on board. Once during that weary nine months, the tedium was broken by
the capture of a fat prize--a schooner loaded with cotton. Let us hope
that the prize-court and its attendant officials did not absorb too big
a share of the proceeds!

[Illustration: THE CHICKASAW.]

Relieved from that command late in May, 1864, with leave to proceed
home, he arrived at New Orleans in June, to find active preparations for
the Mobile fight going on, and though he had not been at home for two
years, he could not stand it to let slip so glorious an opportunity for
stirring service, and so volunteered to remain. Farragut, delighted at
such determination, quite different from the experience he had had with
some officers, assigned to Perkins a command above his rank--the
Chickasaw,--a double-turretted monitor, carrying four eleven-inch guns
and a crew of one hundred and forty-five men and twenty-five officers.
She had been built, together with the Winnebago, a sister vessel, at St.
Louis, by Mr. Joseph B. Eads, the eminent engineer, on plans of his own.
Of light draught and frame, and peculiar construction, some officers
distrusted her strength and sea-going qualities. The Chickasaw, too,
was not yet completed, the mechanics being still at work on her
machinery and fittings, and her crew, with exception of a half-dozen
men-of-war's-men, were river-men and landsmen, knowing nothing of
salt-water sailing or of naval discipline. But time pressed: every
moment was of priceless value; and Perkins, declining all social
invitations, set about with characteristic energy to prepare his ship
for the coming conflict. Nor did his work of preparation and drill
cease, either in the river or outside, until well into the night
preceding the eventful day in Mobile Bay that was to add another
brilliant page to the annals of the navy.