; and the stock of his gun was shivered by a ball while he was taking aim. He was lodged in hospital No. 4, and when last heard from was rapidly recovering from his injuries.

At the battle of Fort Donelson, Peter Morton, of the 13th Illinois, had the case of his watch, which he wore in his upper vest pocket, immediately over his heart, torn away by a canister shot, and the watch still continued to keep time.

STORY XLII.

ENLISTING NEGROES.

THE following matter of fact occurred at Nashville, as stated by the Nashville Union:

A slaveholder from the country approached an old acquaintance, also a slaveholder, residing in the city, and said: "I have several negro men lurking about here, somewhere. I wish you would look out for them, and when you find them do with them as if they were your own."

"Certainly I will," replied his friend.

A few days after the parties met again, and the planter asked, "Have you found my slaves?"

"I have."

"And where are they?"

"Well, you told me to with them as if they were my own, and as I made my men enlist in the Union army, I did the same with yours."

The astounded planter absquatulated.

STORY XLIII.

A HEROIC UNION GIRL.

PADUCAH, February 11, 1862.

IN these times of terror and peril in this district, some of the most heroic acts have been performed, but perhaps the noblest of all was enacted a few days since, by a young lady of Graves County, well known to the writer, Miss Anna Bassford. Her father and family are devotedly for the Union; the old man having information that the notorious H. C. King, (expelled from our Legislature for treason,) and his robber band, intended to visit the house for the purpose of taking horses, guns, &c., hid his gun, and brought his horses to this place.

While here, three of King's robber band visited the house, demanded the gun, and alarmed Mrs. Bassford, who ordered a son, some fifteen years old, to find the gun, and deliver it to them. The boy, after considerable search, found the gun; the robbers then demanded a pistol, which they were informed belonged in the family; whereupon the daughter, some seventeen years old, told them she knew where the pistol was, but they could not get it.

The robbers insisted, with loud, vulgar oaths, but the girl was determined; and seeing they were foiled in this, they ordered the feeble, sickly boy to mount up behind one of their clan, as they intended to take him to Camp Beauregard, in place of his "d--d Lincolnite father."

The boy and mother in tears, protested, but to no

effect, and the boy was in the act of mounting, when the heroic sister stepped between her brother and the robbers, and, drawing, cocking, and presenting the pistol, ordered her brother to the house, and with eagle-piercing eye fastened on the robbers, and death-dealing determination in her countenance, dared them to hinder or touch her brother, and she would lay the one that did so dead at her feet. Suffice it to say, the three brigands scampered off, and left the family without further molestation.

STORY XLIV.

A GALLANT STAND BY AN ILLINOIS COMPANY.

DURING the Rebel raid in West Virginia, in the spring of 1863, an event occurred worthy of record. Captain Wallace, Company G, 23d Illinois, in command of a part of his company and a detachment of Company A, 14th Virginia, under Captain Smith, in all eighty men, occupied a church at the mouth of Greenland Gap, so advantageously placed as to command the gap, and compel the enemy to capture it before they could advance. From morning until dark this brave little force withstood a Rebel force of fifteen hundred men.

Three times the enemy charged up to the church, and were repulsed. Five out of eight of the officers of their first battalion were killed or wounded in the first charge. The number of the enemy slain was more than the whole force opposed to them. "Bravely they fought-long and well," but sorrowful to relate, as night drew on, the

enemy took advantage of the shade to fire the building. Even then the undaunted braves refused to surrender, and it was not till the blazing roof fell in, that they yielded. Glory to the fallen heroes. General Kelley pronounces it one of the most gallant affairs of the war.

STORY XLV.

BALLOONING EXTRAORDINARY.

RELATED BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

On the 11th of April, 1862, at five o'clock P. M., an event, both thrilling and amusing, occurred at our camp in front of Yorktown. The commander-in-chief had appointed Fitz-John Porter to conduct the siege. He was a soldierly New Hampshire gentleman, of the regular army, had fought gallantly in Mexico, was forty years of age, handsome, enthusiastic, ambitious, and popular. He had made several ascensions with Professor Lowe, and learned to go aloft alone.

One day he ascended thrice, and seemed as cosily at home in the firmament, as upon the solid earth. It is needless to say that he grew careless, and on this particular morning, leaped into the car, and demanded the cables to be let out with all speed. I saw, with some surprise, that the flurried assistants were sending up the great straining canvass with a single rope attached.

The balloon was but partially inflated, and the loose folds opened and shut with a crack like that of a musket. Noiselessly, fitfully, the yellow mass rose into the sky, the basket rocking like a feather in the zephyr;

and just as I turned to speak to a comrade, a sound from overhead, like the explosion of a shell, and something striking me across the face, laid me flat upon the ground.

Half-blind and stunned, I staggered to my feet, but the air seemed full of cries and curses. Opening my eyes ruefully, I saw all faces turned upward, and when I looked above-the balloon was adrift. The treacherous cable, rotted with vitriol, had snapped in twain; one fragment had been the cause of my downfall, and the other trailed, like a great entrail, from the receding car, where Fitz-John Porter was bounding upward, upon a Pegasus that he could neither check nor direct.

The whole army was agitated by the unwonted occurrence. From battery No. 1, on the brink of the York, to the mouth of Warwick river, every soldier and officer was absorbed. Far within the Confederate lines the excitement extended. We heard the enemy's alarm-guns, and directly the signal flags were waving up and down our front.

The General appeared directly over the edge of the car. He was tossing his hands frightenedly, and shouting something that we could not comprehend.

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Open the valve!" called Lowe, in his shrill tones: "climb-to--the -- netting--and reach-the valve—

rope."

"The valve!-the valve!" repeated a multitude of tongues, and all gazed with thrilling interest at the retreating hulk, that still kept straight upward, swerving neither to the east nor the west.

It was a weird spectacle-that frail, fading, oval, gliding against the sky, floating in the serene azure. the little vessel swinging silently beneath, and a hun

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