nboat, he shouted out, "Hallo! Porter, what did you get
into such an ugly scrape for? So much for you navy fellows getting out
of your element. Better send for the soldiers always. My boys will put
you through. Here's your little nigger. He came through all right, and
I started at once. Your gunboats are enough to scare the crows: they
look as if you had got a terrible hammering."

Somewhat crestfallen, Porter remarked, that he "never knew what
helpless things iron-clads could become when they got in a ditch, and
had no soldiers about." As Sherman declined to come aboard, Porter
went below to look after his two prisoners.

"Well, gentlemen," said he, as he entered the cabin, "you were right.
We are surrounded by troops."

The two Confederates were greatly exultant, but assured Porter that
they would see that he was kindly treated when taken into Vicksburg.

"To Vicksburg!" said he with mock amazement. "Who said any thing of
Vicksburg?"

"Why, of course you'll be taken there as a prisoner, now that our men
have surrounded you."

"Oh, you are mistaken there!" responded Porter. "The troops by whom I
am surrounded are Sherman's boys, six thousand strong." And at this
news the chagrined captives subsided, and began to consider the
prospects of a trip to the North, and incarceration in one of the
military prisons.

Sherman's army soon came up in force, and went into camp along the
road that skirted the levee. As night fell, the scene took on a wild
and picturesque air. In the narrow bayou lay the gunboats, strung out
in single file along a line of half a mile. They bore many signs of
the hard knocks they had received in their excursion through the
woods. Boats, davits, steam-pipes, and every thing breakable that rose
above the level of the deck, had been swept away by the overhanging
boughs, or dashed to pieces by falling trees. The smoke-stacks and
wheel-houses were riddled by the bullets of the Confederate
sharp-shooters. The decks were covered with rubbish of all kinds, and
here and there was a fissure that told of the bursting of some
Confederate shell. The paint was blistered, and peeling off, from the
effects of the cotton-fire through which the fleet had dashed.

On the shore blazed the camp-fires of Sherman's troops; and about the
huge flaming piles the weary soldiers threw themselves down to catch a
moment's rest, while the company cooks prepared the evening meal. Many
of the idle soldiers strolled down to