26th, seventeen days after we left the navy yard. It seemed seventeen
months.

An "anchor watch" of sixteen men was set for the night, and most of us
turned in early to enjoy the first good sleep for many weary days.

All hands were turned out at five o'clock. We woke to find a big coal
barge on either side of the ship.

After breakfast the order "turn to" was given. "All hands coal ship,
starboard watch on the starboard lighter, port watch on the port
lighter." From seven o'clock in the morning till twelve o'clock that
night, the crew of the "Yankee"--aforetime lawyers, physicians, literary
men, brokers, merchants, students, and clerks--men who had never done
any harder work than play football, or row in a shell--coaled ship
without any rest, other than the three half hours at meal times. About
the hardest, dirtiest work a man could do.

The navy style of coaling is different from that customary in the
merchant service. In the latter, the dirty work is done in the quickest,
easiest way possible. The ship is taken to a coal wharf and the coal is
slid down in chutes, or barges are run alongside and great buckets,
hoisted by steam, swing the black lumps into the hold or bunker.

The navy style, as practised on the "Yankee," was quite different. The
barges were brought alongside, the men divided into gangs--some to go in
the hold of the barge, some to go on the platforms, some to carry on the
ship herself. The barge gang shovelled the coal into bushel baskets;
these were carried to the men on the stages; and the latter passed them
from one to the other, to the gun deck; finally, the gang on the vessel