Three grim monitors tugged at their anchor chains, apparently impatient at the restraint, while a few graceful, clean-cut, converted yachts swung with the tide.
The gunboat "Wilmington," and the cruisers "Newark" and "Montgomery," floated with a bored air.

In ship's language they said, Why are we loafing here?
Why not be up and doing?
The "Lancaster," a fine old frigate, the flagship of the commodore, had a fatherly air and seemed to say: "Be good and you will all have a chance." Once more we got our shore-going clothes ready, only to be disappointed, and again the promises made to us proved elusive.

The day following our arrival, we were told that no shore liberty would be given at Key West, and while the reasons were all sufficient, a man who has set his mind on an outing ashore after a hundred days at sea, finds it somewhat hard to reconcile himself to the inevitable.
One of the hardest, if not the hardest, thing we had to bear was the lack of letters and news from home.

When one has been deprived of all tidings from his own people for so long the longing for word of them becomes almost unbearable.
In the midst of our toughest work we felt that a letter from home would act like a strong tonic and brace us for the effort, and it would have done so.

But no such balm came, though we eagerly scanned every incoming vessel for the signal "We have mail for you." Now at last, though there might be tons on tons of coal to be put in at Key West, though the ship might have to be scrubbed and painted from truck to water line, we felt certain we would get letters from home.