nation, history has seldom recorded. Of this force, 59,398 were cavalry, 24,688 artillery, 8,397 riflemen and sharp-shooters, and 107 engineers. The increase of the navy was still more astonishing. Notwithstanding the impatience of the public led to continual murmurs, it must be the verdict of history, that on the whole, wonderful energy and wisdom marked the acts of the Navy Department. On the 4th of March, when the new administration assumed power, there were but twelve National vessels in service on the coast, all counted. On the 1st of December there were two hundred and sixty-four war vessels afloat, bearing 2,557 guns, and 22,000 sailors. Of these one hundred and thirty-six had been purchased and one hundred and twenty-eight had been built. Nearly half this fleet were steamers, including three iron-clads, and twenty-three first-class gun-boats. The blockading squadron was divided into three departments. One, under Louis M. Goldsborough, guarded the shores of Virginia and North Carolina. Another, under Samuel F. Dupont, took South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to the Cape, a distance including innumerable inlets of more than a thousand miles. The third, under Wm. W. McKean, took the whole width of the Gulf, from the Capes of Florida to the Rio Grande. Calmly, quietly, resolutely, heedless of murmuring storms, Secretary Welles pressed on his way, accomplishing results such as never had been accomplished before. And the navy, true to its pristine renown, achieved triumphs which never had been and never can be exceeded. The eagerness of our countrymen for action was so intense, that even with these achievements, they were dissatisfied. But the sober second thoughts of all will be that the Navy Department, from Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, to the humblest cabin boy, crowned themselves with honor imperishable.*

*Major John J. Key was asked why the rebel army was not pursued after the battle of Antietam. It is now well known, that had the rebels then been followed up, their whole army could have been easily captured or destroyed, and thus the war would have been virtually ended. He replied: "That is not the game. The object is, that neither army shall get much advantage of the other; that both shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, when we will make a compromise and save slavery." For avowing this principle, upon which many of his superiors in office acted, Major Key was very properly dismissed from service. It is in this sentiment that our readers will find the key to many of the mysteries in this most lethargic warfare. Where this spirit did not prevail, there were fightings and victories; where it did prevail, our sons and brothers perished by thousands amidst the miasma of marshes, under the toil of the trenches, and in the gloom of the hospital. It should be remarked that Major Key was an earnest Union man; that he had never been heard to utter a sentiment that could be called disloyal. He wished only to save slavery, with the Union, and deemed its preservation sufficiently important to warrant the sacrifice of armies of patriots.

CHAPTER XVII.

CAMPAIGN OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.

RIGHT OF SECESSION.-ITS ACCOMPLISHMENT IN LOUISIANA.-BLOCKADING THE MISSISSIPPI.— STEAM RAM MANASSAS.-NAVAL EXPEDITION.-GEN. B. F. BUTLER.-SHIP ISLAND.-PORTER'S MORTAR FLOTILLA.-PILOT TOWN.-ANECDOTE.-FORMIDABLE PREPARATIONS OF the Rebels.— ATTACK OF THE ENGLISH IN 1814 UPON NEW ORLEANS.-PREPARATIONS ON BOARD THE UNION FLEET.-TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY.-RECONNOISSANCE.-YANKEE INGENUITY.-FORCE OF THE UNION FLEET.-THRILLING INCIDENT.

THE slaveholders' doctrine of secession, which was got up merely to serve a temporary purpose, is the most insane idea ever cherished outside of a mad-house. That there is a natural right of revolution, no one denies. But that there is a right, under the law, for the state to secede from the nation, involving the right of the county to secede from the state, and the town from the county, and the individual from the town, is a sentiment too absurd for respectful consideration. Nothing but the audacity which slavery engenders would embolden a man to utter it. When England consents to the secession of the county of Kent, taking with it the mouth of the Thames, and France assents to the secession of the province of Lamanche, taking with it the fortresses of Cherbourg, to be ceded at pleasure to England or Russia, then may American statesmen begin to consider the question, whether 376,913 free whites, scattered over the sugar and cotton plantations of Louisiana, may secede from the United States, take with them the mouths of a river which open to an internal navigation of more than 50,000 miles, along majestic streams where hundreds of millions are soon to dwell. According to this doctrine, Fortress Monroe belongs to Virginia, the immense National works at Newport to the little State of Rhode Island, which she can take possession of at any time and cede to England with herself as a naval depot. The vast fortifications at Key West and the Tortugas, reared at an enormous National expense, to protect our limitless commerce in the Gulf, belong to the petty State of Florida, with not 80,000 white inhabitants, and whose naval marine consists of scarcely a dozen fishing smacks. Cherbourg, in France, the wonder of the world, upon this theory, belongs not to the Empire, but to Lamanche; England's great naval depot, at Portsmouth, belongs not to the kingdom, but to the county of Hants. What reply would England make, should that county revolt, and remonstrating against "subjugation," say that all that she wanted was to be "let alone."

