This was not the plantation which Mrs.Kemble has since made historic, although that was on the same island; and I could not waste much sentiment over it, for it had belonged to a Northern renegade, Thomas Butler King.

Yet I felt then, as I have felt a hundred times since, an emotion of heart-sickness at this desecration of a homestead,--and especially when, looking from a bare upper window of the empty house upon a range of broad, flat, sunny roofs, such as children love to play on, I thought how that place might have been loved by yet Innocent hearts, and I mourned anew the sacrilege of war.
I had visited the flag-ship Wabash ere we left Port Royal Harbor, and had obtained a very kind letter of introduction from Admiral Dupont, that stately and courtly potentate, elegant as one's ideal French marquis; and under these credentials I received polite attention from the naval officers at St.Simon's,--Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Budd, of the gunboat Potomska, and Acting Master Moses, of the barque Fernandina.
They made valuable suggestions in regard to the different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the last previous trip up the St.Mary's undertaken by Captain Stevens, U.S.N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream.

I was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels.

"It proved impossible to dislodge those fellows from the banks," my informant said; "they had dug rifle-pits, and swarmed like hornets, and when fairly silenced in one direction they were sure to open upon us from another." All this sounded alarming, but it was nine months since the event had happened; and although nothing had gone up the river meanwhile, I counted on less resistance now.

And something must be risked anywhere.
We were delayed all that day in waiting for our consort, and improved our time by verifying certain rumors about a quantity of new railroad-iron which was said to be concealed in the abandoned Rebel forts on St.Simon's and Jekyll Islands, and which would have much value at Port Royal, if we could unearth it.