with the plans of the government, hearing, too, that General Butler had been lost at sea, the costly presence of those steamers distressed his righteous soul; and, at length, he ordered them home. So there were ten thousand men, on a strip of sand, on a hostile coast, with no great supply of provisions, destitute of any adequate means either of getting away or of getting supplies. A deep despondency settled upon the troops as the month of March wore on, and they vainly scanned the horizon for a smoky harbinger of their expected commander. Fears for his safety received melancholy confirmation, when a vessel arrived, bringing Brigadier-General Williams from Hatteras Inlet, for whom the Mississippi was to have called on her way. For a month, General Phelps waited for General Butler in painful suspense.

The rumors of disaster to the Mississippi were far from groundless. In getting to Ship Island, General Butler had almost as many adventures as Jason in search of the golden fleece. To him, and to his staff, who had already encountered so many obstacles in Massachusetts and at Washington, it seemed now as if gods and men were contending against their expedition. But they were animated with desperate resolution, feeling that only some signal achievement could vindicate their enterprise, and enable them to show themselves again in Massachusetts without shame. The general had assumed so much of the responsibility of the expedition, had borne it along on his own shoulders through so many difficulties, against so much opposition or lukewarm support, that he felt there were two alternatives for him, glorious success or a glorious death. Nor did he suppose for a moment, that the brunt of the affair would fall upon the wooden ships of the navy. He expected powerful aid from the navy, but he took it for granted, that the closing and decisive encounter would be with the Confederate army on the swamps and bayous of the Delta, defended by works supposed by the enemy to be impregnable. Storming parties, scaling ladders, siege guns, headlong assaults into the imminent, deadly breach— these were the means by which he supposed the work was to be finally done, and this was evidently the impression of the secretary of war when he spoke of the reward which would be due to the man who should take New Orleans.

February 25th, at nine in the evening, the Mississippi steamed from Hampton Roads, and bore away for Hatteras and General

Williams. The weather was fine, and the night passed pleasantly. The morning broke beautifully upon a tranquil sea, and the superb ship bowled along before a fair wind. Landsmen began to fear that they should complete the voyage without having experienced what is so delightful to read about in Byron-a storm at sea. But, in the afternoon-a change, and such a change. The horizon thickened and drew in; the wind rose; and when, at six o'clock, they were eight miles off Hatteras Inlet, there was no getting in that night. The ship made for the open sea, and in so doing, ran within a few feet of perdition, in the form of a shoal, over which the waves broke into foam. The ship escaped, but not the captain's reputation. The general's faith in his captain was not entire before this ominous occurrence, but from that moment it was gone, and he left the deck no more while the danger lasted. The gale increased as the night came on, until at midnight it blew half a hurricane. The vessel being short-handed, there was a rummaging among the sleeping and sea-sick troops for sailors; numbers of whom responded to the call, who rendered good service during the night-their general awake, ubiquitous. It lulled toward morning; and by noon, the wind had ceased. The ship was then so far from Hatteras, that it was determined to give up General Williams, and make straight for the gulf. "All felt relieved," remarks Major Bell in his itinerary, "and such as had desired to see a storm at sea, had had their wildest wish fully realized, and were satisfied."

Again, the magnificent ship went prosperously on her way. The sea-sick struggled on deck; the disheartened were reassured; and those who had lost confidence in the captain had had their faith in the general renewed. The night was serene; the morning fine. At seven, the ship was off Cape Fear, going at great speed, wind and steam co-operating; land in sight; men in high spirits over their coffee and biscuit. At half-past eight, when the general and his staff were at breakfast in the cabin, they heard and felt that most terrible of all sounds known to seafaring men, the harsh grating of the ship's keel upon a shoal. Every one started to his feet, and hurried to the deck. The sky was clear, the land was five miles distant, a light-house was in sight. The vessel ground upon the rocks, but still moved. Her course was altered and altered again; all points of the compass were tried; but still she touched.

Boats were lowered, and soundings were taken in all directions, without a practicable channel being discovered. The captain, amazed and confounded, gave the fatal order to let go the bow anchor; and the ship, with three sails set, drove upon the fluke, which pierced the forward compartment, and the water poured in in a torrent that baffled the utmost exertions of men and pumps. Benjamin Franklin, dead in Christ church burial-ground at Philadelphia, saved the ship from filling; for it was he who first learned from the Chinese, and suggested to the occidental world, the expedient of building ships with water-tight compartments. In an hour from the first shock, the good steamer Mississippi was hard and fast upon Frying Pan Shoals, one compartment filled to the water line, and the forward berths all afloat. There was no help in the captain; he was in such a maze that he could not ascertain from his books even the state of the tide, whether it was rising or falling, a question upon which the safety of the ship depended.