The United States purchased Louisiana for $15,000,000; expended countless millions in clearing out the river, constructing forts, light-houses, and all the conveniences for the extensive commerce of the millions soon to throng the most magnificent valley upon this globe. They surveyed the land, and sold it to settlers for a merely nominal price. Three hundred and seventy-seven thousand white people, in the course of half a céntury, were scattered along the banks of its great central stream, and upon the rich soil which fringed its swamps. They were prosperous in the culture of cotton, and especially of sugar. They were left unrestricted, to form and execute all their local laws. To aid these planters, a tariff was enacted, protecting sugar, that they might compete more successfully with the West Indies. According to the census of 1860, 70,000 of these free whites could neither read nor write.

Under these circumstances, less than one-half of these people decide that they will secede from the United States, take possession of the National forts, arsenals, custom-houses, and mint, and raise the banner of a foreign power over the forts, after having plunged the dishonored Stars and Stripes into the ditch. To these pretenders, thirty millions of Americans to be three hundred millions within the lives of some now bornare to lower their flag, whenever their ships enter the Mississippi River, the great thoroughfare to the commerce of this new world. The man who deems that such a doctrine deserves regard, is a fit candidate for a madhouse.

The act of secession was consummated in the following way. The Governor convened an extra session of the legislature. They voted to call a Convention of the representatives of the people, to be held at Baton Rouge, Jan. 23, 1861. The New Orleans Picayune, of Dec. 23, said, in reference to this Convention: "No plan of conciliation, short of a final settlement of the slavery agitation, by amendments to the Constitution, can, we think, be satisfactory." At the meeting of the Convention, exGovernor Morton, an avowed Secessionist, was chosen chairman, by vote of 81 to 41. A committee of fifteen was nominated by the chair to report an ordinance of secession. The report was accepted, by a vote of 113 to 17. It was also voted that the ordinance should go into immediate effect, without waiting for the ratification of the people, it being assumed that the people would ratify it. When, two months after this Convention had declared, "that Louisiana hereby resumes the rights and powers heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America, and its citizens are absolved from allegiance to the said Government, and she is in full possession of all the rights and sovereignty that appertain to a free and independent State," the ordinance was submitted to the people, the vote stood, for secession, 20,448; against it, 17,296. The most intelligent men in the State have declared, that beyond all question, this act of treason would, even then, have been repudiated by the people, had not, in many places, as in New Orleans, the polls been seized by armed mobs, and thousands of peaceable citizens been deprived of their right of voting. As it was, less than 21,000 men assumed to wrest from the control of the United States, the mouths of the Mississippi.

Even before the meeting of the Convention, on the 11th of January, some armed men from New Orleans had taken possession of the United States Marine Hospital, two miles below the city, and with inhumanity thus early precursory of their barbarous treatment of all loyal men, had ordered the patients, 216 in number, to be expelled, helpless and homeless, to give room to troops about to war against a flag, from allegiance to which they did not then claim any exemption.

Immediately after the act of secession, these men seized the United States mint and sub-treasury, containing $511,000 in specie, the two splendid forts, St. Philip and Jackson, at the main mouths of the Missis sippi; Fort Pike, at the entrance of Lake Ponchartrain; Fort Macomb, at Chef Menteur; and the works at Ship Island. Upon these several fortifications, the Government of the United States had expended more than seven millions of dollars.

