sorrow was still fresh, I met a contemporary and
military intimate of his. "I want," he said, "to tell you an anecdote
of your father. We were associated on a board, one of the members of
which had proposed, as his own suggestion, a measure which I thought
fundamentally and dangerously erroneous. I prepared a paper contesting
the project and took it to your father. He read it carefully, and
replied, 'I agree with you entirely; but ---- will never forgive you,
and he is persistent and unrelenting towards those who thwart him. You
will make a life-long and powerful enemy. If I were you, I should not
lay this upon myself.' I gave way to his judgment, and kept back the
paper; but you may imagine my surprise when at the next meeting he
took upon himself the burden which he had advised me to shun. He made
an argument substantially on my lines, and procured the rejection of
the proposition. The result was a hostility which ceased only with his
life, but between which and me he had interposed."

VII

INCIDENTS OF WAR AND BLOCKADE SERVICE

1861-1862

The _Congress_, upon her return, was retained in commission, though
entirely useless, either for fighting or blockade, under modern
conditions. I suppose there were not yet enough of newer vessels to
spare her value as a figure-head. She was sent afterwards to Hampton
Roads, where in the following March she, with another sailing-frigate,
the _Cumberland_, fell helpless victims to the first Confederate
iron-clad. The staff of combatant sea officers was much changed; the
captain, the senior three lieutenants, and the midshipmen being
detached. Smith, the fourth lieutenant, remained as first; and, in the
absence of her captain on other duty, commanded and fell at her death
agony. I was sent first to the _James Adger_, a passenger-steamer then
being converted in New York for blockade duty, for which she was very
fit; but in ten days more I was moved on to the _Pocahontas_, a ship
built for war, a very respectable little steam-corvette, the only one
of her class--if such a bull as a class of one may be excused. She
carried one ten-inch gun and four 32-pounders, all smooth-bores. There
was, besides, one small nondescript rifled piece, upon which we looked
with more curiosity than confidence. Indeed, unless memory deceive,
the projectiles from it were quite as apt to go end over end as true.
It was rarely used.

When I joined, the _Pocahontas_ was lying off the Washington
Na