The general, in effect, took command of the ship. Major Bell and Captain R. S. Davis, both volunteer aids, were ordered to look into the captain's library for the hour of the next high tide. They reported falling water; high tide at 8 P. M. Signals of distress were hoisted, guns were fired, efforts were still made to get the ship afloat. Horsemen were descried on the shore, and fears were entertained that some Confederate vessel, lurking on the coast, might come out and make an easy capture of a defenseless transport. Amid the manifold perils of the situation, the troops behaved with admirable composure, and perfect order was maintained without effort on the part of the officers. It could scarcely have been otherwise, for the men saw, during that long and anxious day, Mrs. Butler, with her attendant, tranquilly hemming streamers on the quarter-deck, she not suspecting the essential aid she was rendering the officers in command. The men confessed the next day, that nothing cheered them so much while they were in peril, as the sight of Mrs. Butler sitting there, in the sight of them all, calmly plying her needle. And the danger was indeed most imminent. An ordinary squall would have broken up the ship; it would have taken days to land the men in the ship's boats; and they were upon a hostile shore. The strain was severest upon the nerves of those who were most familiar with a coast noted for the suddenness and violence of its gales. One man's hair turned white; one went mad.

Toward noon, a steamer hove in sight; reviving hope in some, quickening the fears of others. She approached cautiously, as if doubtful of the character of the grounded ship. The Union, flag was made out flying from her mast-head, but still she hung off in the distance suspiciously. General Butler sent Major Bell on board, who discovered that she was the gun-boat Mount Vernon, Commander O. S. Glisson, of the United States navy, blockading Wilmington. Captain Glisson, who had, indeed, doubted the character of the Mississippi, came on board, and placed his vessel at the service of General Butler. The sea was still smooth, but tokens of change being manifest, it was deemed best to transfer Mrs. Butler and her maid to the Mount Vernon. A hawser was attached to the Mississippi, and the gun-boat made many fruitless attempts to drag her from the shoals. Three hundred men were put on board the Mount Vernon; shells were thrown overboard; the troops ran in masses from bow to stern, and from stern to bow; the engine worked at full speed; but still she would not budge. As the tide rose, the wind and waves rose also; it became difficult to transfer the troops; and, soon, the huge ship began to roll and strike the rocks alarmingly. The sun went down, and twilight was deepening into darkness, the wind still increasing. But soon after seven, to the inexpressible relief of all on board, she moved forward a few feet, and then surged ahead into deeper water, and was afloat. The Mount Vernon went slowly on to show the way, the Mississippi following; the lead continuing for a whole hour to show but six inches of water under her keel. The vessel hung down heavily by the head, the forward compartment being filled, and no one had a sense of safety until, at midnight, both vessels came to anchor in the Cape Fear river. "All behaved wonderfully well," Major Bell records. "The resources of the general seemed inexhaustible; his seeming calmness and his clear judgment, in view of the responsibility which the ignorance of the captain left upon him, were wonderful."

The next morning, after a survey of the damaged vessel, it was decided to go on to Port Royal for repairs, trusting to the settled appearance of the weather; the Mount Vernon to accompany. Mrs. Butler and the troops returned to the Mississippi, except one gen*leman, the chaplain of a regiment, who resigned his commission, and stuck to the vessel that had a competent captain and no hole in

her bottom. General Butler was ingenious in expedients to check the tendency to resign, which is apt to manifest itself in certain circumstances; but he placed no obstacle in the way of the chaplain's escape. The vessels put to sea in the afternoon. The next day was Sunday, and prayers were said on the deck of the Mississippi. The most profound solemnity prevailed in the dense throng of soldiers, who literally watched and prayed; prayed to Heaven and watched the weather. In the afternoon they were cheered with the sight of the great fleet blockading Charleston, one of the vessels of which took the place of the Mount Vernon. At sunset, on the second of March, the Mississippi and her new consort, the Matanzas, anchored off Hilton Head.

As no adequate transportation for the troops could be had at Port Royal, nothing remained but to attempt to repair the Mississippi, and this, too, in the absence of a dry dock or other facilities for handling so large a vessel. The ship was taken to Seabrook Landing, on Shell Creek, seven miles from Hilton Head, and the men and stores were removed. The naval officers on the station, Captain Boggs, Captain Renshaw, Captain Boutelle, and others, conferred with the general, and lent all possible aid to the work in hand. Plan after plan was proposed, discussed, rejected. Men and pumps strove in vain to clear the compartment of water. Twice the leak was plugged from the inside, and twice the water burst through again, and destroyed in an hour the work of two days and nights. It can be truly averred, that General Butler's indomitable resolution and inexhaustible ingenuity were the cause of the final success; for long after every one else had despaired, he persisted, and still suggested new expedients. A sail was at length, with inconceivable difficulty, and after many disheartening failures, drawn over the leak; the pumps gained upon the water, and as the head of the vessel rose, the work became more feasible. When the water had fallen below the leak, a few hours of vigorous exertion sufficed to stop it, and the naval gentlemen pronounced the vessel fit for sea.

The troops were re-embarked, and the luckless Mississippi started for the mouth of the harbor. The captain, disregarding the advice of the naval officers, who were familiar with the soundings, ran her aground upon a bed of shells, and there she stuck as fast as upon Frying Pan Shoals. "It now became painfully evident," remarks