The captain and the entire company listened in silence while another correspondent took up the question.

"Gentleman, you denounce the negro; you say that he is an inferior being. You forget that we white men claim to stand on the highest plane of civilization, that we are of a race which for a thousand years has been in the front rank, that the negro has been bruised, crushed, trodden down, -denied all knowledge, all right, everything; that we have compelled him to labor for us, and we have eaten the fruit of his labors. Can we expect him to be our equal in acquisition of knowledge? Where is your sense of fair play? Are you afraid that the negro will push you from your position? Are you afraid that if you allow him to aid in putting down the Rebellion, that he too will become a free man, and have aspirations like your own, and in time express toward you the same chivalric sentiments which you express toward him? How much do you love your country if you thus make conditions of loyalty?"

The captain made no reply. The whole company was silent. There were smiles from the ladies. The captain went out upon the deck, evidently regretting that the conversation had fallen upon so exciting a topic.

The First South Carolina Regiment of loyal blacks was in camp on Smith's plantation, four miles out from Beaufort. We rode over a sandy plain, through old cotton-fields, pine-barrens, and jungles, past a dozen negro-huts, where the long tresses of moss waved mournfully in the breeze. The men had gathered a boat-load of oysters, and were having a feast, — old and young, gray-headed men, and curly-haired children, were huddled round the pans, steaming and smoking over the pitch-knot fires.

Smith's plantation is historic ground, -the place where the Huguenots built a fort long before the Mayflower cast anchor in Cape Cod harbor. The plantation was well known to the colored people before the war as a place to be dreaded, — a place for hard work, unmerciful whippings, with very little to eat. The house and the negro quarters were in a delightful grove of live-oaks, whose evergreen leaves, wide-spreading branches, thick foliage, and gnarled trunks, gave cooling

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shade. In front of the house, leading down to the fort, is a magnolia walk. Behind the house, in Behind the house, in a circular basin,— a depression often found on sandy plains, was the garden, surrounded by a thick-set, fantastic palmetto hedge. The great oak between the house and the garden, was the whipping-post. One of the branches was smooth, as if a swing had been slung there, and the bark had been worn by the rope swaying to the merry chattering and light-hearted laughter of children. Not that, however. There the offender of plantation law,- of a master's caprice,had paid the penalty of disobedience; there men, women, and children, suspended by the thumbs, stripped of their clothing, received the lash. Their moans, groans, cries, and prayers fell unheeding on overseer, master, and mistress, but heard and heeded they were in heaven, and kept in remembrance. And the hour of retribution had come, the time of deliverance was near.

What a choice spot for the punishment of the criminal! close to the house, where the master, the mistress, their sons and daughters, the infant at the nurse's breast, could see the blood fly.

The plantation jail was in the loft of the granary, beneath a pitch-pine roof, which, under the heat of a midsummer sun, was like an oven. There was one little window in the gable for the admission of air. There were iron rings and bolts in the beams and rafters, where the slaves were chained.

The owner of the plantation was not unmindful of the religious wants of his fellow-Christians. West of the house was the plantation chapel, a whitewashed building of rough boards, twenty feet by thirty, with a rude belfry, where hung the plantation bell, which on week-days was rung at daybreak. Charmingly its music floated over the blue waters of Beaufort Bay, mingling with the morning winds, swaying the magnolia branches, calling the hands- men, women, and children-to their unrequited tasks in the cotton-field. On Sunday it called them, with silvery lips and melting sounds, to come and worship: not to study God's Word, not to bow down with him who by the "divine missionary institution," as the Southern doctors of divinity called it, was their master, ordained of God could separate husband and wife, or toss in a baby

to boot, in a bargain; not to bow down with him, for he worshipped in Beaufort, in the ancient church; - he was a chivalric son of South Carolina, riding up in his coach, and leaving his four hundred fellow-disciples to grope their way to heaven, directed by a pious bondman, as best they might.

If one wish for a flood of reflections, he will be overwhelmed on such a spot.

The First South Carolina was at drill beneath the oak; drilling as skirmishers, advancing, retiring, rallying, deploying, loading and firing, with precision. They had already been under fire in an expedition up one of the Georgia rivers.

