f the bay; and on her return to New York her owner presented her to the
Government of the United States. She had done good service, and Christy
had begun his brilliant career as a naval officer in the capacity of a
midshipman on board of her. In spite of the hostile political attitude
of the brothers to each other, the same affectionate relations had
continued between the two families, for each of them believed that
social and family ties should not interfere with his patriotic duty to
his country.

The commander of the Confederate forces at Hilton Head--one of the
highest-toned and most estimable gentlemen one could find in the North
or the South--informed the author that his own brother was in command of
one of the Federal ships that were bombarding his works. While Commodore
Wilkes, of Mason and Slidell memory, was capturing the Southern
representatives who had to be given up, his son was in the Confederate
navy, and then or later was casting guns at Charlotte for the use of
the South: and the writer never met a more reasonable and kindly man.
Fortunately our two brothers were not called upon to confront each other
as foes on the battlefield or on the sea, though both of them would have
done their duty in such positions.

The last time Christy had seen his Uncle Homer was when he was captured
on board of the Dornoch with Captain Rombold, as he was endeavoring to
obtain a passage to England as a Confederate agent for the purchase of
suitable vessels to prey upon the mercantile marine of the United
States. He and the commander of the Tallahatchie had been exchanged
at about the same time; and they had proceeded to Nassau, where they
embarked for England in a cotton steamer. There they had purchased
and fitted out the Trafalgar; for the agent's drafts, in which the last
of his fortune had been absorbed, could not be made available to his
captors. Colonel Passford had an interview with Captain Rombold after
Gill had brought his trunk on board; and it was a very sad occasion
to the planter, if not to the naval officer. They had not had an
opportunity to consider the disaster that had overtaken the Confederate
steamer, which had promised such favorable results for their cause; for
the commander had been entirely occupied till he received his wound, and
even then he had attended to his duties, for, as before suggested, he
was a "last ditch" man. He was not fighting for the South as a mere
hireling; for he had married a Sou