n R.
had promised him speedy liberty. But that doughty official spurned
the imputation of such weak blandishments, in this day of triumphant
retribution.

"Promise him!" said he, "I promised him nothing but the Day of Judgment
and Periods of Damnation!"

Often since have I rolled beneath my tongue this savory and solemn
sentence, and I do not believe that since the days of the Long
Parliament there has been a more resounding anathema.

In Colonel Montgomery's hands these up-river raids reached the dignity
of a fine art. His conceptions of foraging were rather more Western and
liberal than mine, and on these excursions he fully indemnified himself
for any undue abstinence demanded of him when in camp. I remember being
on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first
trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from
the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from
the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck's wings were
seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers. The
naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views
of one's duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully,
as who should say, "Shall these things be?" In a moment or two the
returning foragers had landed.

"Captain ----," said Montgomery, courteously, "would you allow me to
send a remarkably fine turkey for your use on board ship?"

"Lieutenant ----," said Major Corwin, "may I ask your acceptance of a
pair of ducks for your mess?"

Never did I behold more cordial relations between army and navy than
sprang into existence at those sentences. So true it is, as Charles
Lamb says, that a single present of game may diffuse kindly sentiments
through a whole community. These little trips were called "rest"; there
was no other rest during those ten days. An immense amount of picket and
fatigue duty had to be done. Two redoubts were to be built to command
the Northern Valley; all the intervening grove, which now afforded
lurking-ground for a daring enemy, must be cleared away; and a few
houses must be reluctantly razed for the same purpose. The fort on the
left was named Fort Higginson, and that built by my own regiment, in
return, Fort Montgomery. The former was necessarily a hasty work, and
is now, I believe, in ruins; the latter was far more elaborately
constructed, on lines well traced by the Fourth New Hampshire during the
p