the now Rear-Admiral Farragut, that he must have more powder or give up
the siege, wherefore the Admiral ordered the gunboat New London on the
important service of powder transportation and convoy, and assigning
Perkins to the command until the officer ordered from the North by the
department should arrive. The enemy had possession at that time of some
three hundred miles of the river below Port Hudson, with batteries
established at various points and sharpshooters distributed along the
banks.

Five times Perkins ran the fiery gauntlet successfully, but on the sixth
his vessel was disabled in a sharp fight at Whitehall's Point. One shot
from the enemy exploded the New London's boiler, and another disabled
her steam chest. In that critical condition, directly under the guns of
the hostile battery, and exposed to the fire of sharpshooters on the
bank, and deserted by his consort, the Winona, his position seemed
desperate almost beyond remedy; but fertile in expedients and daring to
rashness in their execution, he finally succeeded, after almost
incredible exertion and perilous personal adventure, in communicating
with the fleet below, and the vessel was saved.

Now the commanding officer from the North having arrived, Perkins was
transferred to the command of the ninety-day gunboat Sciota, the best
command at that time, in the squadron, for an officer of his years, and
assigned to duty on the blockade off the coast of Texas. To one of his
social disposition and active temperament, the blockade, ever harassing
and monotonous, was, as he wrote, a "living death," adding that "we are
all talked out, and sometimes a week passes and I hardly speak more than
a necessary word." Venturing ashore several times on hunting excursions,
he at last came near being captured by the enemy, and held after that,
that "cabin'd confinement was preferable to a rebel prison," and so kept