regiment, already in hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of
my men towards these forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more
tumultuous women. Even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old
termagant into the river, took care to append the courteous epithet
"Madam."

I took a survey of the premises. The chief house, a pretty one with
picturesque outbuildings, was that of Mrs. A., who owned the mills and
lumber-wharves adjoining. The wealth of these wharves had not been
exaggerated. There was lumber enough to freight half a dozen steamers,
and I half regretted that I had agreed to take down a freight of bricks
instead. Further researches made me grateful that I had already
explained to my men the difference between public foraging and private
plunder. Along the river-bank I found building after building crowded
with costly furniture, all neatly packed, just as it was sent up from
St. Mary's when that town was abandoned. Pianos were a drug; china,
glass-ware, mahogany, pictures, all were here. And here were my men, who
knew that their own labor had earned for their masters these luxuries,
or such as these; their own wives and children were still sleeping on
the floor, perhaps, at Beaufort or Fernandina; and yet they submitted,
almost without a murmur, to the enforced abstinence. Bed and bedding for
our hospitals they might take from those store-rooms,--such as the
surgeon selected,--also an old flag which we found in a corner, and an
old field piece, (which the regiment still possesses,)--but after this
the doors were closed and left unmolested. It cost a struggle to some of
the men, whose wives were destitute, I know; but their pride was very
easily touched, and when this abstinence was once recognized as a rule,
they claimed it as an honor, in this and all succeeding expeditions. I
flatter myself, that, if they had once been set upon wholesale
plundering, they would have done it as thoroughly as their betters; but
I have always been infinitely grateful, both for the credit and for the
discipline of the regiment,--as well as for the men's subsequent
lives,--that the opposite method was adopted.

When the morning was a little advanced, I called on Mrs. A., who
received me in quite a stately way at her own door with "To what am I
indebted for the honor of this visit, Sir?" The foreign name of the
family, and the tropical look of the buildings, made it seem (as,
indeed, did all the rest of the adventure) like