The commander of the Confederate forces at Hilton Head--one of the highest-toned and most estimable gentlemen one could find in the North or the South--informed the author that his own brother was in command of one of the Federal ships that were bombarding his works. While Commodore Wilkes, of Mason and Slidell memory, was capturing the Southern representatives who had to be given up, his son was in the Confederate navy, and then or later was casting guns at Charlotte for the use of the South: and the writer never met a more reasonable and kindly man. Fortunately our two brothers were not called upon to confront each other as foes on the battlefield or on the sea, though both of them would have done their duty in such positions. The last time Christy had seen his Uncle Homer was when he was captured on board of the Dornoch with Captain Rombold, as he was endeavoring to obtain a passage to England as a Confederate agent for the purchase of suitable vessels to prey upon the mercantile marine of the United States. He and the commander of the Tallahatchie had been exchanged at about the same time; and they had proceeded to Nassau, where they embarked for England in a cotton steamer. There they had purchased and fitted out the Trafalgar; for the agent's drafts, in which the last of his fortune had been absorbed, could not be made available to his captors. Colonel Passford had an interview with Captain Rombold after Gill had brought his trunk on board; and it was a very sad occasion to the planter, if not to the naval officer. They had not had an opportunity to consider the disaster that had overtaken the Confederate steamer, which had promised such favorable results for their cause; for the commander had been entirely occupied till he received his wound, and even then he had attended to his duties, for, as before suggested, he was a "last ditch" man. He was not fighting for the South as a mere hireling; for he had married a Southern wife, and she had enlisted all his sympathies in the cause of her people. "I suppose we have nothing more to hope for, Captain Rombold; and we can only put our trust in the All-Wise and the All-Powerful, who never forsakes his children when they are fighting for right and justice," said Colonel Passford, after he had condoled with the commander on his wounded condition. "We shall come out all right in the end, Colonel; don't be so cast down," replied the captain. "I raised the money by mortgaging my plantation and what other property I had left for all the money I could get upon it to a wealthy Englishman, the one who came to Mobile with us from Nassau, to obtain the cargoes for this steamer. I had borrowed all I could before that for the purchase of the Trafalgar; and if the current does not change in our favor soon, I shall be a beggar," added the colonel bitterly.