I had breakfasted with the captain of the steamer Darlington, which was used as a transport on the occasion, who showed me the numerous bullet-marks on the steamer.

"How did the negroes stand fire?" I asked. "They fought splendidly, sir."

It was no longer an experiment whether they would make good soldiers. They had demonstrated it by their courage and patriotism. The antipathy which at the beginning was rampant quickly toned down. The deportment of the colored soldiers under insult, their bravery in battle, compelled respect from all who had doubted their heroism or fidelity.

In the attack upon Jacksonville, which occurred on the 12th of March, an old patriarch-too old to do any fighting harangued the troops, and told them that every one who should be killed in a cause so holy would be pretty sure of stepping directly into heaven; but that if they hung back and showed that they were cowards, there was n't much hope of eternal life for such! He was greatly venerated by the soldiers, for he had been a preacher.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE IRONCLADS IN ACTION.

AFTER vexatious delays, the ironclad fleet was ready for action. It was deemed desirable to test their armor, before attacking Sumter, by making a reconnoissance of Fort McAllister, on the Ogeechee.

It was late on the afternoon of March 1st, when the steamer George Washington left Hilton Head for a trip to Ossabow Sound. The Passaic, Montauk, Nahant, and Patapsco, ironclads of the Monitor pattern, were already there. The Washington took the "inside" route up Wilmington River and through the Rumley marshes. The gunboat Marblehead was guarding the entrance to the river. It was past sunset, and the tide was ebbing.

"You had better lie here till morning; there are indications that we shall hear from those fellows up there," said the commander of the Marblehead. Looking westward into the golden light of the departing day, we could see the spires of Savannah, also nearer the Rebel gunboats moving up and down the river.

The anchor dropped, the chain rattled through the hawsehole, the lights were extinguished, the guns put in trim; the look-out took his position; the sentinels passed to and fro, peering into the darkness; a buoy was attached to the cable, that it might be slipped in an instant; all ears listened to catch the sound of muffled oars or plashing paddle-wheels, but there was no sound save the piping of the curlew in the marshes and the surging of the tide along the reedy shores. At three o'clock in the morning we were away from our anchorage, steaming up Wilmington River. The moonlight lay in a golden flood along the waters, revealing the distant outline of the Rebel earthworks. How charming the trip! exhilarating, and sufficiently exciting, under the expectation of falling in with a hostile gunboat, to bring every nerve into action. It was sunrise when the Washington emerged from the marshes and came to anchor

among the ironclads. The Montauk had just completed a glorious work, the destruction of the Nashville. We had heard the roar of her guns, and the quick, ineffectual firing from Fort McAllister.

The Nashville, which began her piratical depredations by burning the ship Harvey Birch, ran into Savannah, where she had been cooped up several months. She had been waiting many weeks for an opportunity to run out to sea again. On Saturday morning, the last day of February, a dense fog hung over the marshes, the islands, and inlets of Ossabow. The Montauk lay at the junction of the Great and Little Ogeechee Rivers, when the fog lifted and the Nashville was discovered aground above the fort.

The eyes of Captain Worden sparkled as he gave the command to prepare for action. He had not forgotten his encounter with the Merrimack. The Montauk moved up stream, came within range of the fort, which opened from all its guns, but to which Captain Worden gave no heed. Taking a position about three quarters of a mile from the Nashville and half a mile from the fort, he opened with both guns upon the grounded steamer, to which the Nashville replied with her hundred-pounder. The third shell from the Montauk exploded inside the steamer, setting her cotton on fire. The flames spread with great rapidity. Her crew fled to the marshes, the magazine soon exploded, and the career of the Nashville was ended.

At high tide on the morning of the 3d of March the Passaic, Patapsco, and Nahant moved up the Ogeechee, and opened fire on the fort, to test the working of their machinery. The fire was furious from the fort, but slow and deliberate from the ironclads. Several mortar-schooners threw shells in the direction of the fort. The monitors were obliged to retire with the tide. They were struck repeatedly, but the balls fell harmlessly against the iron plating. It was evident that at the distance of three fourths of a mile, or a half-mile even, the ironclads could withstand the heaviest guns, while on the other hand the fire of the monitors must necessarily be very slow. The attack was made, not with the expectation of reducing the fort, but to test the monitors before the grand attack upon Fort Sumter.