he shadows
of Fort Federal Hill, and the white walls of Fort McHenry. The latter
defence is renowned for its gallant resistance to a British fleet in
1813, and the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was
written to commemorate that bombardment. Fort Carroll, a massive
structure of hewn stone, with arched bomb-proof and three tiers of
mounted ordnance, its smooth walls washed by the waves, and its
unfinished floors still ringing with the trowel and the adze,--lies some
miles below, at a narrow passage in the stream. Below, the shores
diverge, and at dusk we were fairly in the Chesapeake, under steam and
sail, speeding due southward.

The _Adelaide_ was one of a series of boats making daily trips between
Baltimore and Old Point. Fourteen hours were required to accomplish the
passage, and we were not to arrive till seven o'clock next morning. I
was so fortunate as to obtain a state-room, but many passengers were
obliged to sleep upon sofas or the cabin floor. These boats monopolized
the civil traffic between the North and the army, although they were
reputed to be owned and managed by Secessionists. None were allowed to
embark unless provided with Federal passes; but there were,
nevertheless, three or four hundred people on board. About one fourth of
these were officers and soldiers; one half sutlers, traders,
contractors, newsmen, and idle civilians, anxious to witness a battle,
or stroll over the fields of Big Bethel, Lee's Mills, Yorktown,
Gloucester, Williamsburg, or West Point; the rest were females on
missions of mercy, on visits to sons, brothers, and husbands, and on the
way to their homes at Norfolk, Suffolk, or Hampton. Some of these were
citizens of Richmond, who believed that the Federals would occupy the
city in a few days, and enable them to resume their professions and
homes. The lower decks were occupied by negroes. The boat was heavily
freighted, and among the parcels that littered the hold and steerage, I
noticed scores of box coffins for the removal of corpses from the field
to the North. There were quantities of spirits, consigned mainly to
Quartermasters, but evidently the property of certain Shylocks, who
watched the barrels greedily. An embalmer was also on board, with his
ghostly implements. He was a sallow man, shabbily attired, and appeared
to look at all the passengers as so many subjects for the development of
his art. He was called "Doctor" by his admirers, and conversed in th