et set sail for
Newbern; but the work the Burnside expedition had to do was not finished
until April 26, when Fort Macon, in Georgia, surrendered, after a short,
but brisk, bombardment. This fort was commanded by a nephew of the
Confederate President, who, in response to a summons to surrender,
declared that he would not yield until he had eaten his last biscuit.
The Union commander thought that a man who could talk like that would
surely do some good fighting, but he was disappointed. A few hours'
pounding by gunboats and shore batteries brought the boastful rebel to
his senses, and he was glad to escape further punishment by hauling down
his own flag, and sending a white one up in place of it.

The Union forces were successful everywhere along the coast; not once
did they meet with disaster. The nearest they came to it was when that
terrible northeast gale struck them off Hatteras, and with that gale
they had their longest and hardest battle. Of course, Marcy Gray did not
get what he called "straight news" regarding these glorious victories,
but his rebel neighbors confessed to defeat in every engagement, and
that was all he wanted to know. But there was another thing that began
troubling him now, and it was something he had not thought of. With the
fall of Newbern, and the occupation of the principal towns by the
Federal troops, the regular mails from the South were cut off, and, for
a time, the village of Nashville had little communication with the
outside world. Even rebel news, distorted, as it was, out of all
semblance to the truth, was better than no news at all, and Marcy
declared that there was but one thing left for him to do, and that was
to ride around and gossip with the neighbors, as Tom Allison and Mark
Goodwin did. His short experience aboard the gunboat filled him with
martial ardor, and, if his mother had only been safely out of harm's
way, he would have tried every plan he could think of to find Jack, and
then he would have shipped on his vessel. Being shot at six hours out of
twenty-four he thought was better than living as he was obliged to live
now. If he were an enlisted man he would know pretty nearly what he had
to face; now he had no idea of it, and that was another thing that
troubled him. The news of the victories that were gained so rapidly, one
after another, did much to keep up his spirits, but had the opposite
effect upon Allison and Goodwin, who could not find words with which to
expres