led lights, the whispered
orders. To this was now to be added the vexation of an insufficient
pilotage, for our negro guide knew only the upper river, and, as it
finally proved, not even that, while, to take us over the bar which
obstructed the main stream, we must borrow a pilot from Captain Dutch,
whose gunboat blockaded that point. This active naval officer, however,
whose boat expeditions had penetrated all the lower branches of those
rivers, could supply our want, and we borrowed from him not only a
pilot, but a surgeon, to replace our own, who had been prevented by an
accident from coming with us. Thus accompanied, we steamed over the bar
in safety, had a peaceful ascent, passed the island of Jehossee,--the
fine estate of Governor Aiken, then left undisturbed by both sides,--and
fired our first shell into the camp at Wiltown Bluff at four o'clock in
the morning.

The battery--whether fixed or movable we knew not--met us with a
promptness that proved very shortlived. After three shots it was silent,
but we could not tell why. The bluff was wooded, and we could see but
little. The only course was to land, under cover of the guns. As
the firing ceased and the smoke cleared away, I looked across the
rice-fields which lay beneath the bluff. The first sunbeams glowed upon
their emerald levels, and on the blossoming hedges along the rectangular
dikes. What were those black dots which everywhere appeared? Those moist
meadows had become alive with human heads, and along each narrow
path came a straggling file of men and women, all on a run for the
river-side. I went ashore with a boat-load of troops at once. The
landing was difficult and marshy. The astonished negroes tugged us up
the bank, and gazed on us as if we had been Cortez and Columbus. They
kept arriving by land much faster than we could come by water; every
moment increased the crowd, the jostling, the mutual clinging, on that
miry foothold. What a scene it was! With the wild faces, eager figures,
strange garments, it seemed, as one of the poor things reverently
suggested, "like notin' but de judgment day." Presently they began to
come from the houses also, with their little bundles on their heads;
then with larger bundles. Old women, trotting on the narrow paths, would
kneel to pray a little prayer, still balancing the bundle; and then
would suddenly spring up, urged by the accumulating procession behind,
and would move on till irresistibly compelled by thankful