a charm also in the more free and adventurous life of partisan warfare, where, if the total sphere be humbler, yet the individual has more relative importance, and the sense of

e of the same elements of picturesqueness that belonged to Marion's band, on the same soil, with the added f

r to destroy a bridge on the Charleston and Savannah Railway. As one of the early raids of the colored troops, this expedition may deserve narration, though it was, in a st

eneral Hunter, before his sudden removal, though he regarded the bridge as a secondary affair, because there was another railway communication between the two cities. But as my main object was to obtain permission to go, I tried to make the most of all results which might follow, while it was very clear that the raid would harass and confuse the

ow process, and the smoke of a steamboat could be seen for a great distance. The streams were usually shallow, winding, and muddy, and the difficulties of navigation were such as to require a full moon and a flood tide. It was really no easy matter to bring everything to bear, especially as every projected raid must be kept a secret so fa

ted by a battery of unknown strength, at Wiltown Bluff, a commanding and defensible situation. The obstructions consisted of a row of strong wooden piles across the river; but we convinced ourselves that these must now be much decayed, and that Captain Trowbridge, an excellent engineer officer, could remove them by the proper apparatus. Our proposition was to man the John Adams, an armed ferry-boat, which had before done us much service,-and whi

ilton, upon which, with the greatest difficulty, we found room for two twelve-pound Armstrong guns, with their gunners, forming a section of the First Connecticut Battery, under Lieutenant Clinton, aided by a squad from my

insufficient pilotage, for our negro guide knew only the upper river, and, as it finally proved, not even that, while, to take us over the bar which obstructed the main stream, we must borrow a pilot from Captain Dutch, whose gunboat blockaded that point. This active naval officer, however, whose boat expeditions had penetrated all the lower branches of those rivers, could supply our want, and w

ed? Those moist meadows had become alive with human heads, and along each narrow path came a straggling file of men and women, all on a run for the river-side. I went ashore with a boat-load of troops at once. The landing was difficult and marshy. The astonished negroes tugged us up the bank, and gazed on us as if we had been Cortez and Columbus. They kept arriving by land much faster than we could come by water; every moment increased the crowd, the jostling, the mutual clinging, on that miry foothold. What a scene it was! With the

clamations of "Bress you, mas'r," and "Bress de Lord," at th

n such amazing squalid-ness and destitution of garments. I recall one small urchin without a rag of clothing save the basque waist of a lady's dress, bristling with whalebones, and worn wrong side before, beneath whi

ther it was yet withdrawn. The slaves, on the other hand, were too much absorbed in their prospective freedom to aid us in taking any further steps to secure it. Captain Trowbridge, who had by

man, stuttering te

wbridge, in his mighty voice, and all but shaking

rpenter!" holding up eagerly a little stump of a hatchet, his sole tre

a similar scene on the Combahee River, by a very aged man, who had been brought down on the previous raid, already mentioned. I wrote it down in tent, long after, while the ol

nboats come. Den ebry man drap dem hoe, and leff de rice. De mas'r he stand and call, 'Run to de wood

russ [afraid to trust]. He say, 'Run to de wood

s a barn, ten tousand bushel rough rice, all in a blaze, den mas'r's great house, all cracklin' up d

e gaunt old man, with arm uplifted, described this stage of affairs, ti

n me that the apparition of a black soldier must amaze those still in bondage, much as a butterfly just from the chrysalis might ast

, come plenty ahead!' I hab notin' on but my shirt and pantaloon; ole woman one single frock he hab on, and one handke

k em down ebry year, so I know. Too ole for come? Mas'r joking. Neber too ole for leave de land o' bondage. I old, but great go

oded hill, we soon found ourselves in the deserted camp of a light battery, amid scattered equipments and suggestions of a very unattractive breakfast. As soon as possible, skirmishers were thrown out through the woods to the farther edge of the blu

stating that he was a prisoner. The other, a very young man, and a member of the "Rebel Troop," a sort of Cadet corps among the Charleston youths, came to me in great wrath, complaining that the corporal of our squad had kicked him after he had surrendered. His air of offended pride was very rueful, and it did indeed seem a pathetic reversal of fortunes for the two races. To be sure, the youth was a scion of one of the foremost families of