The secession of Louisiana occasioned no surprise to the country. She was the last of the Gulf States to follow the delusion and folly of South Carolina, whose ordinance of secession, passed Dec. 20, had been received, in New Orleans, by the firing of a hundred guns, the stirring notes of the Marsellaise, speeches inciting to rebellion, the ringing of bells, and all the other usual demonstrations of public rejoicing. The now dominant secession party in Louisiana commenced their rule, by crushing out all opposi tion to their sway. The wavering were borne along resistlessly by the current, and all the truly loyal were silenced by the terrors of mob law, or banished from the State. There was abundant evidence that a strong under-current of Union feeling still existed in many hearts, which occasionally manifested itself in opposition to the tide of rebellion, which was flooding the State. This would sometimes break out, to the exasperation of the ruling party, and for a time withstand them.

On the 22d of February, which was celebrated as a national festival, in honor of the birth-day of Washington, a gentleman in New Orleans, accompanied by loyal friends, proceeded down Charles street, bearing our National banner, with the device emblazoned upon it of two clasped hands, and beneath, the motto, "United we stand, divided we fall." Enraged at this, a large body of Secessionists assembled before St. Charles's Hotel, and proceeded to the levee, with the purpose of taking down the flag. But it was not left unguarded. Some hundreds of determined men, well armed, surrounded the flag-staff, whose purpose to keep the flag flying, on that anniversary, at least, was not to be trifled with. The banner waved undisturbed till night, when it was voluntarily lowered.

On the occasion of the illumination of the city in honor of secession, the "Stars and Stripes" were cheered by the passing crowd at the St. Charles, when waved from the darkened windows of the patriotic wife of a northern sea-captain, who refused every entreaty of the proprietors to permit her apartments to be illumined in honor of treason.

The State of Louisiana, having thus seceded and assumed its position as an independent power among the nations of earth, was of course at liberty, according to its new-found doctrine, to enter into an alliance with England, France, Spain or Mexico, or to become a colony of either of those

powers. She preferred, however, to enter into a Confederacy with the other rebellious States, and making application to the rebel Congress at Montgomery, was cordially received. And then, with hymns of praise and prayers of thanksgiving, the State was handed over to Jefferson Davis, with the United States forts and the United States arsenals, and over 500,000 dollars of the United States specie, stolen from the United States mint; and then the rebels expressed surprise that the United States could not recognize the propriety of all these proceedings.

A whole people cannot be turned, at once, into hostility to a liberal and lenient government, under which they have had prosperity and happiness. In the rapid spread of this mania of rebellion, no voice whatever was allowed to speak in favor of Union-no reply was permitted to be made to the grossest misrepresentations, since loyalty to the old Government was then regarded as treason to the new. The hands of patriots were fettered, and their mouths were gagged, but the hearts of many still throbbed with pulsations of loyalty.

The arming of the State, and the raising and equipment of regiments to answer the call of the Congress at Montgomery, commenced with great vigor, immediately after the passage of the ordinance of secession. At first volunteers to uphold the new government were numerous and enthusiastic. The masses of the poor whites at the South, groaning beneath the burden of poverty and no encouragement for labor, were induced to favor the revolution by alluring promises of relief and of the plunder of the wealthy Northern cities. Many of the higher classes joined the army from the earnest desire to establish a pro-slavery confederacy where their institution would have unembarrassed scope. They also affected great contempt for the cowardly Yankees, assuming that one Southerner could put five of them to flight. For a few weeks there was apparently great enthusiasm throughout the State. Men and money were freely offered to the cause. Subscriptions for the defense of the State, for the equipment of troops and the support of their families, were made in all the cities an parishes.

War soon became almost the sole business of this once great commer、 cial city. The streets were filled with companies drilling for service, the public squares were converted into military camps, and most of the public buildings into arsenals or barracks. Foundries and machine shops became manufactories of arms. Steamers and tug-boats were hauled up into the docks, to be converted into iron-clad gun-boats, to defend the river and the coast. Privateers were fitted out, under letters of marque from Jefferson Davis, to strike a blow at the commerce of the United States, and to aid in "resisting the wanton and wicked aggressions of the Federal Government." Plans for the construction of Forts Philip and Jackson, which, when seized, were in an unfinished state, were taken from the customhouse, and hundreds of laborers set to work to complete the fortifications and render them impregnable. It was believed that these defenses, at the mouth of the river, would exclude the United States authorities from entering by the way of the gulf; and Louisiana was to coöperate with the other States, bordering on the Mississippi, in erecting the long cordon of