oing so when they were ready. The
interview took place in his cabin; and although I indignantly
repudiated the idea, I could not help feeling how confidently I would
stake life and reputation upon the issue if our situations were
reversed. I had noticed many familiar faces among the officers and crew
as I passed along the deck a few moments before. Every one was at his
station; the guns cast loose for action; and it was in the nature of
things, that I should contrast this gallant man of war and all this
efficiency and discipline with the iron bound box and crew of "horse
marines" which I had just left. But it was in no spirit of depreciation
of the gallantry of my comrades, for I was quite sure that they would
stand to their guns. The wretched "bowl of Gotham" which had no
efficient motive power, and which could not even be got under way, when
anchored, without slipping the chain cable, caused the misgivings. It is
no disparagement to the prowess of the U. S. fleet which passed the
forts, to assert, that they never could have successfully opposed our
forces; but the battle was won quite as effectually when they succeeded
in passing beyond the range of the guns of the forts and the
"Louisiana."

After our official business was closed, DeC. and I began to talk of the
war; and he expressed the opinions then entertained, beyond a doubt, by
a majority of U. S. army and naval officers. They believed it to be the
intention of the Government to bring the seceding States back into the
Union, with their rights and institutions unimpaired. Since then a
little leaven has leavened the whole lump, and the former doctrine of
the extreme abolitionists has long become the creed of the dominant
party. But some facts should be borne in mind by those who denounce
slavery as the sum of all villanies; for instance, that the slave code
of Massachusetts was the earliest in America; the cruelest in its
provisions and has never been formally repealed; that the Plymouth
settlers, according to history, maintained "that the white man might own
and sell the negro and his offspring forever;" that Mr. Quincy, a
representative from Massachusetts during the war of 1812, threatened the
House of Congress that the North would secede "peaceably if we can,
forcibly if we must" unless their demands for peace were acceded to; and
lastly that the abolitionists of a later age denounced the Constitution
and canonized John Brown for committing a number of murders