a battery at its base. The enemy gave it up without a struggle, and the flag of the Union, the first in Georgia, was hoisted over the tower. The possession of this island shut the port of Savannah against blockade-runners, and gave the Union troops a point from which to attack Fort Pulaski, on an island a little further up the river.

In December an attempt was made to close Charleston Harbor by sinking a fleet of sixteen old vessels, loaded with stone, across the main channel. Great expectations were formed of this, and some of the newspapers said that Charleston Harbor was a "thing of the past." Those friendly to the Confederates called it a "barbarous act," and the British Government protested against it. But the stone fleet proved a failure: the sea soon broke up the hulks of the vessels, and they with their cargoes disappeared in quicksands below.

CHARLES WILKES.

While Commodore Dupont's fleet was battling with the storm off the coast of South Carolina, an event took place among the West India Islands which bid fair for a time to involve the United States in a

war with Great Britain. The Confederate Government, anxious to get the aid of some of the European powers, had appointed Messrs. James M. Mason and John Slidell commissioners, the one to England and the other to France, to try to induce the governments of those countries to recognize the independence of the seceded States. These gentlemen sailed from Charleston on the night of October 12 in a blockade-runner, went to Havana, and sailed from there in the British mail steamer Trent for the island of St. Thomas, where they expected to take a steamer for Southampton, England. Captain Charles Wilkes, famous as the commander of the American Exploring Expedition to the South Seas, hap

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pened to be returning at this time from the coast of Africa in command of the steam sloop-of-war San Jacinto, and hearing in Havana of the intention of the Confederate commissioners to sail in the Trent, he determined to take them. He therefore watched for the Trent in the Bahama Channel, and when she came up hailed her to heave to. She paid no attention to this and kept on her course; but when a shell was fired across her bow, she stopped. A boat, in command of Lieutenant Donald M. Fairfax, was sent to her, with orders to take the commissioners prisoners, and bring them with their papers and baggage on board the San Jacinto. Messrs. Mason and Slidell refused, and several armed boats were then sent from the San Jacinto and the commissioners and their secretaries, Messrs.

Eustis and McFarland, were taken by force, amid the protests and insults of the officers and passengers of the Trent. They were carried to Boston, where they were confined in Fort Warren, then used, like Fort Lafayette, as a prison for political offenders.

Lieutenant Fairfax, who was a Virginian by birth and a connection of Mason's by marriage, conducted the delicate business with the utmost courtesy and kindness. A story was current at the time that Miss Slidell, the daughter of Mr. Slidell, had, in the excitement of the moment, slapped Lieutenant Fairfax in the face; but, fortunately for the credit of American womanhood, Lieutenant Fairfax was able to deny this.

Captain Wilkes received universal praise for his act when he reached New York, and many public honors were bestowed

upon him. He was even thanked by the Secretary of the Navy and by Congress; but Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward and some others of our more thoughtful statesmen saw at once that his act, however just it might be according to British law, was not right according to American law. In 1812 the United States went to war with Great Britain because that country claimed the right to search the vessels of any neutral or friendly power, and to take from them not only the goods of an enemy but also any subjects of her own found there. Her men-of-war continually stopped American vessels on the high seas, and took from them British seamen to serve in their navy. As their officers were not very careful in performing this duty, many thousand Americans were thus impressed and made to serve in their ships. The United States Government protested in vain against this, and it was one of the chief causes of the war of 1812-1814. Great Britain was thus forced to let American seamen alone, but she did not even then give up the right she had claimed.

The act of Captain Wilkes, therefore, though right in British law, could not be justified by us because we had always claimed that the flag of a friendly power protects everything on board a vessel, unless the vessel be engaged in an illegal act. The Government of the United States therefore determined to give up the prisoners if Great Britain should demand them, and Mr. Adams, our minister at the Court of St. James, was notified of the fact.

