having sailed with a fair wind. All hands anchored about a mile from the
beach. I volunteered to go in a boat, to carry soldiers ashore. Each of us
brought across the lake two of these boats in tow, but we had lost one of
ours, dragging her after us in a staggering breeze. I got into the one
that was left, and we put half our soldiers in her, and shoved off. We had
little or no order in landing, each boat pulling as hard as she could. The
English blazed away at us, concealed in a wood, and our men fired back
again from the boat. I never was more disappointed in men, than I was in
the soldiers. They were mostly tall, pale-looking Yankees, half dead with
sickness and the bad weather--so mealy, indeed, that half of them could
not take their grog, which, by this time, I had got to think a bad sign.
As soon as they got near the enemy, however, they became wide awake,
pointed out to each other where to aim, and many of them actually jumped
into the water, in order to get the sooner ashore. No men could have
behaved better, for I confess frankly I did not like the work at all. It
is no fun to pull in under a sharp fire, with one's back to his enemy, and
nothing but an oar to amuse himself with. The shot flew pretty thick, and
two of our oars were split. This was all done with musketry, no heavy guns
being used at this place. I landed twice in this way, but the danger was
principally in the first affair. There was fighting up on the bank, but it
gave us no trouble. Mr. Livingston commanded the boat.

When we got back to the schooner, we found her lifting her anchors.
Several of the smaller craft were now ordered up the bay, to open on the
batteries nearer to the town. We were the third from the van, and we all
anchored within canister range. We heard a magazine blow up, as we stood
in, and this brought three cheers from us. We now had some sharp work with
the batteries, keeping up a steady fire. The schooner ahead of us had to
cut, and she shifted her berth outside of us. The leading schooner,
however, held on. In the midst of it all, we heard cheers down the line,