ld
me he had a "_right smart little fever_ on him." I doctored him with
some of the physic which Mr Maloney had given me, and he got better in
the evening.

We had pickets out in the woods last night. Two of my fellow-travellers
on that duty fell in with a negro, and pretending they were Yankees,
asked him to join them. He consented, and even volunteered to steal his
master's horses; and he then received a tremendous thrashing,
administered by the two soldiers with their ramrods.

At 9 P.M., to the surprise of all, the captain suddenly made up his mind
to descend the river at all hazards, thinking, I suppose, that anything
was better than the uncertainty of the last twenty-four hours.

The further we went, the more beautiful was the scenery.

At 4 P.M. we were assured by a citizen on the bank that the gunboats
really had retreated; and at 5.30 our doubts were set at rest, to our
great satisfaction, by descrying the Confederate flag flying from Fort
Beauregard, high above the little town of Harrisonburg. After we had
landed, I presented my letter of introduction from General Hebert to
Colonel Logan, who commands the fort. He introduced me to a German
officer, the engineer.

They gave me an account of the attack and repulse of the four Federal
gunboats under Commodore Woodford, and supposed to have been the
Pittsburg (ironclad), the General Price, the Arizona, and another.

Fort Beauregard is a much more formidable looking work than I expected
to see, and its strength had evidently been much underrated at Munroe.

A hill 190 feet high, which rises just in rear of Harrisonburg, has been
scarped and fortified. It is situated at an angle of the river, and
faces a long "reach" of two miles.

The gunboats, after demanding an unconditional surrender, which was
treated with great contempt by Colonel Logan, opened fire at 2 P.M. on
Sunday, and kept it up till 6.30, throwing about one hundred and fifty 9
and 11 inch shell. The gunboats reopened again for about an hour on
Monday afternoon, when they finally withdrew, the Arizona being
crippled.

The fort fired altogether about forty-five 32-pound shot (smooth bore.)
The range was about a mile.

The garrison thought that they had loosened several of the Pittsburg's
iron-plates. They felt confident they could have sunk the wooden vessels
if they had attempted to force the passage; and they were naturally much
elated with their success, which certainly had not been anticip