Others implored to be landed, exclaiming that they "supposed de Cunnel knew best," but it was "mighty mean" to be shut up down below, when they might be "fightin' de Secesh _in de clar field_." This clear field, and no favor, was what they thenceforward sighed for.

But in such difficult navigation it would have been madness to think of landing, although one daring Rebel actually sprang upon the large boat which we towed astern, where he was shot down by one of our sergeants.

This boat was soon after swamped and abandoned, then taken and repaired by the Rebels at a later date, and finally, by a piece of dramatic completeness, was seized by a party of fugitive slaves, who escaped in it to our lines, and some of whom enlisted in my own regiment.
It has always been rather a mystery to me why the Rebels did not fell a few trees across the stream at some of the many sharp angles where we might so easily have been thus imprisoned.

This, however, they did not attempt, and with the skilful pilotage of our trusty Corporal,--philosophic as Socrates through all the din, and occasionally relieving his mind by taking a shot with his rifle through the high portholes of the pilot-house,--we glided safely on.

The steamer did not ground once on the descent, and the mate in command, Mr.Smith, did his duty very well.