The news of the "outrage," as the English newspapers chose to call the seizure of the commissioners, was received with great indignation in Great Britain, and the government, without waiting to hear whether the United States Government would justify the act of Captain Wilkes, made hasty preparations for war. The great iron-clad Warrior was made ready for sea, cannon were bought, and troops ordered to Canada. The Guards went on board the vessels to the music of "I'm off to Charleston," for they thought they were going to aid the Confederates. Much of this was mere bluster on the part of the British Government, for at the time when these preparations were going on it had in its possession a despatch from Washington which showed that the United States Government would treat the matter in a friendly spirit. But the party then in power in England was not friendly to the United States, and

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would have been very glad to see the country divided; so Lord Lyons, the British Minister at Washington, was instructed to demand an apology and the immediate release of the prisoners, many hoping probably that the United States would refuse.

The temper of the people was such that if there had then been an Atlantic telegraph it is probable that war would have taken place. Mr. Lincoln illustrated the feeling of the two nations by a story. "My father," he said, "had a neighbor from whom he was separated only by a fence. On each side of the fence were two savage dogs, who kept running backward and forward all day long, barking and snapping at each other. One day they came to a large opening recently made in the fence. Did they take advantage of this to devour each other? Not at all; scarcely had they seen the gap when they both ran back, each on his own side, with their tails between their legs. These two dogs are fair representatives of America and England." And so it turned out: the United States Government agreed at once to release the prisoners, mainly on the ground that the seizure was contrary to American principles, and the two peoples, who appeared to be on the brink of war, experienced a feeling of relief when the matter was settled, and treated each other thereafter with greater respect than before. Mr. Seward, by way of a joke, in closing the affair, sent word to the British. consul in Portland, Maine, that the British troops which had started for Canada to prepare for hostilities against the United States would be permitted to land at that port to escape the dangers of the ice in the bay of St. Lawrence.

Messrs. Mason and Slidell and their secretaries were delivered up, January 1, 1862, to the British authorities, much to the disappointment of the Confederates, who had hoped that a war between the United States and Great Britain would lead to their independence. The commissioners arrived at the end of the month in England, but the excitement in regard to them had nearly died away and they attracted little attention.

ZOLLICOFFER

CHAPTER XIII.

MILL SPRING.-FORT HENRY.

IN KENTUCKY.-CAMP WILDCAT.-GENERAL SCHOEPF.-SHAM SECESSION OF KENTUCKY.-GENERAL BUELL.-COLONEL GARFIELD.-BATTLE OF MILL SPRING.-DEATH OF ZOLLICOFFER.-THE YANKEES WILL COTCH US.-CONTRABAND FUN.-SCHNAPPS! SCHNAPPS! -ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON.-FORTS HENRY AND DONELSON.-COMMODORE FOOTE.-TORPEDOES.-CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY.-GENERAL TILGHMAN.-A BRAVE BOY.

THE

HE reader will remember that eastern Kentucky had been invaded in the autumn of 1861 by a Confederate force under General Zollicoffer. Zollicoffer had been sent into east Tennessee, a country much like West Virginia, and really a continuation of its mountain region, for the same reason that Lee had been sent into West Virginia-to put down the strong Union feeling which existed there. As soon as he heard that General Polk had occupied Columbus, he marched through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky to help the Confederates to get possession of that State. The Unionists gathered to resist this invasion, and formed a post called Camp Wildcat in the Cumberland Mountains, under Colonel Garrard. His force was small, but it was soon increased by two or three regiments under General Albin Schoepf, a Hungarian, who had formerly been an officer in the Austrian army, and later had served under General Bem in the war for Hungarian independence. Zollicoffer attacked Camp Wildcat on the morning of October 21, and again in the afternoon, but was each time repulsed, and at night retired into the hills. But soon after, General Schoepf, who had taken command, hearing that a large force from Buckner's camp at Bowling Green was marching against him, retreated toward the Ohio, and left that part of Kentucky again open to Zollicoffer.

With Polk at Columbus, Buckner at Bowling Green, and Zollicoffer in the valley of the Cumberland, all southern Kentucky was now in the power of the Confederates. They set up a separate government at Russellville, and on November 20 a convention which met there passed an ordinance of secession. Bowling Green was made the new capital of the State, and in