and no service ever required more foresight in preparation. or more perseverance in performance. The most careful precautions and sustained watchfulness were sometimes unavailing. On the night of June 3, 1864, the blockading steamer "Water Witch" was anchored inside the bar, at Ossabaw Sound, below Savannah. The weather was so thick and hazy that objects could not be seen at any distance. Her boarding nettings were up; there was steam enough on to work the engines, and there were the usual number of lookouts at their stations. An attacking party of about double the number of the crew of the "Water Witch" came down from Savannah in eight cotton barges, commanded by Captain Pelot, formerly of the United States Navy. They drifted noiselessly toward the "Water Witch," at about three o'clock in the morning, approaching within forty yards of her before they could be seen by the lookouts. The moment they were seen and hailed, they dashed alongside. The engines were started ahead, but the ship did not gather headway soon enough to prevent the Rebels boarding her. The crew went to quarters and made the best fight they could under the circumstances; but, being so largely outnumbered, and half of them (the watch below) asleep in their hammocks at the moment of the attack, the resistance was ineffectual. Some of the Rebel party gained the engine-room, overpowered the engineers, and stopped the engine. The few men who were not overcome retreated to the quarter-deck. The officers were all below, except the two on watch; and rushing on deck, were obliged to snatch ship's cutlasses from the racks to defend themselves. Then ensued a hand-to-hand contest with cutlasses. Paymaster Billings, of the "Water Witch," who was an expert swordsman, killed Pelot, the Rebel leader; and soon after, the captain of the "Water Witch" fell, with three cuts on the head. The executive officer, Buck, fell, stunned by blows and loss of blood.

The unequal contest was prolonged for fifteen or twenty minutes, by which time the boarding party had obtained entire control of the ship. The executive officer, in his official report of the fight, subsequently made, wrote: "I heard none say they surrendered, nor any cry for quarter, and believe all who were engaged fought bravely and desperately, until cut down or overpowered by superior numbers." The Rebels afterwards ran the ship aground; as they were unable to get her out of the sound, she was subsequently destroyed.

This was simply an instance of a force stealthily surprised during thick weather and captured by overwhelming numbers. There were many cases to offset it, where our men, in very small forces and in the face of vigorous. opposition, accomplished important results. A notable illustration of this was the case of Lieutenant Cushing, pushing eight miles inside the enemy's lines in an open boat, then, in the face of a heavy fire of great guns and small arms, attacking and sinking the Rebel ironclad ram "Albemarle."

In the last war with England, as well as in our great rebellion, the trained officers of our navy used the insufficient means furnished them with such ingenuity and audacity that they were enabled to overcome superior forces, well provided with the best-known appliances. It does not seem reasonable that a prosperous nation like ours should presume on these facts, and rely on the extra personal efforts of individual officers to preserve our national honor in emergencies. The personnel of the navy has shown itself worthy of the best material appliances that can be made; yet, at this moment, it is more inadequately supplied, in proportion to the times, than it was in 1861. It has recently been stated on the floor of the United States Senate that "there is no telling when we shall be involved in foreign complications, . . . and all we have to do to protect our national honor is, to

provide a decent naval force, able to cope with the naval establishments of other nations."

It would seem to be only a prudent precaution in our citizens to make sure that our naval officers are provided with vessels sufficiently effective to keep them from being a standing invitation to the menaces coming from the more powerful navies of other nations.

THE BEGINNINGS OF AN ILLINOIS VOLUN

то

TEER REGIMENT IN 1861.

BY GEORGE L. PADDOCK.

[Read December 7, 1881.]

the disunion agitators of South Carolina must be conceded the distinction, such as it was, of passing the first ordinance of secession. This act occurred on the 20th day of December, 1860. A few Unionists like Petigru, Mackey, and others, had uttered some feeble notes of protest or reproof, but such voices were soon drowned in the general tumult. The Governor, Pickens, made haste to proclaim the State "separate, free, sovereign, and independent"! The census had been taken that year; upon its pages was ascribed to this separate, free, and independent sovereignty a total male population of 347,320. The number of males within military age was recorded at 128,480. According to the same passionless authority, the aggregate population of South Carolina, at this critical moment, had an average density of but 20.7 to each square mile of its surface. More than one half of this sparse population to be definite - 402,406, were slaves held in bondage by force. The remaining whites had for a generation been living in fear of servile revolt. These verities, among others, attest the nature of the frenzy that ruled the hour at Charleston and Columbia.

In other parts of the South events moved on with a feverish rapidity. Within a few weeks after the act of the South Carolina Convention, delegates from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, joining those from the former State, hurriedly gathered at Montgomery, framed a provisional government, and devised the

heraldry of a new flag to be set up as the standard of civil war. The spirit of hostile enterprise soon made itself manifest in several Southern States. The flag of the nation was derided and profaned; and before the winter of 1860 was over, many local military bodies were gathering under the strange banners of rebellion to harden their hearts for the shedding of fraternal blood. Again and again, the tide of affairs moved onward. By the 18th of February, 1861, Jefferson Davis had been installed as President of the Southern Confederacy, and assumed control of the military operations then going on at Charleston and elsewhere. War had actually begun. On the 4th of March, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States. On the 14th of April, Fort Sumter was surrendered by Major Anderson to the forces under General Beauregard, an expatriated officer of the United States Army, of ability and distinction. We need not dwell upon these well-remembered things, and still less need we discuss the causes of the war, or pause to restate the process of that argumentation which, in the judgment of the self-chosen exponents of secession, was deemed sufficient to justify a resort so hazardous and so foreign to the habits of an unmilitary people. At this time, that vague and distant treason against which with mournful eloquence a Webster had warned the Senate and people of an earlier day had drawn very near, and was clearly perceived in the act of arming itself for the final assault upon our civilization. The opportunity for discussion had gone by, not to return until after some sad years of confusion and estrangement.

Looking back upon that period of outbreak, some general facts appear which, in an introductory view, seem appropriate to the subject.

Taking the first muster-roll of the Twelfth Illinois Infantry as fairly representing the people of the State, it may be said that the great majority of the adult male citizens of Illinois were from the first impressed with