upper stream, and hinted, by awful implications, the danger of such ascent. This meant torpedoes, a peril which we treated, in thos

shes with the enemy, while the colored people were swarming to the shore, or running to and fro like ants, with the poor treasures of their houses. Our busy Quartermaster, Mr. Bingham-who died afterwards from the overwork of that sultry day-was transporting the refugees on board the steamer, or hunting up bales of cotton, or directing the burning of rice-houses, in accordance with our orders. No dwelling-houses were destroyed or plundered

e little tug went aground, and the Enoch Dean, ascending a mile farther, had an encounter with a battery on the right,-perhaps our old enemy,-and drove it back. Soon after, she also ran aground, a misfortune of which our opponent strangely took no advanta

lds on each side of us; and the scene was so peaceful, it seemed as if all danger were done. For the first time, we saw in South Carolina blossoming river-banks and low emerald meadows, that seemed like New England. Everywhere there were the same rectangular fields, smooth canals, and bushy dikes. A fe

lack pilot, who was not a soldier, grew more and more bewildered, and declared that it was the channel, not his brain, which had gone wrong; the captain, a little elderly man, sat wringing his hands in the pilot-box; and the engineer appeared to be mingling his groans with those of the diseased engine. Meanwhile I, in equal ignorance of machinery and channel, had to give orders o

tern was useless, from the position in which we lay. In vain we moved the men from side to side, rocking the vessel, to dislodge it. The heat was terrific that August afternoon; I remember I found myself constantly changing places, on the scorched deck, to keep my feet from being blistered. At last the officer in charge of the gun, a hardy lumberman from Maine, got the stern of the vessel so far round that he obtained the range of the battery through

look and wonder. Still pluckily firing, she floated by upon the tide, which had now just turned; and when, with a last desperate effort, we got off, our engine

n easy range of us. The sharpest contest of the day was before us. Happily the engine and engineer were now behaving well, and we were steering in a channel already traversed, and of which the dangerous points were known. But we had a long, straight reach of river before us, heading directly toward the battery, which, having once got our range, had only to keep it, while we could do nothing in return. The Rebels certainly served then: guns well. For the first time I discover

in the side, as if from some prize-fighter, doubling me up for a moment, while I sank upon a seat. It proved afterwards to have been produced by the grazing of a ball, which, without tearing a garment, had yet made a large part of my side black and blue, leaving a sensation of paralysis which made it dif

t the rising tide should cover the remaining piles, and make it difficult to run the passage. But when we again reached it, the stakes had somehow been knocked away, the piles were just covered by the swift current, and the little tug-boat was aground upon them. She came off easily, however, with our aid, and, when we in turn essayed the passage, we grou

was very strong, and that the other was very light. Still, it was natural to cast some anxious glances up the river, and it was with surprise that I presently saw a

, and-worse news yet-that his guns had been thrown overboard. It seemed to me then, and has always seemed, that this sacrifice was utterly needless, because, although the captain of the John Adams had refused to risk his vessel by going near enough to receive the guns, he should have been compelled to do so. Though the thing was done without my knowledge, and beyond my reach, yet, as commande

idge. Exhausted as I was, I could still observe, in a vague way, the scene around me. Every available corner of the boat seemed like some vast auction-room of second-hand goods. Great piles of bedding and bundles lay on every side, with black heads emerging and black forms reclining in every stage of squalidness. Some seemed ill, or wounded, o

who had just embarked, and sat on an enormous bundle of her goods, in everybody's way, fanning herself vehemently, and ejaculating, as her gasping

s. The kind Quartermaster kept bringing me news of what occurred, like Rebecca in Front-de-Boeuf s castle, but discreetly withholding any actual casualties. Then all faded into safety and sleep; and we reached Beaufort in the morning, after th

inflammation to feed upon. The able-bodied men who had joined us were, sent to aid General Gillmore in the trenches, while their families were established in huts and tents on St. Helena Island. A year after, greatly to the delight of the regiment, in taking possession

ration of two hundred! But no one then knew how the contest might end; and when I think of that morning sunlight, those emerald fields, those thro