The night following was the most anxious I ever spent.

We were all tired out; the companies were under arms, in various parts of the town, to be ready for an attack at any moment.

My temporary quarters were beneath the loveliest grove of linden-trees, and as I reclined, half-dozing, the mocking-birds sang all night like nightingales,--their notes seeming to trickle down through the sweet air from amid the blossoming boughs.

Day brought relief and the sense of due possession, and we could see what we had won.
Jacksonville was now a United States post again: the only post on the main-land in the Department of the South.

Before the war it had three or four thousand inhabitants, and a rapidly growing lumber-trade, for which abundant facilities were evidently provided.